Shiny Happy People
Content warning: While I’m not going to go into any kind of detail, the show Shiny Happy People does talk about topics such as child abuse, spousal abuse, and overall trauma. Please be advised.
Shiny Happy People is the latest true crime documentary from Amazon. The advertising and graphics surrounding the show might not look like something we’d normally discuss here. Certainly, the show 19 Kids and Counting isn’t our typical content.
But then, 19 Kids and Counting isn’t really what Shiny Happy People is about. It’s about the movement behind that, the damages it’s inflicted on its members, and how the movement is already having a real and damaging impact on our everyday lives.
The scariest stories are always the true ones. And this story kept me up at night.
If you, like me, had never seen the show 19 Kids and Counting, it’s about a fundamentalist Christian family who has, that’s right, 19 children. It looks like a cute little show about a family who is way too into their religion, but otherwise seems harmless.
Spoiler, they were not harmless.
Our story starts with the Duggars, as well as several other quiverful families. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, I didn’t either. A quiverful family believes they should have as many children as God will give them.
After a documentary about the Duggars achieved some success, they were approached by TLC to do a show. Which is laughable, since the family didn’t believe in watching tv. Or listening to the radio. Or treating women as people.
See, the Duggers were (and some of them still are) members of an organization called the Institute in Basic Life Principles. IBLP for short.
The IBLP isn’t exactly a church, at least they don’t claim to be.
According to Shiny Happy People, the Duggers were perfect examples of an IBLP family. They made IBLP mainstream. They homeschooled their children. They were a patriarchal family, with everyone deferring to Jim Bob Duggar. They did everything they could to shield their children from the secular world to the point that when TLC sent them to Disney, they didn’t know the characters they were meeting.
And, not surprisingly, they had a massive sexual assault scandal.
Through the course of the documentary, we heard from members of the Duggar family who were victimized and escaped. We heard from several people who were brought up in quiverful and IBLP families who alleged all sorts of abuse. Physical, sexual, and emotional.
Mostly, Shiny Happy People is a cult documentary. But it’s also a True Crime documentary. The crimes were that of Josh Duggar, who was convicted and sent to jail for having videos he shouldn’t have had. We hear, probably more than we wanted to, about how he abused his sisters as a teenager. About how his family should have stepped in and gotten him help then and didn’t.
About how he was almost certainly going to hurt someone again.
But we also hear the story of Bill Gothard, the founder of IBLP. And how he is allegedly a far worse monster.
Worst of all, Shiny Happy People tells of a plan set in motion by the IBLP called the Joshua Generation. According to the documentary, the intention is for the quiverful families to put their children in politics, the police, the military, and places of power in our society. The plan is to shape laws to the will of the IBLP’s agenda.
Some of these Joshua Generation kids have already started to gain power. I suspect, though this is my own opinion, that this is part of why we’re seeing so many attacks on LGBTQ+ and women’s rights.
While I’m a fan of true crime, I often struggle with it. Sometimes it feels like sensationalism and voyeurism had a horrific malignant baby and that is true crime content. It can hurt people, like in the story of Elisa Lam.
True crime is at its best when it’s telling the stories of survivors. When the people who were hurt, or who lost loved ones get an honest and supportive platform to tell their stories. That is what Shiny Happy People did well.
But it did something more than that. It shined a light on something that most of us are not paying attention to. While some might see Christian Fundamentalism as harmless to the people not involved, it’s clear from this documentary that this isn’t the case. That at least in the case of the IBLP, the intention is to infiltrate as much of American life as possible.
It’s not specifically mentioned anywhere in Shiny Happy People, so let me say it here. If this documentary scared you, like it did me, there’s something we can do. Be involved in local politics. Go vote against members of the Joshua Generation at every opportunity. Yes, even in the boring years.
Please also check out this website, the Trans Legislation Tracker. It can tell you exactly what anti-trans bills are being actively discussed and voted on in your state right now.
I enjoyed Shiny Happy People. It was scary but inspiring. It never felt sensationalized or performative. If you enjoy true crime and cult stories, you should check this one out.
(5 / 5)
Episode two of Wheel of Time felt like the beginning of a long journey. Stories are unfolding, lives are changing, and blood is spilling.
Let’s discuss.
The story
We begin this episode in the past with Elayne’s mother, Queen Morgase. It turns out her rise to the throne was a bit, shall we say, cutthroat. So when she shows up at the White Tower, Siuan is concerned.
She might have reason to be, too.
Meanwhile, Rand, Egwene, Moiraine, Lan and Aviendha are in the Spine of The World. As they travel through some of the most breathtaking lands I have ever seen on a TV show, Egwene is plagued with nightmares. We think at first that’s just her trauma working itself through her system. But we soon find out that it might not be that straightforward.
Finally, Perrin returns home to heal after his hand is almost cut in half. But when he gets there he finds the town has been infested by Children of The Light. And they’re looking for him.
What worked
There was something heartwarming in this episode about political espionage and choking religious persecution. And that is Elayne’s relationship with her family.
I have consumed a lot of fantasy content with royal families. And I have never once heard a princess call her mother ‘Mum’. I’ve never seen royal siblings get along. And I have sure as hell never seen a princess have a good relationship with her step-parent.
This was refreshing. Even though Queen Morgase is kind of a horrible person she seems like a good mother. And that’s an unexpected delight.
Of course, this is just one storyline among many. And while this can sometimes be overwhelming, in this case it wasn’t.
I’ll be honest, some of these storylines are going to drag for me. I know this because I’ve read some of the Wheel of Time books and I have an idea that not all the characters exactly pique my interest.
No one likes all the characters. No one likes all the storylines. While I am here for the political espionage between Queen Morgase and Siuan, not everyone likes it. While others might be fascinated with Selene trying to win Rand back, I couldn’t care less.
Having multiple storylines keeps everyone’s attention better. So long as things don’t get out of hand. Things can easily get out of hand. But this seems to be managed well.
So far.
What didn’t work
As I mentioned above, I’m not thrilled with Rand’s story at this point. And while it’s fine to not like a storyline when there are this many to choose from, it’s not fantastic that the one I like the least is the one involving our two main characters. And anytime we were with the team at the Spine of The World, the only thing that brought me joy was Moirain’s hat. It reminded me of Stockard Channing’s hat in Practical Magic.
The problem is that Rand is Charlie Brown with controversial magical powers. He is boring, serious, and pessimistic.
And yes, I understand that he has a heavy emotional burden and he’s the Dragon Reborn and that’s quite taxing and all. But let’s be fair, there isn’t a single person in this show that doesn’t have a heavy burden. And most of them manage to be fun occasionally.
All that being said, this episode of Wheel of Time did exactly what it needed to do. It set up conflicts at each of the three locations. It established emotional ties between the characters and the events. And it established goals for everyone.
This was, in short, a solid episode. Not groundbreaking, not mind-blowing or life changing. It was simply good. It was entertaining and moved the plot forward.
Well done.
(3.5 / 5)
Wheel of Time is back for season three. There are mixed feelings regarding this. Last season, there were some serious pacing issues. And some serious sticking to the book’s storyline issues. But we’re two seasons in, and we don’t give up so easily. So let’s dive into episode one, To Race the Shadow.
By the way, I highly recommend watching this episode with the subtitles on. You’ll see why.
The story
We begin this episode with Liandrin facing a trial of sorts for her rampant betrayal. She does her best to gaslight her Aes Sedai sisters into thinking that Siuan Sanche is the real traitor.
When that doesn’t work, she reveals how many Black Aes Sedai have actually infiltrated the tower.
Spoiler, it’s a lot.
In the aftermath, our whole team gathers to drink and enjoy one night of relaxation before they head out to the Tear to form an army for Rand. All is going well until they’re attacked by myriad creatures and a sentient axe.
What worked
This episode was long. It had a run time of an hour and eleven minutes. And a lot of that run time was spent in heavy dialog scenes.
Fortunately, these were well-done scenes.
If you’re going to have a lot of talking scenes, there are good ways and bad ways to do it. Last season, we saw lots of examples of the bad way to do it. But this episode did it well. For one thing, other things were going on while conversations were taking place. The characters are drinking, playing games, walking through an interesting city. And the scenes themselves didn’t stretch out. They weren’t repetitive. We heard what the character had to say, then we moved on.
It was also nice that the point of these scenes wasn’t just info dumps. We had character development. We had romantic interactions. We had plot development and foreshadowing.
Overall, this episode felt like what it was. A moment of calm before a storm.
Taking a step back, I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the fight scene at the start of the episode. Because it was epic.
The magic looked amazing. The martial arts that went along with it looked fantastic. The costumes were beautiful. It was just incredibly fun to watch.
More than that, it was emotional. We lost some characters in that fight that were important. And it was clearly emotionally shattering for many of our characters, who found themselves betrayed by people they trusted.
So many of them.
It was a great way to open the season.
What didn’t work
Despite that, this episode wasn’t without its flaws.
First off, there were a lot of dialog scenes. And they were good scenes, as I’ve already discussed. But it was one after another after another. And when your episode is, again, an hour and eleven minutes, it’s maybe a little much to have so much chit-chat. Couldn’t some of these conversations, important as they were, have been moved to maybe another episode?
Finally, I want to talk about Egwene’s travel through the arches.
I feel like maybe there were some deleted scenes here. Because there must have been more to that visit than what we saw, right?
We could have seen Egwene battle Rand. That would have been badass and emotionally devastating. We could have seen her with a quiet life with Rand back home at the Two Rivers. We could have seen anything except for the quick clip of Rand in a bloody river, followed by Egwene being shoved back out in a bloody shift.
Bad job. But at least it wasn’t an extended scene of Moiraine collecting bathwater, and then taking a bath while looking sad. If we’d started this season with another scene like that, it might have broken my brain.
Amazon dropped the first three episodes at once. So we’ll be back soon to talk about episode two. See you then.
(4 / 5)
Early 2000s is a special era for the industry. It accepts the cheesiness and corniness of movie making, in turn producing some gems in their own right. Eight Legged Freaks starring David Arquette and young Scarlet Johanson is a horror comedy about giant spiders who overtake a small town. As crazy as that premise sounds, the movie surprisingly has a ton of heart and is super entertaining. Let’s review, shall we?
Plot
We start Eight Legged Freaks with a shot of toxic waste spilling into the water supply of Joshua, a spider farm owner. He is friends with Mike, one of our protagonists, who is a science geek and a spider enthusiast. Mike notices something quite right upon visiting Joshua, but no one takes him seriously. We are then introduced to the rest of the crew. Mike’s mother Samantha, the town sheriff, is too busy chasing Ashley, his sister, who is dating the town mayor’s son Bret (something Samantha does not approve of). We also have Chris, who returns to the town to save his father’s legacy in the town mines. He has opposition from Wade, Bret’s father, who wants to use the mines for his business ventures. Lots of drama going on that will only get juicier once the spiders get loose.
The creepy crawlies quickly dispose of Joshua and make their grand appearance after Ashley rejects Bret’s advances, abandoning him in the middle of a desert. A glorious chase sequence ensues as the spiders make their way towards the town, wreaking havoc on its residents. In a true horror fashion (which the movie acknowledges), it takes some convincing from Mike and then from Samantha for the town to take the threat seriously. The tongue-in-cheek style of narrative adds the comedy aspect to a movie that would otherwise burn out fairly quickly.
The remaining characters hide out in a shopping mall as it’s the only somewhat sturdy building in the area. This doesn’t last long as the spiders break in, forcing them to run through the mines. Their resources to fight the creepy crawlies off are limited as the methane gas doesn’t allow them to use firearms. Such conditions require resourceful thinking from Chris, who uses perfume to fend off the leader of the spider group and save himself during the climax of the movie.
Character dynamics are not forgotten once the action kicks in. We have Chris confessing his long-term feelings for Samantha which she knew all along, which provided some comedic relief. Bret also reunites with Ashley and apologises for being an asshole. Mike finally gets the appreciation he deserves as his knowledge saves the townsfolk more than once during the whole ordeal.
We end the movie with the town’s radio show person telling the story as an urban legend during his segment. This brings it into question – how much of it happened the way he said it did? We can only guess…
Overall thoughts
Eight Legged Freaks is a fun creature feature with some self-aware commentary on genre tropes that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The acting is good, the pacing fitting and the characters are likeable enough for you to want them to make it through. Definitely a must watch, if you don’t suffer from arachnophobia, that is.
(5 / 5)