Spoiler alert: This column discusses major details about the plot of "Primetime." Stop reading if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to know what happens.
Days after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush gave the world a now-infamous ultimatum: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
Thus began the forever war on terror and a shift in the American psyche that sought the destruction of any perceived enemy as some sort of divine retribution for the horrific acts witnessed on 9/11.
This thirst for justice led to the popularity of “To Catch a Predator,” an early 2000s reality TV series on “Dateline NBC” that used hidden-camera sting operations to catch adults who showed up to meet underage decoys
for sex. It was unobjectionable on its surface. The objectively abhorrent people depicted on the show deserve to be held accountable for their perversion.
But the show existed in a bevy of contradictions, particularly in how it blurred the line between entertainment and justice, ultimately collapsing in on itself. Now, documentarian Lance Oppenheim has dramatized “To Catch a Predator” and its host, Chris Hansen, in a culture of mass surveillance and online vigilante justice.
“Primetime” takes place in the aftermath of 9/11, but its depiction of the uniquely American obsession with justice as spectacle – and the performances therein – feels prescient amid our current cultural panopticon.
Are we all Chris Hansen?
It feels like almost every other day there’s a viral video that’s prime discourse fodder for online morality police. These instances, regardless of their significance, give us the opportunity to play judge, jury and executioner, assigning morality and doling out punishment for situations that often aren’t up to us to solve.
Obviously, the cases on “To Catch a Predator” were much more serious and held moral and legal ramifications. But turning such weighty subject matter into a sensationalized television program undercuts its severity and introduces conflicting – even nefarious – interests.
The film opens with Hansen, played by an unsettling Robert Pattinson, practicing the voice he uses when he reveals himself to the predators. On the show, and in his mind, he is the voice of reason (despite his infidelity), and he must present himself as such to make the show more entertaining and believable.
But unlike most actors and television personalities, Hansen is unable to bifurcate his two selves, and his put-on persona bleeds into his personal life. He uses this Elizabeth Holmes-type inflection with his family, much to his wife’s confusion, and colleagues off camera. For Hansen, “To Catch a Predator” is less about bringing pedophiles to justice and more about giving his admittedly unassuming life some meaning.
This type of behavior is common among online vigilantes today. They’re able to hide their punitive desires under the perceived nobility of their actions.
It’s very human to want to see bad people punished. But the preoccupation with punishment, and the aggrandization of the self for doing the punishing, creates a convoluted web of misplaced accountability. Those critical of Hansen are often mislabeled as pedo-sympathizers for their ability to peek behind the smoke and mirrors and see the show for what it was.
'To Catch a Predator' was caught in a shared delusion
Throughout the film, Hansen's pursuit of notoriety and success eclipses any perceived altruism. The premise of “To Catch a Predator” turns gamified when it’s moved to NBC’s primetime spot and is forced to compete with ABC’s “Lost.” Now, the show will only survive if each “catch” is more jaw-dropping than the last. Its mission, to bring pedophiles to account, is only worthwhile if they can make good television in the process – by any means necessary.
This duplicity forces everyone involved to take on a shared delusion that what they’re doing is solely heroic and never self-serving. Hansen becomes so fixated on catching Texas assistant district attorney Bill Conradt with minimal information that he forgoes catching many other predators in a different state.
The contrast between the decoys used to lure predators also shows the extent of this shared artifice. Aspiring actor Dan Plum (a standout Skyler Gisondo) unknowingly auditions for the show and is cast to play a teenage boy. Singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers plays Del Harvey, a young but seasoned decoy who has found ways to compartmentalize her experience on the show.
Plum’s willingness to take this whole thing seriously as a capital-A actor makes his exploitation even more unnerving. He’s visibly shaken when a predator fully exposes his private parts to him, a situation he wasn’t adequately prepared for.
In an attempt to ease an anxious Plum, Hansen offers a post-9/11 Bush sensibility: “You’re gonna be a part of television history. You’re either with me or you’re with him,” referring to Conradt.
The contentification of justice
Both decoys are emblematic of certain facets of American justice, be it reality TV crime shows or the true crime genre as a whole.
Over the past few weeks, the internet was engulfed by the televised trial of Lindsay Clancy, a woman accused of killing her three children. Netizens flooded the algorithm with conspiracy theories because, to them, this case was merely content. Justice was secondary.
So much of the way we consume crime media dehumanizes the real people involved and reduces them to avatars – characters in a morality play that ends up flattening the severity of these crimes to melodrama.
In real life and in the film, “To Catch a Predator” ends when Conradt dies by suicide during a police raid. Hansen's predilection for spectacle resulted in a man’s death and prevented him from catching even more predators.
The film ends with Plum finally getting his Screen Actors Guild card. His time on the show turned the character into a legitimate actor. Hansen even named him “Decoy Dan” after a successful string of catches.
It was all a performance.
Kofi Mframa is an entertainment and culture columnist at USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Primetime' showcases our obsession with justice as spectacle | Opinion
