American Vandal: An Absurdly Brilliant Satire About Crime and the Media
Everyone I know has their “sick show; the ones we watch when we are home sick and have to rest. Firefly was my one of my friends “sick shows,” and Heroes was my go-to for a while. This past weekend I was hit by that semi-truck that is the September cold. I wanted to raise my shot of NyQuil to the fact that I made it this far into the school year before it hit me. Working in a public school, I alternate between thinking “I wish my students wouldn’t have so many absences” and “Dear God please don’t touch that paper/desk with your sneezed on, germ-laden hands…”
I don’t generally “binge” watch shows. A hopeless extrovert, when by myself I don’t have the attention span to sit through a large amount of content without being able to discuss and comment on it. So as I sat helpless on the couch knowing I had to sit up to keep my air passages open for a large swatch of time, I didn’t think there was any point to opening the Netflix account. I usually just spend thirty plus minutes browsing just to put on a comedy special I’ve seen a hundred times. But this time I decided to browse the Netflix produced sections and I came across American Vandal. It seemed to be a mockumentary in the veins of true crime stories, like Serial or Making A Murderer. I generally go in for comedies, which American Vandal is- technically, but I was also curious because my family tends to watch actual true crime stories and I am taking a genre class this semester in Noir detective fiction. Really though, they had me in the season 2 trailer at:
“Maybe the motive is just poop is funny.” -Peter Maldonado
“Poop is funny”- Sam Ecklund
American Vandal takes the structure of true crime shows and applies it to the absurd. In season one, instead of looking to solve a murder, student filmmaker Peter Maldonado tries to exonerate a fellow student who really isn’t even necessarily his friend for the crime of spray painting 27 male genitalia on 27 faculty cars. The situation is completely absurd-but the show ends up contemplating some heavy open-ended questions, including what are the consequences of assigning blame publicly and to what lengths should exposing the truth override privacy. The show also accomplishes its satire with a finger on the pulse of teenage society today.
In the show, Dylan Maxwell is expelled for the act of vandalism and is to be prosecuted in court for over $100,000 of damages. He is expediently found to be guilty by the school board because of a few factors: like his history as a troublemaker and burnout, testimony provided against him by a bright student, and the fact that he is even known for drawing phallic images on his Spanish teacher’s whiteboard. It seems like an open a shut case, but what I liked about this series is it starts out with a thought provoking question: “What does a vandal look like?” Is it the cheerleader, the jock, the class president? Or is it the burnout with a record?
I found myself wondering if I would have made assumptions right away as to who was guilty. I also wondered why the school board had to assign blame so expediently and I think that is another brilliant layer of the satire. Identity politics and the division in our society is such that sometimes individuals like politicians or law enforcement officers might feel pressured to provide a win or appear proactive over making sure a person is guilty or innocent. The social-economic level is present as well. What if instead of the pristine, suburban Oceanside, California this took place somewhere else where the least of the crimes being pinned on a student like Dylan included vandalism. Would Dylan simply be written off as a “thug” and no documentary ever even started? And then I go back to the fact that as I am watching and getting engrossed in this, the writing usually reminds the audience through some crass line that this isn’t about a life or death case. This isn’t Making a Murderer-this is about who drew the dicks!
The choice of a mockumentary is interesting during this age of fake news as well. The show makes every move to make it appear to be a true teenage video project turned evening news special. Scenes are shot in talking head format, and sometimes as undercover videos. Snapchat videos are presented as evidence. Netflix is known for producing actual true crime documentaries, and the show even makes fun of this by “acknowledging” that Netflix added production value when picking up the “original” amateur video. The opening credits list the characters as producers and stars, not the actors playing the teens. And the teenagers are played so realistically, not like James Van Der Beek posing as a teenager in the Dawson’s Creek era. There’s just enough there to make you second guess yourself-is this scripted? It has to be; I mean, for real- in season one it’s all about who drew the dicks, and in season two about who the “turd burglar” is. It’s almost a purposeful reminder that anyone needs to be careful before hitting that “share” button. Already footage from the second season promo has been shared as a viral video on Facebook, warranting a snopes.com fact check.
There are so many layers to both eight-episode long seasons. And there are about as many twists and turns as any Game of Thrones episode. The endings of both season 1 and season 2 made me cry at one point; they both beautifully and tragically addressed interpersonal relationships in the first season and loneliness in the digital era in the second. Even with its TV-MA rating and all its crass absurdity and explicit language, I would think any teen could learn something serious and honest from this very unserious satire series.
