被挠

影片的内容更像是新闻调查，从中可以看出美国记者对于事实（真相）的坚持，忽然会想起柴静和看见。一切看似不正常的行为背后细究都能发现童年成长的痕迹，在人类最懵懂、最脆弱、最需要认同和保护的时候，如果得到的是外界恶意的回应，那必然在其后某个时候会找到一个点作为发泄。正如片中的DAVID,任何形式的瘾或癖好，都是个人内在情绪的变相表达。so you can learn to find the right way to vent.l believe the world is beautiful!

前面很悬疑很吊胃口，后面结束得太憋屈了。

我们通常说，流氓不可怕，就怕流氓有文化，在电影里要再加上一句，还有钱。他躲在现代网络背后，法律的灰色地带，不用本人现身，像控制牵线木偶一样控制这个“无伤大雅”的玩笑。将活生生的人看成自己买的玩偶，用金钱控制他们，肆意欺虐，满足自己的癖好。又像个不知餍足的熊孩子，有人违逆自己就破口大骂，砸东西撒泼。看到这里就很显然了，跟小时候的经历有关，片子最后有不痛不痒的一段叙述，但没有深挖，估计像这类型的畸形人格已经见得多了，无非是小时候曾遭受同伴的凌虐欺辱，长大后有能力欺负别人了，为什么不呢。这个世上不止这一个david，放在以前，这些畸形人格只在小范围内构成危害，而今飞速发展的网络，只要他想，这危害可以波及到几个国家的人民。那些躲在阴暗角落通过物质精神操控他人的畸形人格很多，他们总能找到一个弱势群体，诱惑，掌控，毁灭。而这个社会不乏这样的人群，为了欲望或生存出卖自尊甚至没有想到的生命。这个情况不会好转，只会愈演愈烈。想到这里有点忧伤。

A priori, any documentary makers should adopt impartiality towards their subjects, but for New Zealander TV reporter David Farrier and producer Dylan Reeve, they have their own skin in the game. The germ of TICKLED is when Farrier, whose bent is on “quirky and odd stories”, is tickled by the online videos of “competitive tickling endurance” and starts blogging it, after met with unexpected homophobic responses and legal threats from the videos’ production company Jane O’Brien Media, Farrier and Reeve are undeterred, if anything, they are further intrigued to beat the bush of this undermined phenomenon and fly to USA to continue their guerrilla probe.

What initially appears as a reportage on the fetish of “erotic tickling”, all the participants of the videos are athletic, teenage or early-twenty-something boys, intriguingly swerves into a conspiracy theory exposé, when the pair obtain more information about the said production company and an 90’s personage called Terri DiSisto, who allegedly spearheaded the video production, through various interviewees, including former participants, reporters and local recruiters, what they piece together is a one-man empire of David D’Amato, the only son of a wealthy Wall Street banker, who invents fake identities to register companies and disburses expense of running them and shooting the videos, all because the guy is minted.

Real life is stranger than fiction, Farrier and Reeve’s investigative modality is nothing special, pedestrian talking heads, voice-only recording sub rosa, occasionally punctuating the narrative with scenic shots, and the key to their triumph can be encapsulated in three operative words “resources, stakeout and chutzpah”, and what is really both unsettling and edifying is to see the deleterious effects of the pandemic bully culture, David is such a fruition, a sadistic tormenter who revels in ruling the roost, and will not have no for an answer, anyone who dares to defy his command is met with inconceivable discrediting retaliation, but how did he do that? Is himself a savvy internet hacker who can disable a university’s computer system (an act of vengeance on a participant who wants out, for which he served a six-month prison sentence) or he outsources the job to someone else, that leaves a question mark, what we can infer is that when one is well-oiled like him, nothing seems to be impossible.

Finally, when most of the lowdown is divulged, TICKLED ends with more reverberations when Farrier calls David’s last relative alive, his stepmother, and we are apprised that David is not a bully in his childhood, instead, allegedly he is a bully victim, that, for this reviewer, is the manna from heaven, while most of us may concern about what damage those bullies can wreak when they grow up, the film intelligently reminds us that the same attention should also be applied to the victims, how their mentality can be forever impaired by the pernicious act and in turn, they comes off as a new bully when they are equipped with the wherewithals, that is food for thought from one side of the story.

referential entries: Tim Wardle’s THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS (2018, 6.6/10); Sandi Tan’s SHIRKERS (2018, 7.4/10).

人性被扭曲成了什么样。我想本片很好的介绍了那些边缘化人物的现状。片中出现了两种或更多种边缘化人物，其一是发掘“挠痒痒”这件事的导演及其制作团队。他们是得以让真相大白于天的人。然而归结到底，发现竟然是一个人所为，在吃惊之余我也非常同情第二种边缘人，那就是“加害者”，本片中出钱让别人“挠痒痒”的人。我觉得很大程度上还是因为他个人成长原因，导致了本片中我们所看到的状况。第三种边缘人物，我想就是那些自愿成为“挠痒痒”的“被害人们”了。他们竟然是如此众多，整件事情实在让人匪夷所思，就像《聚焦》中的内容那样让人大跌眼镜。它们的共通点在于都制造了被害者，并且让他们集体失声。

当我接触到这部纪录片的时候，是耐着性子慢慢看完的，因为我也很想知道，到底那些钱是从哪来的，这样一个跨国的组织竟然一直都处于隐匿状态。实在吃惊。而后得到的真相太过分了，不过还是比《聚焦》中的宗教性有组织的掩盖真相感受好一些。《聚焦》简直颠覆了三观，整个人都不好了，让我更加对宗教看低。

如果对《聚焦》有兴趣的话，可以看一下这篇影评：隐藏在神性背后的兽性