It’s one of only a few shows to be truly known to almost anyone in America. It’s also one of the only shows to continue to exist in pop culture relevance almost two decades after it ended. We’re talking about To Catch a Predator. Hosted by Chris Hansen, the program featured sting operations that were set-up to catch pedophiles attempting to meet up for sexual encounters with minors they’d met online. It has a movie coming out about it called, Primetime and the first trailer for it has dropped.
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To Catch a Predator
When discourse around this show takes place, its often about people discussing the confrontations. Hansen himself has becoming a bit of a punchline about him showing up or confronting people. What’s less discussed is the legal and ethical questions surrounding what this show was all about. Now, let’s get one thing completely straight here, child predators are dangerous and sick individuals. The people who actually do try to groom and meet up with minors deserve to be punished to whatever extent the law provides.
With that said, should the takedown of these people be filmed for the sake of entertainment? One could make the argument it’s news, but it’s not. News is reporting that someone was arrested for soliciting a minor. News is reporting about how operations take place to protect minors and bring predators to justice. But having a media personality show up at the meet-up location to question a suspect about their intentions, that’s entertainment. Is using that subject matter for ratings an ethical thing to do?
Where “Primetime” Fits In
We don’t know much about Primetime but we know enough to believe it’s going to tackle some of this subject matter. The film stars Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen in 2006. This year is notable because it’s the year the show came apart. In a sting set up to catch assistant district attorney, Bill Conradt, things went wrong. Conradt seemed to become aware of what has happening and killed himself It seems like the movie is going to tackle this subject, but it’s a bit early to tell. We can say that listening to Pattinson’s narration in the teaser is downright chilling. He sounds nothing like himself.Instead he’s cold, blunt, and almost hypnotic in his delivery.
This could very well be a project to keep an eye out on in the months to come. Primetime doesn’t have an official release date yet but is slated for the fall of this year.
