New Zealand film-maker David Farrier is a Louis Theroux-style film-maker, who even looks a bit like young Theroux. He has that doggedly blank face prepared to witness or hear anything, an unerring instinct that will not allow him leave something alone.
Rummaging around the internet, he comes across a strange Endurance or Competitive Tickling phenomenon and decides he wants to make a film about it. So he shoots off an email to a certain Jane O’Brien agency in the USA who organise tickling videos in which athletic young men are seemingly happy to be tied up and tickled by other young men. He receives a reply which spouts homophobic insult. Addressing the reply only brings further fulmination and wrath upon his head.
Then two guys, Marko and Kevin, who are ostensibly representing the Jane O’Brien agency, fly to Auckland to meet David. Marko, a heavy-set type, gets stroppy when he sees he is being filmed on arrival.
There is a fraught meeting with the two guys, some secret filming, and threats to Farrier and his working partner Dylan Reeve to lay off their investigation. Urbane Kevin says it could be very dangerous for both of them, he knows that Dylan has a wife and kid.
Dylan Reeve: on the trail of the elusive but threatening Jean O'Brien Media
Eventually the two Americans fly home. Farrier and Reeve have sniffed something very sinister and fly to LA. At some personal risk, they approach a nondescript building where they know tickling is being filmed and are told to leave in no uncertain terms. Young men have been lured with money and presents, but any attempt to escape from tickling video-making has led to vile threats. Farrier speaks to young college students and young professionals, whose careers and reputations have been seriously damaged by email bombing involving slurs sent to employers, college authorities and even the White House. one hapless young fellow even had the Secret Service come visit.
Some earnestly believe Tickling is an endurance sport and others view it as a fetish, or as porn with clothes on - it has certainly involved underage males. Whatever it is, it’s not an `Only in America’ phenomenon, as it seems to have a global reach, not just across the USA, but also to European cities.
David Farrier is there to meet the two Americans at Auckland airport
Despite a short prison sentence for the individual behind Jane O’Brien Media, the Tickling racket is still going on. Think Foxcatcher and the spoiled scion John DuPont, trying to realise a twisted homoerotic dream while causing nightmares for others in the process. Tickled is disturbing and deeply weird, but you have to hand it to Farrier and Reeve for bravely trying to put a stop to the bully tactics of the man behind it all. It's no laughing matter in the end. IFI from tomorrow.
Paddy Kehoe
