Every once in a while, the subject of reality TV comes up and someone will talk about a show featuring bloggers, and we all laugh because we know how totally boring that would be. When I saw the trailer for the film American Blogger, I thought “This is some funny satire!” I checked out the movie’s website. It is apparently a real movie. Under “Meet the Bloggers” there was a list of mommybloggers mostly named Lauren and Ashley. And… they are real women, with real blogs that go back years. And they were all pleased and excited to be part of this documentary. Oh dear. This is awkward.
Filmmaker Christopher Wiegand spent a couple of months traveling around the country interviewing bloggers -friends of his blogging wife Casey Wiegand. So far, I’m not sure if Wiegand is trolling his wife and her blog friends, or if this is a sincere but poor attempt at documenting young, wealthy, and (all but one) white mommybloggers as if they represent all American bloggers. I’m not the only one to notice, so Wiegand clarified his intentions with this statement:
The name "American Blogger" came not because I am representing all of America but because I am traveling America ( 40 states) in my airstream and telling the story of the Blogger. This film is not supposed to be, nor is it, representing bloggers or America as a whole by any means. These are the women that said yes to my request, they knew my wife and trusted that I would tell this story in a positive way.
Okay… I honestly hope that all the bloggers in this documentary are in on the joke, and that their posts about the interview long ago were part of it. The comments at vimeo have been disabled, but that could be an extension of the pretense that this is not satire, or it could be a defense against the unexpected negative reaction. -via Digg