This is one ugly documentary. I don't mean ugly for the production value. In terms of visual quality, the documentary is actually quite pleasant. It has relatable images and videos, to tie in to the narration, it has interviews with relevant people, and so on. Where I find this documentary ugly is in the writing. It is called "I am Jane Doe", but it should really be called "The War on Backpage". I went into the documentary under the false description of it being about girls who were sex trafficked. I thought I would hear their stories, their traumas, their pain, their bravery... Thats not what I got at all. What I got was a very, VERY brief summary of 2 girls being lured into the sex trafficking world, but now they're out. Their tale of events were brushed over very quickly, and I don't feel like they were given their spotlight as well as they should have. They seemed to just be ammo for this documentary to fire at Backpage.com
Aside from the aim of the documentary, or what its real purpose is, there is something that seems very fishy about all of the people interviewed. Firstly, there isn't a single person in the documentary who has a normal name. Secondly, the 2 girls who were sex trafficked wouldn't give their name, but were perfectly comfortable giving extremely brief on screen interviews, showing their faces, and also part taking in photo shoots for the doco, giving pouty, and sassy looks, as if they were trying to sell urban clothing. I felt like most of what was shown in the doco was shown for shock value alone. Pictures of questionable images, with things blurred out, but still making it obvious what the context of the picture was. The whole weird video shoot with the kids playing in the snow, to portray innocence. Videos of news reports that were obviously ripped right off YouTube. It all makes me kind've skeptical whether everything you see is genuine. Some things seemed a bit too suspect, and somehow seemed as though clickbait culture, and flashy headlines have now made it into "documenting media".
I'm not downplaying the context at all. The subject of sex trafficking is something that needs to be fixed, but this documentary does not do that. What it does do, is shows you how anyone these days can throw a bunch of clips, and ideas together and call it a documentary. Even an Olympic Athlete, and Lawyer, such as in this documentary.
Aside from the aim of the documentary, or what its real purpose is, there is something that seems very fishy about all of the people interviewed. Firstly, there isn't a single person in the documentary who has a normal name. Secondly, the 2 girls who were sex trafficked wouldn't give their name, but were perfectly comfortable giving extremely brief on screen interviews, showing their faces, and also part taking in photo shoots for the doco, giving pouty, and sassy looks, as if they were trying to sell urban clothing. I felt like most of what was shown in the doco was shown for shock value alone. Pictures of questionable images, with things blurred out, but still making it obvious what the context of the picture was. The whole weird video shoot with the kids playing in the snow, to portray innocence. Videos of news reports that were obviously ripped right off YouTube. It all makes me kind've skeptical whether everything you see is genuine. Some things seemed a bit too suspect, and somehow seemed as though clickbait culture, and flashy headlines have now made it into "documenting media".
I'm not downplaying the context at all. The subject of sex trafficking is something that needs to be fixed, but this documentary does not do that. What it does do, is shows you how anyone these days can throw a bunch of clips, and ideas together and call it a documentary. Even an Olympic Athlete, and Lawyer, such as in this documentary.