Season 2 of Untold has arrived and it's more viral than ever! That's right: Our favorite Netflix-produced sports documentary series is officially back! To commemorate the occasion, Aaron White of Feelin' Film joins us to discuss the incredibly bizarre and wacky 1st episode, Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist.
As a two-part season opener, this jaw-dropping Untold entry chronicles Manti Te'o's miraculous senior season at Notre Dame and the public downfall that resulted when Deadspin doxxed the truth behind Manti's illusory dead girlfriend. This is one of those "you have to see it to believe it" stories, and easily one of the most infamous catfishing incidents in modern times. It also inspired one of our most feisty and tendentious conversations yet. We debate the tricky role of faith in our hyper-deceptive Internet age of (dis)information, the difference between empathy and sympathy, the ethical thresholds of exploring sexuality/identity at the harm of others, the pillars of virtue vs. the pragmatics of cynicism, and whether a gullible adult should be considered culpable for being innocently duped/blindly naive.
Join us as we combatively sort through some pretty deep questions about pigskin politics, journalistic priorities, sheltered belief systems, the human right to redemption, the social benefits of healthy skepticism, the gracelessness of media dishonesty, and the placebo power of personal fictions. It gets a bit testy, at times, but we never lose sight of our shared goal: the intellectual synthesis and moral edification that can be achieved by recognizing an antithetical opinion. I'm not sure we reached harmonious reconciliation, but we at least openly and respectfully heard each other out. Sometimes, that's enough.
Enjoy!
