It doesn’t matter how old you are, chances you’ve heard the term “catfish” before. We’re not talking about the marine species with whiskers. We actually mean the term used for the deceitful practice that’s commonly used in online dating and other forms of contact through social networking. Someone sends you a picture, you start chatting. When it’s time to meet, if you actually get to this stage, you realize the person in front of you does not resemble the entity you’ve been talking with. Disappointment ensues. That person is a catfish.
But have you ever wondered where it comes from? In case you don’t know, a movie called Catfish was released in 2010. It was a “documentary” about a photographer who starts forming a relationship with someone online. Things get hot and heavy between Nev and Megan, but when it’s time to meet, things take a weird turn. Megan is not who she says she is, and if you haven’t seen the film, then let’s leave it at that. The term catfish comes from a metaphor one of the individuals uses to describe a situation in which cod were kept active by catfish during transportation. Megan kept her family’s world active and interesting by trying to be someone she really wasn’t.
Back in the day, people couldn’t stop talking about the film. It had crossed the boundary of what was entertaining and settled on a deep exploration of individualism and intimacy through the eyes of a generation that thrived only in virtual channels. The problem was that not everyone believed it was true. It was certainly hard to digest that this very cinematic arc wasn’t manipulated by clever filmmakers. Will we ever know? Probably not, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t a fascinating view into the “reality is stranger than fiction” dilemma we sometimes face with cinéma vérité style of filmmaking.
It Doesn’t Matter if Catfish Is True or Fake
After the movie’s success, it led to MTV capitalizing on it through the reality TV format, and the show Catfish was created. It complied with the rules of MTV’s reality shows, and frankly, it’s not that good. It’s based mostly on people being crushed by finding out they’ve been catfished. Pure exploitation, if you ask us.
What the film actually had in its favor was how it portrayed deception in a sober manner. It never ridiculizes Megan’s huge reveal, and Nev stays behind in the conflict and mostly away from the true essence of the film. The third act is not Shyamalan-style shocking with spoilers. We’re just slowly walking inside the world of a clever woman who had the capacity of fooling a young man, his partners, and the whole audience. Her universe is strange, but mostly it’s the result of the human endeavor for finding reason in the middle of unhappiness and the incapacity for self-realization.
Angela, the real person behind Megan, is a human being whose truth isn’t thoroughly explored in the film, but you get a glimpse of her life, and you start making conclusions. Months after the film’s release, during an interview, she said that she was aware of her actions in outsmarting three young men. Why did she do it? Watch the last 15 minutes of Catfish and you decide.
Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman made Catfish in 2010 and people are still questioning why they did it and whether it’s real or fake. The question is: how is that important for a film whose effectiveness does not depend on that? We can’t come up with a scenario in which someone makes a huge amount of money with this film. So, why would they have created a fake world with strange subjects if reality’s already bizarre enough?
And Yet We Are Still Watching
Nevertheless, it’s hard to agree with the coincidental aspect of the plot. Not everyone “catfished” at the time, and it’s hard to believe there weren’t a few initial attempts. Again, we will never know how it transcended from the very beginning to finish in such an anti-climactic but interesting conclusion.
Catfish aroused us. To look closer and be thorough. To question what seemed ideal and felt innocent. Megan and Nev’s “relationship” is like millions of other relationships today, and we’re not asking ourselves if our better half is real or not, even if we still haven’t met them.
The film felt exploitative because it awoke an inner fear and unnerved us with its deep and understanding dive into the reality of “Megan” without criticizing or condemning Angela’s acts. That, in itself, is also fascinating as it’s proof of the power an average holds over everyone when they decide to open up. When similar cases happen around us, we’re fascinated at thinking not how they did it (it’s relatively easy today), but why. How far would they go when creating a fictional entity to engage with someone else? That limit, often crossed, is a fascinating territory that Catfish properly portrayed almost 10 years ago.
Catfish is available to rent or buy on Prime Video and other services.
