"Official Trailer -- Best Boy (1979), Best Man (1997)" YouTube Video
This article written by John Stuart Katz presents many ethical issues regarding documentaries surrounding family life. While having a close, familial relationship with the filmed subjects, a filmmaker like Ira Wohl of Best Boy (1979) and Best Man (1997) can have more creative leeway . But when can one's creative leeway go to far and step over the fine lines of ethics? Well, Katz evaluates how Wohl's 'familial autobiographical' films best appeals to his audience as the public and to himself as a filmmaker and individual by clearly providing his intentions for sending his mentally-ill cousin, Philly to a group home. But what Wohl failed to protect were the interests of his filmed subjects. Because his filmed subjects were family relatives who easily gave him the creative leeway to make these films, he overlooked as to how his production and wide distribution of these films can have dramatic effects on the subjects so that they do not have full control over what is happening. He should have been more "aware of the potential impacts that [his] suggestions and [his] filming can have on [his family], including the effect of making a family's private life public" (341). Wohl also failed to acknowledge his cousin's reactions to his suggestions like going to the cementary and choosing a tie, so that his cousin remains to not have much agency over what is happening to him. Consequently, the director presents himself as the hero, while making his cousin the victim, which drives the films' narrative and keeps the audiences' attention. After reading this article and watching the videos above, I believe documentary filmmakers like Wohl have the good intention of educating the masses about various topics, i.e. mental illnesses, Jewish culture, etc. But evidently, those intentions can eventually become overbearing and manipulative, such that the subjects' normal behavior gets altered for the sake of entertainment. So again, there arise the big implication of whether a film, specifically a documentary that is meant to record 'so-called realistic' events, can still educate the public through entertainment.
