What I Watched -- Voyeur and You

Gay Talese reports the story of Gerald Foos in Voyeur.  Gerald owned an Aurora, Colorado, motel.  In that motel, he built a specially-designed attic which allowed him to spy through ceiling vents on all motel guests.  I absolutely believe that all this happened.

The moral voice in the film is Talese's New Yorker editor, who shares the audience's skepticism about Foss's intentions and wondering what the value of Talese's interviews with him will be.  In the end, probably the most interesting part of the film was the portion in which the fact checkers are trying to determine how much of Foos's story was true and how much was manufactured.  Psychologically, it was also fascinating to see how Foos changes once his story is made public -- everything bad that happens becomes someone else's fault.

Having watched the movie, I am exactly as creeped out as I expected to be.  I'm sure you have heard the horror stories about AirBnB owners putting cameras around their properties.  I can't say that I wouldn't also be tempted to do that if I were loaning out my own home to strangers, but as a person who has been on the renting end of AirBnBs before, I certainly don't ever want to do it again after realizing how prevalent the cameras are.  For some reason, it seems like reputable hotels (which Foos's was not) should be safer, more secure places, but then when you think about that for just a second, why does it seem like they should be?  Aren't the minimum wage workers at any hotel just as likely to be creepy voyeurs just like Foos?

Our viewing of Voyeur followed on the tail of the first episode of season two of You.  You is a Netflix show starring Penn Badgley, probably best known as Gossip Girl -- in other words, it is not a distinguished filmography.

But this show plays right into so many of my concerns about how easy technology makes it for someone to find out so much about a person.  (Yes, I appreciate the irony that I am complaining about this on a blog.  Perhaps I should stop writing....)

It is truly only coincidental that we are watching both of these things so close of the heels of the implementation of the new
California law requiring certain companies and websites to make it easier for consumers to control the privacy of their data -- but somehow these things all seem connected.

You know what else seems connected?  That a Penn
Badgley meme popped up in S's feed while we were watching You.

As I said: creepy.