The way in which our social lives
have changed in the last 20 years has introduced issues which before did not
exist. The film documentary Catfish
explores one of the issues which has arisen from our use of online social
media, catfishing. Catfishing is the act
of deceiving someone online in order to gain their trust and love through the
use of a fake identity. In the film,
Angela does this to Nev, a photographer from New York. Angela portrays herself as an attractive
middle aged woman whose younger daughter is a great artist. According to Angela, Abby has done all of the
paintings that Nev receives and has been featured in many art galleries around
the town where she lives. Nev eventually
learns about Angela’s supposed daughter Megan, who is also very attractive and
a singer. Unbeknownst to Nev however,
Angela, is playing the part of herself, Megan, and the child prodigy Abby all
through Facebook. Nev eventually becomes
suspicious about the actual identities of the people that he is communicating
with online and decides to drive to the home of Angela to find out the truth. After arriving, Nev quickly realizes that the
people he had been communicating with have all actually been Angela.
What Angela did is morally wrong for
a number of reasons. Her actions, for
one, violated the vows that she took in marrying her husband Vince. More than anything she violated the trust in
their marriage. The debate on whether
her actions constitute cheating is beside the point. Whether it was or not, any spouse would have
felt betrayed if they found out the things that she was messaging about with
Nev. If it hurts the spouse then it does
not matter whether it was cheating or not, the marriage cannot be that same
afterwards. There will continue to be
doubts about what the other person is doing online or on their cellphones or
when they are “out” with friends after such an incident. In that sense then, it was morally wrong for
breaking the trust in her marriage. Is
what she did understandable, is another question. By the looks of her life’s portrayal in the
film, it seems that she leads a very lonely and stressful life. She obviously has no time to go out and make
friends, but she could have tried other things instead in order to obtain what
she wanted from Nev and specifically with her husband.
The other big reason as to why what
she did is morally wrong comes down to her deception. She not only lied to Nev, but she was using
other people for her own gain and thus merely as a means to get to Nev. Even though she says that those people
portrayed parts of her actual self, she should not portray herself as someone
with a completely different physical appearance. The physical appearance as shallow as it
sounds, plays a large part in how attractive you find someone. This would suggest then that Nev fell in love
with not only the personality of Megan but also her physical appearance. Thus Angela’s deception and use of other
people as merely a means makes her actions morally wrong.
2 comments:
I think you make a very valid point on the marriage vows. To quote your title, marriage ought to be a "sacred trust". I know if I had a spouse, and I found out that he or she was essentially sexting another person, I would likely feel betrayed. I remember Angela lying to her husband Vince about the money she was apparently making by selling her paintings; in reality, she was not selling anything. That's a pretty clear example of breaking trust.
When you think about it, it is ironic that Angela professed to her husband that she valued her family more than her lost opportunities in life. It's sort of another betrayal of trust that she chose the online escape of communicating with Nev to deal with her stress. It is important to have methods to deal with stress, especially in cases such as hers, but having an intimate relationship with someone requires a degree of trust and openness. I think that if she were honest about how she felt with her husband, they could find a way to make their situation a little better.
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