"Tickled" Documentary: Short Review and More...

[kucheeku]

Hello everyone.

I went to see the well-reviewed documentary "Tickled" at the Music Box Theater (Chicago) on Monday. It's been extended there through July 7th, so I urge folks interested to make the trip to see it.

It's a pretty gripping thriller that begins with a basic question? Who's behind the Competitive Endurance Tickling videos that popped up online? "Jane O'Brien Media" is the production house for the videos. NZ journalist David Farrier decided to contact her for an interview regarding the videos. This prompted a series of homophobic tirades from the company, prompting Farrier to dig deeper into a strange world of blackmail, harassment and swirling identities.

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERTS BEGIN HERE

The directors do a very good job at keeping a suspenseful pace and even those who are pretty familiar with "Terri Tickle" and "Debbie Kuhn" will have a hard time trying to figure out how and why these videos were made. Once the novelty of discovering there's such a thing as a fetish for m/m tickling passes, the movie becomes a thriller and the tickling is definitely in the background.

My experience with this movie is something I did not expect. I was able to talk to a complete stranger who viewed this movie at the same screening about my fetish. He was genuinely interested in my story. I'm now also out to my roomies about myself, as one of them went to see the same screening with a couple of his friends. (none of them are into the scene, so don't get your hopes up. haha!)

I am also reading and hearing from guys--who have had little or no opportunity to explore their tickling fetishes--interested in watching the movie. For such guys in the tickle closet, this is the Citizen Kane of m/m tickling movies in mainstream. If you don't see this one, you probably won't see another one ever.

The importance of having a movie like this as an icebreaker for guys who want to come out of the m/m tickling is immense. Check out posts on m/m tickling boards from guys who want to tickle a particular someone, but don't know how to approach them about it.

Here's the answer: get them to watch the movie with you!

Now you can present the film to your friends as a legit documentary and use it as a catalyst for coming out. The extra benefit is that the movie is clear--the male/male tickling community is set apart from a particular individual(s), using a harmless fetish to make some persons lives miserable. The rest of us just want to laugh and have fun.

 

[Wally West]

Thanks for the review. I was wondering how this was.

 

[Aeveirra]

Oh, I saw the trailer for this!!
To me, it looked like a type of "sport" that I had somehow never heard of.

But it then it seems like guys didnt know their videos were being put on fetish sites.
I guess they for paid, and just thought it was a fun thing to try for some cash.
And that's when they realized that their vids popped up on porn hub or something.

That's probably not what happened in the movie, it's just what I imagined would based on the trailer.
I wanna see it, but I live in NY, and im don't think it's around in any theater near me.

Sounds very interesting though, Maybe something id like. 🙂

 

[dylanreeve]

Oh, I saw the trailer for this!!
To me, it looked like a type of "sport" that I had somehow never heard of.

But it then it seems like guys didnt know their videos were being put on fetish sites.
I guess they for paid, and just thought it was a fun thing to try for some cash.
And that's when they realized that their vids popped up on porn hub or something.

Basically 'Competitive Endurance Tickling' is sold to participants as some sort of sport for a reality TV show or something. It's very prominently advertised as NOT fetish material.

Guys sign up, get paid good money (US$1,500 + $500 expense money) and get flown to LA for a weekend of tickling. All guys tickling other guys in these videos.

The videos mostly end up on Vimeo and YouTube (so available for free) with stage names. The guys get their money and go home, and most probably never think about it again. But what we found when we started looking in to it, after a REALLY weird response to a very tame inquiry, was that some of these guys found themselves on the receiving end of an extreme online harassment campaign.

That's basically where the film starts... And it gets deeper and weirder from there. It's not really a film about tickling except that tickling happens to be the fetish around which all this weirdness has sprung up, but it could be literally anything. We really wanted to make sure the audience saw this as a film about power and harassment and not as an indictment of the interests of a groups of people. That seems to have worked.

That's probably not what happened in the movie, it's just what I imagined would based on the trailer.
I wanna see it, but I live in NY, and im don't think it's around in any theater near me.

Sounds very interesting though, Maybe something id like. 🙂

Not sure where you are in NY, but it's currently playing in Manhattan at the Sunshine Cinema on Houston. It's also opening in coming weeks in Ithaca, Albany, Pelham - you can find more details at TickledMovie.com