Friday, Jul 15, 2022 • 15min
Tickled
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Tickled is a documentary about competitive endurance tickling. However, the production company that makes the videos that the documentary maker wanted to interview became quite hostile. Listen to more as hosted by Rachel Teichman, LMSW and Victor Varnado, KSN.
Produced and hosted by Victor Varnado & Rachel Teichman
Full Wikipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickled
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Talking about
Speakers
(2)
Victor Varnado
Rachel Teichman
Transcript
Verified
Break
Victor Varnado
00:50
Welcome to WikiListen, the podcast where we read
Wikipedia
pages and provide commentary. I am Victor Vernado KSN.Share
00:58
And I am Rachel Teichman, LMSW.
Share
01:02
Don't forget to subscribe. Are you doing that on purpose?
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Rachel Teichman
01:05
No I am not.
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Victor Varnado
01:07
Wow! Alright, well don't forget to subscribe everybody. Rachel was supposed to announce it, but somehow she's against it. I don't know why.
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Rachel Teichman
01:14
I don't know. It's like a mental block. I want to do it, but I can't.
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Victor Varnado
01:17
This is a documentary that I saw that I want everybody to watch and so we're going to read about it, but you should probably go watch it as well, shall we?
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Rachel Teichman
01:26
Yeah, I have no idea what it's gonna be. So let's just dive right in.
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Victor Varnado
01:30
Tickled
. This article is about the documentary film for other uses. See tickle disambiguate. Tickled
is a 2016 New Zealand
documentary about competitive endurance tickling and videos featuring it and the practices of those producing the videos directed by David Farrier
and Dylan Reeve.Share
01:52
The film explores possible legal and ethical issues with certain individuals making the videos and has itself been the subject of legal challenges. A follow up special, the Tickle King aired on
HBO
in February 2017. I'm definitely gonna check that out.Share
Rachel Teichman
02:10
Not to be confused with the
Tiger King
.Share
Victor Varnado
02:13
Yeah, the Tickle King is different than the
Tiger King
and came before it as a matter of fact.Share
Rachel Teichman
02:18
Synopsis.
David Farrier
, a New Zealand
television reporter whose beat focuses on quirky and odd stories, encounters, online videos depicting competitive endurance, tickling, an activity in which young athletic men are restrained and tickled by each other.Share
02:35
He begins to research it for a story and requests an interview with the video's producer Jane O'Brien Media. The company responds with a volatile email, refusing to associate with a homosexual journalist.
Share
Victor Varnado
02:50
Yes.
Share
Rachel Teichman
02:50
That makes absolutely no sense.
Share
Victor Varnado
02:54
They just go crazy.
Share
Rachel Teichman
02:55
Okay, although
Farrier
is actually bisexual. Farrier
, bewildered at the hostel response partners with television producer Dylan Reeves to dig deeper into the mysterious producers.Share
Victor Varnado
03:08
After their initial blog post about the story go viral, the duo received legal threats from Jane O'Brien Media who send Kevin Clark and two other representatives to
New Zealand
to meet with them. Although their interactions are superficially cordial, the Jane O'Brien Media representatives bully the investigators to drop the project. Farrier
and respond by following the representatives to Los Angeles
to an apparent video recording location but are turned away at the door.Share
Rachel Teichman
03:39
Researching the phenomenon further, they uncover information about a person known as "Terri DiSisto" -alias "Terri Tickle" - who pioneered recruiting and distributing tickling videos online in the 1990s. The interview independent tickling video producer Richard Ivey, whose operations are comparatively low-key and also acknowledge a homoerotic aspect.
Share
04:03
Former participants in Jane O'Brien Media's videos described coercive and manipulative treatment by the producers such as defamation campaigns against them exposing their personal information and contacting associates to discredit them as homosexual or as sexual deviants.
Share
04:20
All in retaliation for speaking out against the company. A local recruiter in
Muskegon
Michigan described audition videos he had helped make, which were published by O'Brien Media without the participants consent.Share
Victor Varnado
04:33
Ferrier and Reeve discovered documents on a defunct tickling video website which linked Jane O'Brien Media to David D'Amato, the former school administrator behind the Terri Tickle alias. They learned that D'Amato had served a six month prison sentence for disabling computer systems at two different universities in retaliation against an 18 year old male student who attempted to terminate an online relationshipm which began when the young man was 17. They determined that D'Amato now lives on a substantial inheritance from his father, a successful lawyer. After considerable effort to locate him, they confront him on the street to which he responds with additional legal threats.
Share
05:18
Before returning to
New Zealand,
Farrier
contacts D'Amato stepmother for comment. She implicitly confirms her stepsons tickling past and Ferrier informs her that he believes D'Amato is still involved in it.Share
Rachel Teichman
05:33
Production under the working title, Tickle King The Hunt for the Truth in Competitive Tickling,
Farrier
and Reeve raised 29,570 New Zealand dollars on a Kickstarter
in June 2014, intended primarily to cover the costs of the crew traveling to the United States for a week. The project also received funding from the New Zealand Film Commission.Share
Victor Varnado
05:58
The soundtrack includes music from upstream color by shame carrot release.
Share
Rachel Teichman
06:05
The film was screened at the January 2016
Sundance Film Festival
, after which Magnolia Pictures
picked up distribution and HBO
picked up US tv rights. In March 2016 it was presented as part of the True/False Film Festival.Share
Victor Varnado
06:21
The film was released to
New Zealand
theaters on 27th May 2016. It was released by Magnolia Pictures
to US theaters on the 17th of June and in Australia and the United Kingdom on the 19th of August.Share
Rachel Teichman
06:36
Reception.
Tickled
has received critical acclaim in a review headlined fetish documentary goes from giggly too grim. Nigel Smith of The Guardian
gives the movie four of five stars, Dennis Harvey of Variety
states the onscreen presence of the filmmakers is justified because the harassment they experienced in pursuing the story becomes a big part of its narrative.Share
06:59
The
Salt Lake Tribune
giving it 4.5 stars said it was an act of journalistic courage and that they reveal the harm that can be done by an individual with a lot of money and a vindictive streak. Manohla Dargis
of the New York Times
giving it a critics pick said Farrier
and Mr Reeves see the humor, but they also see the pathos because it's all fun and giggles until someone gets hurt. Darien Lusk of the New York Observer
wrote the shocking truth is uncomfortably pursued to its fullest and the result is a riveting piece of investigative journalism.Share
Victor Varnado
07:36
Armond White of
Out Magazine
was critical of the movie, commenting that it zips past its sexual aspects and concluding that is ultimately frustrating, a blue balls documentary.Share
Rachel Teichman
07:49
A blue balls documentary.
Share
Victor Varnado
07:51
Blue balls documentary, wow.
Share
Rachel Teichman
07:55
Interesting.
Share
07:56
At
Rotten Tomatoes
the film has an approval rating of 93% based on reviews from 106 critics. Metacritic
gives the film a score of 76 out of 100 based on reviews from 28 critics, indicating generally favorable reviews. I want to watch it now.Share
Victor Varnado
08:13
Yeah, you should definitely watch this documentary. It's interesting. And everyone out there. You should definitely listen to this message which helps support WikiListen.
Share
Break
Victor Varnado
09:24
Thanks for listening to that message and supporting WikiListen, we appreciate it.
Share
09:28
Let's get to the response from the documentary subjects.
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Rachel Teichman
09:32
Can't wait.
Share
Victor Varnado
09:33
Response from the documentary subjects. After the premiere screening at
Sundance
in March 2016, D'Amato filed a federal lawsuit against the filmmakers for making false accusations, including the implication that D'Amato used extortion and abused minors and stating that D'Amato has no relationship with O'Brien Media.Share
09:56
In response,
Farrier
told the Salt Lake Tribune
that given the number of hollow legal threats we face during the making of it. It's almost refreshing to see a real case being filed by real lawyers.Share
Rachel Teichman
10:11
In June 2016 Kevin Clark of O'Brien Media created a website to counter the documentary.
Share
Victor Varnado
10:18
D'Amato attended 18 June 2016 screening at the New Art Theatre in
Los Angeles
and Confronted Dylan Reeve saying, "You need to lawyer up, you need to get criminal counsel". Clark argued with Reeve during a public question and answer session after the film saying, "The film is a piece of garbage full of lies. Release the audio tapes that show you're lying and if you don't release it, it's the same as admitting you're lying".Share
Rachel Teichman
10:49
D'Amato filed a $40 million defamation and slander lawsuit in Nassau County court alleging that his stepmother, Dorothy D'Amato made statements in the film with the intention to injure his business causing mental distress.
Share
Victor Varnado
11:03
D'Amato died at the age of 55 on 13 March 2017. The filmmakers posted a statement on the website that they were incredibly sad to learn of it and asking that his death be treated with respect.
Share
Rachel Teichman
11:18
Wow.
Share
Victor Varnado
11:21
Tickled
it is a great documentary. I had no idea what it was going to be about. So when I saw the trailer for it, I thought it was a joke, I thought it was like a joke documentary and I was like, "I'm in I'm gonna watch this joke documentary". And then it was real and I was like, whoa, this is even better.Share
Rachel Teichman
11:41
Yeah. Who knew a documentary about kink would turn so dark about kink.
Share
11:47
This is about cake. This is a kink documentary.
Share
Victor Varnado
11:50
Yeah, OK. sure.
Share
Rachel Teichman
11:53
Sure.
Share
Victor Varnado
11:54
Sure.
Share
11:56
This has been the
Wikipedia
page for Tickled
.Share
Rachel Teichman
12:01
Thanks for listening to WikiListen. You can find us at wikilisten.com and on all social media at WikiListen, except for Twitter, which is at wiki_listen.
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12:11
Don't forget to smash that subscribe button.
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Victor Varnado
12:14
If there's a particular page you'd like us to read, please let us know. We'll read it.
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Victor Varnado
Rachel Teichman