Tickled provides insight on tickling controversy
The childhood horseplay of tickling takes on a new whole face in Tickled, an investigative documentary into the bizarre subculture of underground tickling. Yes, you read that correctly.
The film’s director and lead, David Farrier, is a New Zealand pop culture reporter familiar with the bizarre side of life. He has seen and interviewed everything from a prepubescent Justin Bieber to donkey trainers and a frog-eating survivalist. However, this 92-minute film, while certainly humorous and bizarre, documents the corrupt system of an underground tickling subculture that exploits its participants. It leaves the audience with as many questions as answers about cyberbullying and the American justice system. Tickled’s comprehensive material and risky production process, which incurred several legal threats, has made it a noteworthy film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
The film’s seemingly benign story begins with Farrier coming across a strange video from Jane O’Brien Media showcasing a new sport called “competitive endurance tickling” where one man is tied down and tickled by one or several other men, all of whom are youthful, attractive male athletes. The video is only the first of many and certainly makes audience members squirm in their seats when forced to become a voyeur of such an odd practice. It ultimately prompts Farrier to post on the company’s public Facebook page asking for an interview. However he is shockingly met with vulgarity and undisguised homophobia.
“To be brutally frank,” a Jane O’Brien staff member writes, “association with a homosexual journalist is not something we will embrace,” along with multiple, less formal epithets. The insults are hard to take seriously and only piques Farrier’s, and later, cameraman Dylan Reeve’s, interests.
The tone shifts dramatically when Jane O’Brien Media gets wind of Farrier and Reeve’s investigative documentary and sends three representatives to New Zealand to discuss legal issues. The meeting between Farrier and the Jane O’Brien representatives begin congenially until a member notices the presence of Farrier’s camera.
“We’re not going to get along,” says the representative. “You attacked us in an airport.” The uneasy exchange indicates something more insidious than anticipated about the company. It soon becomes apparent that anyone related to the elusive Jane O’Brien remain aloof, not out of spite, but seemingly for their own sake, which is eerie and intriguing at the same time. The documentary seems to shift between these bouts of drama and an awkward, voyeuristic humor, creating a rather choppy tone as Farrier and Reeve dig deeper into the world of tickling fetishes.
However, the duo’s determination in finding the source of this tickling empire must be commended in the film. They travel to America and out of a hundred of Jane O’Brien Media participants, they manage to contact one, who details the onslaught of threatening emails and online harassment he received following his break from the company. The information is shocking and seemingly disproportionate to what is only some tickling.
Their investigation also extends into the more benign side of online tickling fetishes, which may make audience members think maybe this isn’t such a bad thing after all. Richard Ivey, who runs a similar tickling empire with a cross into foot fetish territory, is completely open and frank about his business. Ivey serves as a complete foil to Jane O’Brien, clearly embracing this fetish without the exploitation and covert brutality Jane O’Brien exercises. It isn’t the tickling fetish itself that totally unnerves, but the way it is being used. Thus the real question for Farrier and Reeves becomes one about the motives and elusive identity of Jane O’Brien, who begins to bear a striking similarity to a past tickling enthusiast called “Terri Tickle.”
The film contains elements from both mystery-thriller and comedy, packaged into a cinematically elegant documentary, in which still photographer, Dominic Fryer, has a hand. However, what makes Tickled an engaging film is its firsthand account of a corrupt system that exists right under audience’s noses. Though Tickled ultimately exposes the culprit, the audience is still left wondering if justice has really been served. There really is no true ending to the story. What is most disturbing, however, is how quickly the tickling becomes a metaphor for power and control exerted by the anonymous figure, Jane O’Brien. The gleeful laughter permeating the film soon turns hysterical and eerie, haunting viewers at the end and forcing them to realize that this obscure and fascinating phenomenon has been a growing trend.