Review: ‘Ozark Law,’ starring members of police departments in the Ozark area of Missouri

January 8, 2025

by Carla Hay

Mark Kardula in “Ozark Law” (Photo courtesy of A&E)

“Ozark Law”

Culture Representation: The documentary series “Ozark Law” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few black people, Latin people and Asians) who are connected in some way to law enforcement in Missouri’s Ozark area.

Culture Clash: Law enforcement officials deal with various people for real or perceived law violations.

Culture Audience: “Ozark Law” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in low-budget true crime docuseries that show how law enforcement works in a specific region of the United States.

Caleb Harvey and K-9 Unit dog Donzi in “Ozark Law” (Photo courtesy of A&E)

“Ozark Law” follows the same template that originated with the docuseries “Cops.” The good news is a variety of arrests and law enforcement interactions are featured. The bad news is “Ozark Law” might over-rely on showing intoxicated people in trouble. It’s common knowledge that many people get arrested while intoxicated, but when a show about law enforcement focuses too much on intoxicated people making fools out of themselves before getting arrested, it becomes a bit tiresome and could turn into exploitation. When intoxicated people sign release forms for this footage to be shown on TV, they’re not signing these legal documents when they’re in their right minds.

“Ozark Law” has the expected captioned statements that people who are seen being arrested on the show are innocent until proven guilty, and charges could be reduced or dropped. With few exceptions, “Ozark Law” describes the legal outcomes of the arrests as “pending.” The show does not reveal the names of the people who are seen interacting with law enforcement in each episode. Some of the people have their faces blurred, which usually means they did not sign a release form to allow “Ozark Law” to reveal their faces on TV.

“Ozark Law” is produced by Lucky 8 for A&E. Only the first episode of the series was available for review before the series premiere. In this episode, titled “Welcome to the Lake,” a caption explains that Lake of the Ozarks in central Missouri has a population of about 6,993 people for nine months out of the year. But during the summer tourist season, the area gets millions of visitors, totaling more than 5 million a year.

“Welcome to the Lake” chronicles the Fourth of July 2024 weekend activities of law enforcement officials from two agencies: The Lake Ozark Police Department (LOPD) and the nearby Osage Beach Police Department (OBPD). It’s the first fourth of July weekend for LOPD chief James Boren in his new position as chief. Boren is seen briefly in the beginning of the episode and then isn’t seen again for most of the rest of the episode.

Instead, most of this episode consists of cops patrolling the streets during the day and night. At night (where the show has montages of crowds of people on the streets), most of what the cops have to deal with are responses to suspected crimes that are usually committed under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. Officer Tyler Shepherd arrests a young man who was reported as a trespasser at Marty Byrde’s, a gastropub named after the character played by Jason Bateman in Netflix’s “Ozark” series. The man gets arrested after a breathalyzer test shows that he has a blood alcohol level of .206, when the legal limit in Missouri is .08.

Sergeant Bobby McCrorey and Officer Kale Keagy of the OBPD respond to a possible driving-under-the-influence (DUI) incident at night, after a barefoot woman gets into a single-car accident that damaged the front of her car. She insists that she’s not drunk, even though she slurs her words and fails a field sobriety test. It turns out that her intoxication could have come from pills, since she confesses to possession of an unnamed drug in pill form that she has stashed in her car.

Officer Angel Macormic, who says she’s the only female officer in the LOPD, comments during a daytime patrol drive that she likes being treated like one of the guys. However, the only task she’s seen doing in this episode is the easiest task of the episode: She calls a tow truck to take away a Chevy Tahoe because it was illegally parked in a Marty Byrde’s parking space for disabled drivers.

The owner/driver of the car admits that he’s not disabled, but he’s amazed at how quickly his vehicle is being towed. Officer Macormic says that it’s because someone called the police department to report a car was illegally parked. It makes you wonder if whoever called the police knew that TV cameras would be there too, maybe to give Marty Byrde’s some extra publicity.

The episode gets more interesting when it shows something that isn’t the usual arrest for intoxication or a traffic violation. A husband and a wife in Osage Beach have had their home burglarized. Corporal Stephen Riner is the first law enforcement officer to arrive. He interviews the spouses, while Detective Steve Owens shows up later to investigate the scene of the crime.

The spouses are devastated to find out that items stolen from them include a safe containing about $80,000 in cash, jewelry (including the wife’s wedding ring), and a boat. The boat is later found abandoned. The case remained unsolved by the time this episode aired. It’s one of the unfortunate realities of non-fiction shows about law enforcement work.

Unlike many shows about law enforcement on the job, “Ozark Law” attempts to have a sense of humor and wants to show that these law enforcement officers are not always stern and imposing. On a busy night with partiers on the streets, Corporal Isaiah Huff accommodates a young man’s request to film Huff putting him under a fake arrest to be posted as a joke on social media.

Huff says that this type of interaction is to “establish rapport,” so that if the young man ends up being a witness to any crimes, it will be easier for Huff to get him to cooperate. Huff also says that when law enforcement officers are approachable and friendly to members of the public, it can help change the perception that law enforcement is all about instilling fear or abuse. Huff comments, “It makes us look like we’re not robots. We’re not. We’re normal people.”

This episode of “Ozark Law” has probably two of the most happy-go-lucky people you’ll ever see getting detained on a show of this type. Detective Sergeant Mark Kardula of the LOPD stops to assist a woman whose car ran out of gas on a freeway. It turns out she’s driving with a revoked license and gets arrested. She cheerfully says she needs to call her parents so that they can bail her out.

Officer Karl Glascock and Officer Tyler Shepherd of the LOPD detain a man for having a broken tail light on his car. He grins like he doesn’t have a care in the world while they run his driver’s license and registration through the system. The cops are suspicious that he might be carrying a weapon because of an unidentified “bulge” underneath his clothes.

But when the detainee allows them to do a body search, the cops find out it’s really just his insulin pump. The detainee’s trousers are unzipped, but he assures the cops that he’s not a pervert exposing himself. The cops believe his story that he just forgot to zip up his trousers because he was in a hurry.

“Ozark Law” falls short (at least in this episode) when it comes to giving more personal insight into the law enforcement officers who are featured. Kardula reveals only a hint of his background when he says he was born in Poland, where he lived for the first seven years of his life. Macormic gives a basic reason for why she wanted to work in law enforcement: “I want to help people.”

Based on this first episode, Kardula appears to have potential to be the show’s breakout star. He can be tough but he also has a side that’s approachable and cracks jokes on the job. There’s a scene where Kardula and a cop co-worker named Matthew Johnson give a friendly breathalyzer test to a woman who is unsure if her blood alcohol limit is safe and legal to drive. Kardula is also seen happily posing for photos with people (usually tourists) who ask.

Dennis Newberry, the mayor of Lake Ozark, is shown in a brief interview clip where he comments on the police department. And what he says sounds like something out of a press release: “They do a great job of protecting our citizens and our community.” “Ozark Law” has plenty of footage showing what these law enforcement officials do on the job, but the series would be better if it also showed more of who these law enforcement officials are as people.

A&E premiered “Ozark Law” on January 8, 2025.

Review: ‘Fugitive Hunters Mexico,’ starring an elite squad of Mexican law enforcement

January 2, 2025

by Carla Hay

A scene from “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” (Photo courtesy of A&E)

“Fugitive Hunters Mexico”

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: The documentary series “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” features a predominantly Latin group of people (with some white people and African Americans) who are connected in some way to U.S. fugitives who have been accused of crimes and who have fled to Mexico.

Culture Clash: An elite squad of law enforcement officials in Mexico track down the fugitives, so that the fugitives can be extradited back to the United States to face criminal charges.

Culture Audience: “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of low-budget true crime docuseries that give an inside look at international crime fighting.

A scene from “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” (Photo courtesy of A&E)

“Fugitive Hunters Mexico” delivers exactly what the title of this no-frills docuseries promises, with expected outcomes in each episode segment about Mexican law enforcement capturing U.S. fugitives. The show capably gives insight into suspects’ motives. The fugitives are almost always people who were arrested and charged with at least one felony but they fled to Mexico to avoid court appearances.

“Fugitive Hunters Mexico” (whose showrunner is Penny Fearon) is produced by Lucky 8 for A&E and has multiple cases featured per episode. Only the show’s first episode, titled “Trouble in Paradise,” was available for review before the series premiere. “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” sticks to a specific formula where viewers can expect to see the hunted fugitives caught in the end.

What will keep viewers interested in watching is seeing how these suspects are caught and how they were living Mexico while they were fugitives from the law. The Mexican law enforcement agents featured in the series are identified by their first names only. They include Jesús, Hector, Santiago and Victoria. The agents in Mexico work with U.S. agents, such as U.S. Marshals, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Agency (the U.S. agents aren’t featured in the show) in helping catch these accused criminals.

“Fugitive Hunters Mexico” is slickly produced, with plenty of drone camera shots that highlight much of Mexico’s natural beauty, as well as urban decay, depending on which part of Mexico is being filmed. “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” has a professional-sounding narrator (Armando Valdes-Kennedy), who has a narration style/tone that’s similar to “The First 48” narrator Dion Graham. The narration for “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” tends to get a bit repetitive by re-stating something that was shown just a few minutes earlier.

In the “Trouble in Paradise” episode (which was filmed in 2024), three fugitives are featured in three separate segments.

  • Jeffrey Leonard, a fugitive from Las Vegas, had been on the run from the law since 2021. He was wanted for charges of battery by strangulation because he was arrested for assaulting the roommate of his girlfriend at the time. It’s mentioned that Leonard is a registered sex offender, who was convicted of coercion and enticement of a minor in 2014. The hunt for Leonard takes the agents to Tijuana, where law enforcement received a tip that Leonard was living at a resort.
  • Adam Pittman, a 34-year-old suspected meth dealer, was in hiding from law enforcement since 2022. The agents track him down in the city of La Esperanza. Two of the agents go undercover, pretending to be a couple interested in buying a sofa from Pittman’s live-in girlfriend. Because the agents don’t have a warrant to enter the house where Pittman lives, they come up with a logical idea to lure him out of the house.
  • Jesse Frias—a 37-year-old from Prescott, Arizona—was running away from charges of kidnapping, assault and domestic violence of his wife. Frias had been a fugitive since 2021. Ironically, his wife was the first person he called after he gets caught in the city of Mexicali.

All of the show’s field agents and translators are professional and very watchable, but the first episode of “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” doesn’t show any agents with personalities that particularly stand out. What stands out are some of the crime confessions that these fugitives willingly make on camera after they’re caught. In interviews with the arresting agents, the fugitives also talk about how they like life in Mexico more than they like life the United States because they think Mexico has a more “freeing” lifestyle.

The fugitives have different reactions when caught. Leonard is genuinely surprised and initially denies knowing why he is being arrested. Pittman is the most agitated and angry about his arrest. Frias is the calmest and seems to know it was a matter of time before he was apprehended. What all three of these fugitives have in common is that they had previous criminal convictions and fled their more recent charges because they didn’t want to go back to prison.

Leonard and Pittman were living with women at the time of their arrest. The women (whose faces are not shown on camera) seemingly did not know until the arrests that their lovers were fugitives. Frias is another story because he hints that his wife knew where he was all along. It goes without saying that being a fugitive requires help from other people, who might or might not be knowing accomplices.

Most of the outcomes of the fugitives’ cases are not revealed in the episode, except for Frias, who gets an epilogue that gives an update of what happened after he was extradited back to Arizona. “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” has the usual disclaimer stating that suspects are innocent until proven guilty, and charges could be reduced or dropped. Regardless of the outcomes of these arrests, “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” offers a brief but fascinating glimpse at what happens when the law catches up to fugitives hiding in Mexico.

A&E premiered “Fugitive Hunters Mexico” on January 2, 2025.

Review: ‘Homicide Squad New Orleans,’ starring members of the New Orleans Police Department

January 1, 2025

by Carla Hay

Detective Walter Emond in “Homicide Squad New Orleans” (Photo courtesy of A&E)

“Homicide Squad New Orleans”

Culture Representation: The documentary series “Homicide Squad New Orleans” features a group of mostly African American and white people involved in murder cases in New Orleans.

Culture Clash: The police detectives on these cases often have to deal with witnesses who are untruthful or refuse to cooperate.

Culture Audience: “Homicide Squad New Orleans” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of cheaply made true crime documentaries that follow a TV procedural format.

A scene from “Homicide Squad New Orleans” (Photo courtesy of A&E)

Ever since the documentary series “Cops” premiered in 1989, there’s been a growing number of docuseries or reality shows that showcase law enforcement officers doing their jobs. Most of these shows copy each other and don’t do anything that’s considered award-worthy. “Homicide Squad New Orleans,” which follows homicide investigators who work for the New Orleans Police Department, is one of these generic shows.

The homicide squad’s hard-working people are commendable in how they solve cases. They deserve better than this inferior imitation of “The First 48.” This sluggish show’s format is too formulaic and perpetuates racial stereotypes of New Orleans murders. “Homicide Squad New Orleans” is produced by Wolf Entertainment and 44 Blue Productions for A&E. “Law & Order” creator Dick Wolf is one of the executive producers of “Homicide Squad New Orleans,” which is probably why every “Homicide Squad New Orleans” episode looks like a predictable procedural with the same expected outcome.

Only the first two episode of “Homicide Squad New Orleans” were available to review before the series premiered. Although each episode focuses on a different murder case, there are alarming similarities that raise some questions about how much stereotyping this series is going to continue to have in choosing which murder cases will be featured. This series makes it look like certain people in New Orleans are most likely to commit murders and be murder victims.

Both episodes feature African Americans being murdered by gun violence for no apparent reason than a petty argument. The murder suspects are young African Americans. In a city as diverse as New Orleans, it’s hard to believe that these are the only homicides that take place in the city. You get the feeling that these are mostly the types of homicides that will be featured in this dreadfully tedious series.

Each episode has narration from the lead detectives for each case. Unfortunately, the detectives read their narration stiffly. And it’s not their fault. They are not professional actors. Still, viewers of “Homicide Squad New Orleans” have to sit through the monotonous tone of the show’s scripted portions, which are basically exposition dumps.

Episode 1, titled “My Sister’s Keeper,” is about the murder of 15-year-old Raynard Williams, who was gunned down on a residential street on March 18, 2024, after defending his younger sister Ray’Anna in a verbal argument with other teens. Raynard’s mother Anndrea describes Raynard as “intelligent, outstanding and hilarious” and a good kid who wasn’t involved in crimes. Raynard’s grandmother describes him as a “loving child. He would give you the shirt of off his back.”

Detective Maurice Stewart is the lead investigator on the case. He mostly gets assistance from Detective Tianay Marshall. Stewart’s background is mentioned briefly in the episode: When he was 8 years old, he witnessed his father being murdered by gun violence. And in a bizarre twist of fate, the family of murder victim Raynard Williams lives the same home where Stewart lived when Stewart’s father was murdererd.

Stewart shows compassion for the family members and a persistent determination to solve the case. However, “charismatic” is not the first word that comes to mind when seeing Stewart talk on screen. The only other thing he’ll say about himself is that he’s “an honorary ‘hood member” when describing how he can relate to the people in the community that he serves. As for how his father’s murder affects him as a cop, Stewart comments: “We can’t let it affect our jobs.”

Episode 2, titled “In Cold Blood,” shows the investigation of two murder victims who were both shot to death on the streets on January 6, 2024. Based on the gunshot evidence and surveillance videos, police believe that both victims were killed four hours apart by the same person. The lead investigator on the case is Detective Walter Edmond, who mostly gets assistance from Detective James Fyfe.

One of the murder victims is a beautician in her 20s named Cayla Kelley. Almost nothing is told about her in the episode except that she had no history of criminal activity. The other murder victim is a homeless man whose name and age are not mentioned in this episode.

Edmond has a more passionate personality than most of his peers. (One of the best scenes in the episode is when he interrogates the murder suspect.) But the episode falls very short of telling any meaningful information about the murder victims. There are no epilogues with updates on what happened to the arrested supsects. Instead, each episode has a disclaimer stating that suspects are innocent until proven guilty, and charges could be reduced or dropped.

If you’ve seen enough of these types of shows, then you can easily predict how the police catch most of these murder suspects who are eventually arrested for the murders—collecting evidence at the crimes scenes, interviews with witnesses, surveillance videos, searches of homes and property, and checking phone records. Considering the plethora of other “cops on the job” docuseries that already exist, there isn’t enough in “Homicide Squad New Orleans” that stands out from the rest of the pack to make it a “must see” show.

A&E premiered “Homicide Squad New Orleans” on January 1, 2025.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-EqjsQzi4U

A&E debuts dog competition series ‘America’s Top Dog’

November 20, 2019

The following is a press release from A&E:

A competitor leaps over a fence in the ultimate K9 obstacle course in A&E’s “America’s Top Dog.” (Photo by Nico Therin/A&E)

In each one-hour episode of “America’s Top Dog,” four police K9 teams, including fan-favorites from the hit series “Live PD,” and one civilian team will face off for the title of “Top Dog” in three rounds of high velocity, furry competition. The skilled teams will be tested on their speed, agility, scenting ability, and teamwork by completing a series of expert tasks on one of the biggest and toughest K9 obstacle courses ever assembled – designed by experts to mimic real-life challenges that these furry heroes face every day on the beat. Teams will navigate a complex maze to locate scented items and apprehend a suspect in a bite suit with a takedown, among a variety of other challenges. Each week’s winning team will receive $10,000 and an additional $5,000 to donate to the animal charity of their choice. In the final week of competition, top competitors will return to the finale course to battle for the title of “America’s Top Dog” and an additional $25,000 cash prize.

Series host Curt Menefee is an award-winning veteran studio and game broadcaster who currently co-hosts “Fox NFL Sunday” in addition to wrap-up show “The OT.” Alongside Menefee, expert trainer Nick White is both a former US Marine and member of the Secret Service with years of experience working with K9s as the owner of a dog training company with locations across the country. Menefee and White watch the action unfold on the course each week and provide in-depth explanation on the competition rounds. Jamie Little is a seasoned motor sports reporter covering the pit road for FOX NASCAR, as well as an animal rescue ambassador who served as a reporter at the 2019 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Little acts as sideline reporter on the course speaking with the teams as they make their way through the competition.

 

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘I Want My MTV’

May 3, 2019

by Carla Hay

Animation image from MTV in “I Want My MTV” (Photo by Candy Kugel)

“I Want My MTV”

Directed by Tyler Measom and Patrick Waldrop

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on May 1, 2019.

The documentary film “I Want My MTV” should come with a warning that the movie is primarily the story of MTV’s first decade in the 1980s. Even with that narrow view, the film misses the mark in many areas. The documentary relies too heavily on the words of the self-congratulatory executives who founded MTV, instead of taking a more responsible, investigative approach and seeking out a more diverse array of perspectives of people who are also part of MTV’s history. The film delivers if you want a predictable and superficial ride down memory lane—commentary on artists and old music videos are expected—but this documentary glosses over and ignores a lot of MTV’s real history.

The story of MTV (Music Television) has been already told in several books, news reports and articles. The network had humble beginnings, because it had a tiny start-up budget, and many people (including a few of its early executives) thought MTV was a bad idea that would fail. MTV’s early network-identification promo video that had NASA footage of the 1969 moon landing was prompted out of necessity because the footage was in the public domain (in other words, free), and MTV couldn’t really afford a fancy ad campaign at the time.  Launched on August 1, 1981, MTV started out as a 24-hour music network that initially wasn’t even available in a lot of big cities, such as New York, where MTV is headquartered.

MTV’s lack of availability on many cable systems was the impetus for the famous “I Want My MTV” ad campaign where major artists (such as Mick Jagger, Billy Idol, Cyndi Lauper, Boy George, The Police, David Bowie and The Who’s Pete Townshend) said the “I Want My MTV” slogan on camera, and urged people to call their local cable companies to add MTV to their channel lineups. Les Garland, who used to be a programming executive at MTV, takes credit for getting Jagger to do an “I Want My MTV” spot, by essentially convincing the money-minded Jagger that he would be filming a promotional video, not an ad. As a joke, Garland said he paid Jagger just $1 after the spot was filmed.

MTV’s music library also started off very small, as most of the initial videos available were from British artists (who were used to making music videos for shows like “Top of the Pops”) or American artists whose music videos usually consisted of cheaply filmed live performances with the studio recordings dubbed in post-production. The first two videos played on MTV exemplified these types of clips: the futuristic “Video Killed the Radio Star” from The Buggles (a British New Wave band) and the simple performance clip “You Better Run” from Pat Benatar, who was America’s top female rock star at the time.

Several artists who became popular on MTV in the early ‘80s are interviewed in the documentary, such as Benatar and her guitarist/husband Neil Geraldo; Idol; Sting (co-founder of The Police); Eurythmics members Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart; REO Speedwagon lead singer Kevin Cronin; and Devo lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh. Also interviewed are two of MTV’s original VJs: Mark Goodman (a radio vet who describes his MTV audition process as “a little creepy” because it was in a hotel room, not a TV studio) and Alan Hunter, a self-described failed actor who got the job, despite having a “terrible” audition and no experience in broadcasting or the music industry. (MTV’s other original VJs—Nina Blackwood and Martha Quinn—are not interviewed, although there is archival footage of all the original VJs in the documentary. J.J. Jackson, another original MTV VJ, died of a heart attack in 2004, at the age of 62.)

To its credit, the documentary does not shy away from the controversy over MTV’s programming decisions. In its first two years, the network was frequently accused of racism for not playing enough black artists. MTV’s all-white first executive team—which included John Lack, Bob Pittman, Gail Sparrow, Fred Seibert, Tom Freston, Judy McGrath, John Sykes and Andrew Setos (Garland joined MTV later, after he had a long stint in radio)—are all interviewed in this documentary. Various excuses are given for excluding top-selling black artists from MTV’s playlists in the network’s early years.

One frequently given excuse is that the original concept of MTV was that it was supposed to be a rock’n’roll music channel. However, it’s a weak excuse because among the few black artists played on MTV in its early years were non-rock acts such as Musical Youth, Eddy Grant and Herbie Hancock. Meanwhile, bigger artists such as Michael Jackson, Prince, Rick James and Earth, Wind & Fire were being ignored by MTV.

The documentary includes a clip from the notorious 1983 MTV interview that Bowie did with Goodman, where Bowie asks Goodman why so few black artists are played on MTV. Goodman uncomfortably explains that too many black artists on MTV might scare the audience, especially those in “middle America.” It’s an incredibly racist belief, not to mention a condescending insult that wrongfully stereotypes people in the Midwest as automatically more racist than people who live on the East Coast and West Coast. Bowie’s withering stare and curt response in the interview speak volumes of his disgust. In the documentary, a present-day Goodman admits to being embarrassed about the interview all these years later, and he offers a sheepish apology for it.

The Bowie/Goodman interview exposed the mentality of MTV executives at the time, but the former MTV executives interviewed for this documentary who were in charge of making those decisions are still indignant and in denial over their racism. It’s not too surprising, because people who want to be thought of as “liberal” and “open-minded” don’t want to admit on camera that they’ve been racist. The former MTV executives are quick to pat themselves on the back in this documentary (Sparrow calls herself and the other executives “trend-setters, risk-takers and rebels”), but they don’t properly acknowledge their old-fashioned bigoted beliefs that prevented a lot of people of color from being part of MTV in its early years.

One example of this hypocrisy is when Sparrow, with hatred still etched on her face, talks about how Rick James’ “Super Freak” video was unacceptable to MTV at the time because James reminded her of a pimp and she didn’t like the way women were portrayed in the video. Yet, she doesn’t mention that MTV was willing to play videos from numerous (white) heavy-metal bands that often showed women in much more degrading scenarios, such as barely clothed or locked up in cages. Maybe MTV executives like Sparrow just didn’t like to see a music video of a black man being a sex symbol with women of different races. James was an outspoken critic of MTV at the time for not playing enough black artists, so it’s likely that MTV also had an unofficial ban on James, out of spite.

One of the most irresponsible parts of the “I Want My MTV” documentary is how it fails to give the full story of how Michael Jackson broke the racial barrier at MTV. Pittman tries to rewrite MTV history in this documentary by saying about the racism accusations: “Michael Jackson single-handedly pulled us out of that controversy,” and that it was MTV’s idea to “start courting Michael Jackson.” He also makes it sound like MTV had the vision to play Jackson’s videos right when his “Thriller” album was hitting big. What Pittman and the documentary did not talk about was the well-documented fact that CBS/Epic Records (namely, record-label chief Walter Yetnikoff) demanded that MTV play Jackson’s “Billie Jean” video or else the record company would boycott MTV. When MTV caved in, and saw that Jackson became the network’s most-requested artist, that opened the doors for more black artists to be played on MTV.

Yetnikoff, who was not interviewed for this documentary, told more details about this controversy in his 2001 memoir, “Howling at the Moon,” as well as in several media interviews. His credible account of MTV playing Michael Jackson only after MTV was threatened with a boycott has also been verified by numerous non-MTV people in the music industry who were involved at the time, none of whom are interviewed in this documentary.

The movie mentions that as MTV’s popularity grew in the 1980s, tensions grew between MTV and record companies because the record companies eventually wanted MTV to pay licensing fees for the videos. However, this documentary did not interview anyone who worked at record companies at the time to give their perspective. Video-promotion executives, who were on the front lines of music-industry relations with MTV, are shamefully left out of this documentary. Unlike some big-name artists, these past and present record-company executives are not that hard to get for interviews, so not including them in this film just shows that these documentary filmmakers were too lazy to get this valuable insight or they just didn’t care.

And even though “I Want My MTV” addresses the issue of MTV excluding many top-selling black artists in the network’s early years, ironically, the documentary does some noticeable racial excluding of its own, since no women of color are interviewed in the documentary at all. The movie focuses primarily on MTV in the ‘80s, and gives a spotlight to a long list of artists from that era, so it’s mind-boggling that this documentary erases black female artists who had a big impact on MTV in the ‘80s—such as Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson and Salt-N-Pepa—by not giving a spotlight to any of these women of color.

No disrespect to Tegan and Sara (who were never really big artists on MTV but are interviewed in this documentary anyway), but there are plenty of women of color who were more influential in MTV’s history who could have been interviewed for this documentary but weren’t. The few people of color in this film who are interviewed are black men who talk about hip-hop or “Yo! MTV Raps”: Fab 5 Freddy, Ed Lover and Run-DMC’s Darryl McDaniel, who says that Run-DMC was probably the first popular MTV rap act because Run-DMC incorporated a lot of rock music in its songs.

MTV’s influence in hard rock/heavy-metal’s popularity in the mid-to-late 1980s—as well as many of the genre’s sexist videos that got heavy airtime on MTV—are also addressed in the documentary. On the one hand, former MTV executive McGrath says that all that sexist content was “demoralizing.” On the other hand, she and other executives were responsible for choosing to give it so much airtime on MTV. Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” video (which shows model Bobbie Brown being blasted with a fire hose by members of the band wearing firefighter hats) is mentioned in the documentary as an example of the types of MTV-approved rock videos where women were frequently treated as nothing more than playthings and props. Poison lead singer Bret Michaels, who’s interviewed in the documentary, says the popular MTV videos that Poison made were all in good fun.

Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson offers a different perspective of how the testosterone-fueled, often-sexist hard rock videos that MTV favored had an effect on her own career. She and her lead-singer sister Ann Wilson (who co-founded the rock band Heart) became successful with Heart in the mid-‘70s, when they didn’t have to wear revealing clothing to sell records. But by the mid-‘80s, Heart’s record company was pressuring them to make sexpot videos with cleavage-baring outfits that the Wilson sisters say they now regret doing. Nancy Wilson says that a lot of that pressure was because of MTV’s preference of showing rock videos with scantily clad women.

Music-video directors are given minimal scrutiny in the documentary. Mark Pellington, an early MTV hire, is interviewed, and says he was hired even though he had no experience at the time. A few music-video directors who went on to become major film directors are barely mentioned in the documentary, such as David Fincher and Michael Bay. However, the film does talk about how Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video (directed by John Landis) was a game-changer that impacted how videos were made, as budgets became larger and concepts became more elaborate.

In addition to “Thriller,” other music videos that are mentioned as the most-influential of the 1980s include a-ha’s “Take on Me,” Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” and Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.” And although there are numerous artists whose careers were boosted because their videos got played on MTV, the documentary mentions that a few artists had their careers damaged by this exposure. Billy Squier is singled out in particular, for his 1984 “Rock Me Tonite” video (in which he awkwardly dances and slithers around in a “Flashdance”-styled ripped tank top), which ruined his rock credibility, and his career was never the same.

The documentary shows that the end of MTV’s ’80s golden era was around 1987, when some of the original team of network executives and VJs began to leave. It was also around this time that MTV began introducing more non-music programs, such as the game show “Remote Control,” which had a then-unknown Adam Sandler as a cast member.

As former MTV executive Freston says in the documentary, reality TV was “a blessing and a curse” for MTV. Grammy-winning musician Jack Antonoff adds that he (just like many other people who grew up with MTV) became frustrated with the decrease in music content on MTV over the years. The documentary also interviews OK Go, Good Charlotte twins Benji and Joel Madden and indie rock twins Tegan and Sara to offer their perspectives of musicians who were toddlers or weren’t even born when MTV was launched. (By 2010, MTV removed the words “music television” from its logo.)

One of the biggest flaws in the documentary is how it barely mentions the impact of the annual MTV Video Music Awards, which launched in 1984. Many of MTV’s biggest pop-culture moments came from the MTV VMAs. Perhaps the filmmakers couldn’t get the rights to a lot of VMA footage, but that shouldn’t have prevented the documentary from giving more time to discuss the VMAs, other than a passing mention.

Because the focus of “I Want My MTV” is so heavily concentrated on 1980s-era MTV, the documentary breezes through mentions of MTV’s post-1980s programming, such as “The Real World,” “Singled Out” and “Jersey Shore.” Artists who became popular on MTV after the ‘80s are barely acknowledged, so don’t expect to see anything significant about Eminem, Nirvana, the Spice Girls, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Sean Combs, Jennifer Lopez, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears or any boy bands. Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell and Tori Amos are among the few ’90s-era artists who are interviewed in the documentary. It’s briefly mentioned at the end of the film that YouTube  (which launched in 2005) has significantly decreased MTV’s influence, and YouTube is now the main outlet where people see music videos.

“I Want My MTV” could have been a better documentary if directors Tyler Measom and Patrick Waldrop didn’t let the film be dominated by executives who haven’t worked at MTV in years, and if the filmmakers included a wider variety of people whose careers were also significantly impacted by MTV. In order to do a truly comprehensive history of MTV, the documentary probably should have been an episodic series instead of a feature-length film. “I Want My MTV” also comes at a time when a lot of people don’t want MTV, because the network just isn’t that relevant to pop culture as it was in the 1980s and 1990s. But for people nostalgic about MTV’s glory days and looking for a thorough examination of MTV’s history, this documentary is ultimately an incomplete disappointment with a lot of valuable perspectives shut out of the film.

UPDATE: A&E will premiere “I Want My MTV” as part of the “Biography” series on September 8, 2020.

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