Jane O'Brien Media
| Tickled | |
|---|---|
New Zealand theatrical release poster
|
|
| Directed by |
David Farrier Dylan Reeve |
| Produced by | Carthew Neal |
| Narrated by | David Farrier |
| Cinematography | Dominic Fryer |
| Edited by | Simon Coldrick |
|
Production
company |
A Ticklish Tale
Fumes Production Horseshoe Films |
| Distributed by | Magnolia Pictures (US) |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
92 minutes |
| Country | New Zealand |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $923 thousand |
Tickled is a 2016 documentary about "competitive endurance tickling" and videos featuring it, and the practices of those producing the videos, directed by David Farrier and Dylan Reeve. The film explores possible legal and ethical issues with certain individuals making the videos, and has itself been the subject of legal challenges. A follow-up special, The Tickle King, aired on HBO in February 2017.
Under the working title Tickle King: The Hunt For The Truth In Competitive Tickling, Farrier and Reeve raised NZ$29,570 on Kickstarter in June 2014, intended primarily to cover the costs of the crew traveling to the United States for a week. The project also received funding from the New Zealand Film Commission.
The soundtrack includes music from Upstream Color by Shane Carruth.
David Farrier, a New Zealand television reporter whose beat focuses on "quirky and odd stories", sees videos online about an activity described as "competitive endurance tickling", in which young athletic men are restrained and tickled by each other; he begins to research it for a story. However, his inquiry to video producer Jane O'Brien Media elicits a hostile reply, focusing on his bisexuality and asserting that the sport is a "passionately and exclusively heterosexual athletic endurance activity". Farrier partners with television producer Dylan Reeve to learn more about tickling videos and the people who produce them.
After blogging about the incident, they receive legal threats from Jane O'Brien Media, who send Kevin Clarke and two other representatives to New Zealand. Although their interactions are superficially cordial, the Jane O'Brien Media people seem intent on bullying the investigators into dropping the project. Farrier and Reeve respond by traveling to Los Angeles, and find the representatives at a site where the company records videos, but are turned away at the door.
Researching the phenomenon further, they uncover information about a person known as Terri DiSisto (alias "Terri Tickle"), who pioneered recruiting and distributing tickling videos online in the 1990s. They interview independent tickling-video producer Richard Ivey whose operations are a low-key affair with an acknowledged homoerotic aspect. They speak to a few former participants in Jane O'Brien Media's videos, who describe coercive and manipulative treatment by the producers, such as defamation campaigns against them, exposing their personal information and contacting school or work associates to discredit them as homosexual or as sexual deviants, in retaliation for challenging or speaking out against the company. A local recruiter in Muskegon, Michigan, describes "audition" videos he had helped make, which were published by O'Brien Media without the participants' consent.
...
Wikipedia