Yellow Journalism
Mockumentary-maker Errol Morris belongs to a tradition of unethical journalism that goes back at least as far as England’s infamous gutter press. Morris unites with that tradition in Tabloid, a misleadingly titled account of Joyce McKinney, an American attention-seeker and former beauty pageant queen, whom the British rags made a media star in the late 1970s.
Thankfully, the recent scandal that closed Britain’s News of the World because of phone hacking by members of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, helps to ambush Tabloid; it will encourage viewers to hold Morris’ account to a higher standard in his account of how McKinney kidnapped and sexually exploited a Mormon missionary. It follows his usual pseudo-intellectual films (Standard Operating Procedure, The Thin Blue Line) that twist the documentary genre into specious, fact-based existential narratives.
Morris’ own celebrated, mixedgenre approach may have influenced the reality TV movement’s disregard of facts and decency. Tabloid resembles those MTV bacchanals The Real World and Road Rules Challenge and the various "Housewives" shows that ply wannabe celebrities with liquor and egg them on to embarrassing behavior. McKinney is an early version of TV’s exhibitionist sociopaths. Morris doesn’t have to get her drunk; she’s always been willing to display her obsessions and deceptions as a love-starved "All-American kid" (Morris cuts to a childhood photo to indict her generic sickness). Tabloid never really accounts for the debased journalistic practices that define London’s Fleet Street and are part of Morris’ blatant habit of slanted reporting, editorialized content and "entertaining" style (hoked-up music, F/X graphics, whimsically anachronistic narrative structure).
Like the phone-hackers, Morris is a personality-hacker. He gets McKinney, Daily Express "reporter" Peter Tory, The Mirror’s photographer Kent Gavin, gay activist Troy Williams and others to confess their involvement with McKinney’s offenses while hiding their own selfish agendas. Morris’ agenda is simple condescension; he likes laughing at eccentricity, pathology and weirdness. This time, he dangerously finds his soul mates in the exploitative Tory and Gavin, who display that sordid, British unscrupulousness that has wrecked journalism globally. They’re proud of exploiting McKinney and their readers, and Morris joins in with vulgar, smartass commentary ("I take it you were attracted to Joyce?" "Did he still have the erection?" "You ripped off his magic underwear?"). Morris adds his own contempt to the print journos’ instinctive knack for prurience: "Joyce says ‘ropes’ but ‘chain’ sounds better," Tory explains about his description of Joyce’s exploits; he also finds "’spreadeagle’ a wonderful bondage word."
When Tory calls dog-lover McKinney "barking mad," Morris lights up and responds, "I wish we had that phrase over here." ("Barking Mad" would have been a more honest, implicating title.) Add graphics that highlight innuendo and collages that mix together tabloid headlines to advance the narrative, unsourced doc footage and campy Hollywood movie clips, and Morris’ unscrupulousness furthers the corrupt tabloid tradition he pretends to ironically critique. By joining the media’s exploitation of this pathetic woman, Tabloid is horrendously inhumane. Evading the issue of what used to be called "yellow journalism," Morris’ depraved method prevents us from ever getting out of this swamp.
>> Tabloid
Directed by Errol Morris Runtime: 88 min.