Streaming: A shameful business, and the story of a tycoon, a car and the Troubles – Independent.ie
Pray Away
Netflix
John DeLorean: Myth and Mogul
Netflix
There is a bill, currently working its way through the Seanad, which, if passed into law, would ban conversion therapy — ie, the quack science of trying to turn gay people straight — in Ireland. It’s a laudable goal, and suppression of gender identity is part of the definition of conversion therapy, but the practice hasn’t been in the news in Ireland for a long time.
In America, as you might expect, it has always been big business, however. A new Netflix documentary, Pray Away, profiles several people who became celebrities within the conversion therapy movement, and alleged examples that the controversial therapy actually worked. Most of them were members of Exodus International, a right-wing Christian group which linked some unscrupulous psychologists with bombastic preachers, exploiting vulnerable young people into becoming poster children for the movement. One woman, who had come through the Exodus programme, sat on stages at conferences and waxed lyrical about “connecting with her femininity” and turning her back on a “sinful” lifestyle. A gay man and a lesbian, who had married, appeared on the cover of TIME claiming their “urges” were completely in the past — they’d had a kid together. Another man campaigned vociferously for the passing of the notorious Prop 8 — California’s ban on same sex marriage, which has since been struck down by the American courts.
It’s no great surprise when director Kristine Stolakis catches up with all of them and discovers they are, to a man and woman, out and proud now. One of the youthful poster children for the movement, now a happily engaged lesbian, reveals how the suppression of her identity led her to self-harm. And the man who appeared on the cover of TIME recounts the moment when he ran from a gay bar as someone tried to photograph him — he now lives with his boyfriend.
In a sense it feels like a historical document of a period between the ’90s and the 2000s when America’s culture wars were played out on confessional television and when George W Bush used gay marriage as a “wedge” issue. But Stolakis also interviews Jeffrey McCall, a person who formerly identified as transgender, and who now, in 2021, organises his own small ex-gay group. It’s all out of his house, miles from the megabucks of Exodus but equally a forum of shame suppressed. In one horrible moment he counsels the mother of a transgender person that not accepting her transgender child’s identity is the equivalent of “running into the road and pushing the child out of the way of a moving truck”. The viewer is obviously invited to conclude that Jeffrey will appear in his own future documentary, having disavowed all of this nonsense, but what lingered in my mind afterwards was the thought of that poor mother and child and the warped expression of love.
John DeLorean was one of those men who was 50 when he was born, possibly emerging from his mother’s womb in a three-piece suit.
In middle age he decided he would have his teenage years and left his job at Ford to set up his own car company. It would mass manufacture a vehicle with his own name, something that was synonymous with the youth he craved and which would become one of the all-time iconic cars ( the real life version of the famous time-travelling car that Michael J Fox used in the movie Back to the Future). The problem was that he couldn’t get financing for the factory so had to travel around the world looking for a site, eventually settling on Troubles-era Belfast. Myth & Mogul: John DeLorean shows the surreal scene of this perma-tanned playboy holding court while violence raged outside. We eventually learn his foray into Northern Ireland was based on a giant fraud.
It’s a timeless story. From rags to riches and back again, but in common with most Netflix documentaries it’s too slick — at times it almost has the feeling of an advertisement — and too long (the detail is exhausting: three episodes could have been one). The talking heads are unusually entertaining however — everyone from Gail Sheehy to Jeremy Paxman makes an appearance — and the bizarre Irish angle makes it worth watching.
Money men: Moguls under the microscope
Steve Jobs: The Billion Dollar Hippy
YouTube
The tone of most modern documentaries of major figures can be quite hagiographical but while this piece can veer into that territory, it has the grounding contributions of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who clearly did not worship Jobs.
The Defiant Ones
Netflix
A look at the career of rapper Dr Dre who describes his ambition as “almost like a little pilot light, and fame is the gasoline, and once fame gets poured on that ego, you never know if the pilot light is going to go out or it’s going to turn into a motherfu**ing bonfire”.
Maddman: The Steve
Madden Story
Apple TV+
This documentary about the famous shoe mogul is perhaps a tad too forgiving of its charismatic protagonist but his journey from corporate glory to the ignominy of an insider trading conviction and time in prison is undeniably compelling.