Let's Talk Documentaries
The coolest part about our house so far is this bookshelf with the hidden tv. If you want to learn more about it, watch our YouTube video all about it :)
February 15, 2025
Warning: If you are interesting in homesteading or off grid content this is not the post for you. I am going a little off script today because this is my blog and I can write about what I want đ. I hope you donât mind. Hopefully, you are interested in the random ramblings of a documentary lover and will continue reading. I love them so much that I actually had a documentary birthday party where I made my friends watch documentaries with me all day. Thankfully these friends also enjoyed documentaries BUT I, of course, got to pick them all out.
Any time I watch a movie, tv show, documentary that was particularly impactful I have the urge to discuss it with as many people as possible. The person you watch with is not enough, yet that is often the only person you can discuss the movie/show with. Most recently we watched the tv show, Younger, and I really need to talk about it because I was VERY upset with the ending. If youâve seen it, you know what we went through. So today you are faced with my externally processing the documentaries I have watched as of late.
Letâs start with the JonBenet Ramsey documentary. Have you seen it? Ok, who did it? Hereâs my dilemma - everything except one piece of evidence points to that in no way was the family involved in her murder. I absolutely believe a sicko pedophile could be the culprit, and there is evidence to support this theory. The damning evidence to the contrary is that blasted ransom note. The content of the note itself is weird, and it was absolutely written from inside the house. What would posses the type of person to commit this crime to do that? Iâm not saying itâs impossible but itâs weird. Why would they even write a ransom note anyway demanding money when theyâd already killed her? Maybe the horrible act hadnât been committed at that time. I donât know.
The other thing I want to say about the documentary is how horribly the Boulder police department messed up. Also, the Steve Thomas guy- canât stand him. He has a whole theory that the mother killed JB in a fit of rage because she wet her bed. His evidence? Absolutely none. Had JB wet the bed? No. Did he even inquire if she had or had not wet the bed? No he didnât. He literally came up with the idea out of thin air based in nothing and then wrote a book about it. Scum.
I watched the first and last episode of Unlocked: A Jail Experiment. I was very interested in the premise of this because 1) it falsely presented itself as a documentary series but really was more like reality tv which is why I didnât watch the whole thing. Savannah and I both loathe reality tv- all of it 2) I was interested to see if this prison experiment would work. The premise is that one unit in a prison was going to let their inmates be âfreeâ inside their unit. They normally are locked in their cells for 23 hours a day and have 1 hour to move around their unit. This unit in particular was having issues with fighting amongst the inmates. The sheriff thought that maybe itâs because they were locked up all day. While there was some fighting, in general, the experiment was overwhelmingly positive and they still keep their doors open to this day. One example of how this helped the prisoners and influenced their behavior is a former inmate who used to make âhoochâ but eventually chose to stop. He didnât want his actions to negatively effect everyone else in the group and get them all locked in their cells for 23 hours again. The inmates started working out their conflicts together without fighting. Prisoners should absolutely serve their time but there is not enough focus on rehabilitation. If you treat them like they are bad and will always be that way, when they get out, they will often prove you right. But in this country we have for profit prisons, so they like to keep locking people up. This also allows for modern day slavery. Wanna learn more about that? I highly recommend you watch the documentary, The 13th and read the book Just Mercy.
I also didnât watch all of, You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment, which is about giving one twin a healthy carnivore diet and the other twin a healthy vegan diet. They would feed them this diet for 6 weeks (I think?) and measure different results to see what diet made them healthier. I paused here and googled the results because I was immediately concerned about this being a vegan propaganda documentary. It was. Itâs unfortunate that so many of these food documentaries are really pushing that agenda. And listen- I am all for science. I am willing to listen to what good evidence based science has to say. But once youâve seen one vegan propaganda documentary youâve seen them all. And when you do research and see the holes they poke into their studies, you realize why they arenât to be trusted fully. The results ot the twin experiment was that the vegan twin had lower overall cholesterol but higher âbadâ cholestorl (trigylcerides) and they also has lost more muscle mass than the carnivore diet twin. They also had lower fasting glucose which is helpful in preventing diabetes. To me I hear those results and I think itâs a wash. Coincidentally, SO many vegan influencers that Iâve followed for years, are going back to eating meat. Why? Because they realize they felt like crap and now they feel better. On the flip side, I think the carnivore diet (where people only eat meat) is absurd. I think with everything there should be a balance, and we could all do better to eat more fruits and vegetables. With any type of study you have to be aware of the difference of causation vs correlation because a lot of information is prevented as scientific evidence but when dig into it, the study should a correlation but could not prove that X caused Z. Watch this IG story to learn more about this. Itâs so important!
I really enjoyed the documentary called How to Rob a Bank. I donât necessarily think there was a big takeaway or life lesson to be learned as I feel like there are with many documentaries. Really this documentary felt more like a bank heist movie. Itâs about this one guy, Scott Scurlock called âHollywoodâ, who robbed 19 banks in Seattle over a 5 year period. He was #1 on the FBIâs most wanted list. I wonât say much more because I donât want to ruin the ending for you, but you should watch it. Personally, I had to read what happened in the end before I finished the movie, because thatâs the kind of gal I am. Any tv show, book, movie, etc- Iâm looking up the ending. Then I have to sit in misery because Savannah under no circumstance will let me discuss it with her. My knowing the ending does not ruin the movie/book/show for me and in a lot of ways enhances the experience. I have ending anxiety. I need to know if the dog is gonna die. I need to know if the good guy is gonna win. I need to know if itâs just one of those movies thatâs just gonna end with no resolution. The only time this method fails me is in a movie like Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects. Please let me know if you suffer from this disorder as well.
Thank you for coming to my talk on documentaries. If youâve watched these and have your own thoughts & opinions, please share them below! Also, if you have any documentary recommendations, let me know!
-Casey, a documentary lover