The Fish Fry
The documentary Catfish was a very interesting film. It poked at the senses and emotions of the viewer and oftentimes left as many questions as it did answers. In the beginning, the main character Nev is in correspondence with this girl named Abby. She is an eight year old artist who sends Nev paintings. He connects with her and her family through Facebook. Or at least he thinks he does. Over time Nev becomes involved with Abby’s sister Megan. They talk on the phone and are constantly texting each other. However, Nev starts to develop doubt about her authenticity. When she starts sending him songs for his documentary, he finds out that they aren’t even her singing. She has been marauding as a singer and musician when in fact she has stolen the songs from online. They become more and more comfortable with each other and start upping the ante in their conversations. As Nev and his friends attempt to meet her, they begin finding more holes in the story. They discover that Abby’s gallery doesn't exist and when they drive to meet the family they find that Megan doesn't live at the house she says she does. So who has Nev been talking to?
It is revealed that Angela, the mother of Abby, is behind the whole sham. She has been posing as Megan. It was actually her who was making the paintings and talking on the phone with Nev. She has a rough home life and wasn't struggling to cope. As she reveals why and how she “catfished” Nev, it is hard to have resentment towards her. In fact, you almost feel sorry for her. She is extremely sorry for what she has done and appears to be remorseful. It doesn't appear as if her actions were intended to be malicious or not. She was just a lonely woman having some fun. She was living vicariously through these fake personas that she created with the purpose of seeking a release from her monotonous life at home. It took a lot of effort to keep up the facade which reiterates the fact that she is probably lonely. She has two special needs children who put a strain on her emotionally. She likes to escape through her art. When Nev came along, it gave her the best of both worlds. She had someone to appreciate her art as well as someone who could appreciate her. Even if it wasn't really her he was appreciating. I'm sure situations like this happen all of the time today especially with the expansion of social media. However, most people today probably wouldn't have been as understanding and nice as Nev was. He didn't condemn her or put her down. Instead of making her feel bad he realized that she was just a lonely middle-age woman looking for a release from her life. I'm not saying that what she did was right, but I do understand.
3 comments:
Although I understand that Angela has a tough life, I still do not feel as much sympathy as you do to her. Many people have hard lives and cope with it in a much different way. If they're lonely, they go make friends or go to a therapist or get a pet, but I know plenty of lonely people who have not cat fished people. This was not just a few little lies, it was a few different huge lies. I agree that she is lucky that Nev was understanding and nice about it, but I wonder if he was just nice because he was on camera or if he would have acted differently had the circumstances been different.
I feel as if Nev wasn't just being nice for the cameras. I feel like he had already come to grips with the situation and thats why he didn't react.
I truly believe that if Nev was naïve enough to believe her all this time and try to get into a relationship long distance and having never done a video chat with this girl or anything that in the moment, he genuinely was shocked and therefor I do not think it was an act for the camera. I feel that Nev really is a compassionate guy and its because of scenes where he did really get frustrated with his brother on camera, he was not holding back. Because of that I do not see him having a reason to have a fake reaction especially when they whole show is about people being fake over a screen.
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