N and I started watching Netflix’s Making a Murderer. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend. If you have, please no spoilers. We only saw the first two episodes so far.
One observation I wanted to make is how extraordinarily manipulative the absent narrator is. This is a lesson we can all learn from 19th-century realist literature: if the author / narrator is going to great lengths to make themselves imperceptible in the story, some massive manipulation is about to be perpetrated against you. And you can make your experience as a reader or viewer more fun through catching the author in the act.
In Making a Murderer there is no narrator, and the viewers are invited to believe that nobody is telling them what to think, they can make their own minds. Of course, it’s all a lie. The footage is selected and arranged in a way that pushes a single version of events very hard. Every narrative and creative vehicle is used to slam the “correct” reading down your throat while allowing you to entertain the comforting illusion that you made your own mind.
It’s a great documentary, totally worth watching.
Clarissa's Blog 
This is the definition of a propaganda film, not a legitimate documentary.
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That’s how all narratives and all works of art function. 🙂 That’s why my profession is needed: to remind people of this and help them resist this kind of manipulation.
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Binge-watched it a couple of weekends ago. Loved it!
This is the first episode so it’s not a spoiler for you: in his youth, Steven Avery doused his cat with gasoline and burned it alive. The documentary devoted literally 15 seconds to it, and used his soundbite to explain it away (‘Yeah, I did some crazy things’ or some such). Can you imagine what the documentary makers would’ve done with this information if they were describing someone they didn’t sympathize with? Say, a Klan member accused of killing a black man?
That part was so jarring. How do you dismiss animal torture like that?! Funny thing is, I would bet my life the film maker would have never voted for Romney solely based upon that dog anecdote.
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