Welcome to Documentaries (Documentarists?) Anonymous | Vol. 4 / No. 22.5

Because the first step is admitting you have a problem. | Photo: Brian Cantoni, CC BY 2.0

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My friends and I joke that I’m part of a very selective program, similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. Only instead of alcohol, I’m addicted to documentaries. I’m the only member, and my “sponsors” are my best friends, K and M, who got really, really tired of me bingeing documentaries, becoming incredibly depressed, and then calling them and telling them how shitty the world is and how little we can do to fix it. (The really surprising part of this sentence is that after displaying such behavior, I can still write sentence fragments like “my best friends, K and M”). But, like a lot of addicts, I don’t usually keep my thirty day chips for very long. I’m addicted to documentaries, and Netflix is my dealer.

In my defense, there are a lot of fantastic things you can learn from documentaries. While they often have their own biases and faults, they also do a good job of distilling important things into understandable forms. And since I’m traveling for work this week, I figured I’d pass off my usual duties of educating people. Instead, I present to you Elle’s Watchlist of Documentaries for Intersectional Learning, and Doing Other Stuff Good Too. And then an “Elle’s Future Watchlist,” because Netflix has a queue function and I’m weak. All of the documentaries I’m listing are currently available on Netflix. I also trust you all to be able to Google things on your own and not rely on summaries from me. It’s part of your proactive learning process.

Elle’s Watchlist of Documentaries for Intersectional Learning, and Doing Other Stuff Good Too

Paris is Burning

13th

Miss Representation

Reel Injun

The White Helmets

The Hunting Ground

The Mask You Live In

What Happened Miss Simone?

Audrie and Daisy  

 

Addendum: Elle’s Future Watchlist

Trapped

The True Cost

The Black Power Mix Tape

How to Survive a Plague

It Happened Here

We Were Here

Hate Crimes in the Heartland

Matt Shepard Was a Friend of Mine

Love Between the Covers

Code Girls

Welcome to Leith

Growing Up Coy

We’re Not Broke

Tricked

The Witness

The Thin Blue Line

Blood Sweat and Sequins

Babies Behind Bars

The Vasectomist

Revenge Porn

Requiem for the American Dream

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Elle Irise is a regular contributor to This Week In Tomorrow. When she’s not suggesting watching material for Netflix addicts, she studies gender in popular culture.

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