American Vandal: Truth, lies and dicks
If you’re in desperate need of a healthy, unsophisticated laugh, give mockumentary a go. In the overflow of shows on Netflix you may have missed this gem. This niche genre seems to be one of the trickiest to make, however, if the creators succeed, the result can turn out to be a real pearl in the history of show-making. And yes, the story is about dick drawings, which have nothing in common with pearls, but I encourage you to keep your minds open, because this is something you don’t want to overlook.
#WHODREWTHEDICKS
Admit it, we all did it. Well, maybe not all of us, but at least the group I identify myself with (the damned millennials) has been known to display a rather unhealthy interest in the shape of men’s genitalia. This seems interesting enough, after all why would someone draw a penis in someone else’s textbook without an apparent reason. It feels like the trend deserves a separate case study, but I will put it aside for the the time being and focus on “American Vandal”.
Ordinary day, just another high school and a parking lot like so many others. Cars in it look a little odd, however. 27 have an image of a penis spray-painted on them. This is vandalism on a huge scale, resulting in over 100,000$ in damages. Moreover, all the vehicles involved belong to Hanover High faculty members. Shock, disbelief and embarrassment of the teachers forced to drive home in their vandalised cars were the dominating emotions that day. It seems to be more than just a prank. It’s a vendetta, aimed specifically at the teaching body.
Meet Dylan Maxwell: the high school fool and troublemaker, who runs a Jackass-like YouTube channel with his “badass” friends and, most importantly, has an extensive history of dick drawing in Hanover High. He doesn’t like most of the teachers and vice versa.
Not long after the vandalism, Dylan was subjected to a formal hearing in front of the school board and, after interviewing the victims and a witness to the crime, he was expelled. However, there wasn’t ever strong evidence against Dylan. Everything discovered was purely circumstantial, but, above all, the strongest proof of Dylan’s guilt was his poor reputation.
Peter Maldonado took it upon himself to prove Dylan’s innocence. He is a student at Hanover High as well, but on the contrary to Dylan, he has good reputation among teachers. Among students, not so much. Most of them think he’s a dork and, as we learn from the show, he jerks off to American Apparel catalogues. He got a huge popularity boost when he became the brain behind the documentary that soon went viral, with people all over the world trying to figure out who’s the culprit behind the drawings. It’s not like Peter and Dylan were friends before the crime, however Peter believed that there are a lot of inconsistencies in the story and set off to find out what really happened that day.
“American Vandal” is a parody of the true crime genre, the well-known and acclaimed documentaries like “Serial” or “The Jinx”. The investigation conducted by Peter and his friend Sam is unbelievably thorough and complex, but you can’t help laughing at their in-depth analysis of ball hairs and hand jobs. Ridiculous as it is, “Vandal” is full of suspense and the mystery is genuinely absorbing and intriguing. Every storyline, each character, even if it’s an authority figure, is investigated thoroughly, up to the point where almost everyone, including Peter himself, could be guilty of the vandalism. The viewer is analysing along, and I can say for myself that I changed my mind at least 10 times about who drew the dicks. The picture of a stereotypical American high school, the rules and the complex social hierarchy in it are depicted incredibly accurately, but with a significant dose of humour and satire.
A major part of the investigation is social media content. Most of the leads followed in the documentary were resolved with videos or pictures posted on the Internet, which again is a bow to the millennials and our obsession with sharing bits of our lives publicly. “American Vandal” is not only dicks and laughs though, because at the same time it shows how cruel teenagers can be and how hard is it to make it through high school without being emotionally scarred for life. Something that is clearly pictured in shows like “13 reasons why” or “Riverdale” can also be found in “American Vandal”, but in a less obvious way. Coming back to the character of Dylan, there has to be a reason why he acts the way he does, if you decide to believe the theory that hooligans are made, not born. Characters in the show are exaggerated caricatures of the high school stereotypical students, including the incurable troublemaker, the dorky nerd, the annoying activist, the dissolute blonde and the handsome athlete. “Vandal” laughs at the schooling system, the relationships between teachers and students and how biased they can be, but mainly how quick we are to make judgements on people based on their history. It is perfectly natural, however, and in most of the cases we judge subconsciously, so we might need Peter Maldonado to make a documentary about every case of misjudgement or wrong conviction there is (for the latter I recommend watching “Confession Tapes”).
Comedy is definitely not my genre of choice, but “American Vandal” gave me a proper dose of laughter that I actually needed very much, delivered brilliantly by mostly young actors. The fusion of genres, crime and satire, documentary and high school drama, seems like an explosive mixture, but in this particular case it works incredibly well. Even the names of the episodes (“Hard Facts: Vandalism and Vulgarity”, “A Limp Alibi”, “Nailed”, “Growing Suspicion”, “Premature Theories”, “Gag Order”, “Climax”, “Clean Up”) are jokes about men’s genitalia, so prepare yourself, or simply don’t watch if you get offended easily.
Let me just acknowledge the fact that I wrote most of this piece sat on the floor on a train to Manchester, because Virgin Trains are evil people. Not cool.
