Vulture accuses Netflix's JonBenét Ramsey documentary of lacking nuance
Netflix premiered its latest true crime docuseries, Cold Case: Who Killed Jonbenét Ramsey, on Monday, and it's once again rekindled debate online about what exactly happened to the child beauty pageant queen 28 years ago.
But in a review for Vulture, Alessa Dominguez argues that the series, directed by Paradise Lost filmmaker Joe Berlinger, not only fails to break new ground but does little to soundly reposition Jonbenét's parents as victims (of law enforcement and the media) themselves.
• "Cold Case asks many of the same questions about agendas and power that [Berlinger's landmark 1996 documentary] Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills did... But unlike the West Memphis Three, the affluent Ramseys were not unsophisticated, working-poor teens in rural America. And in trying to make a simplistic case for railroading, the documentary skips over cultural nuances that could make for a more definitive account of the story."
• [Sensitive Content]"The police pursued leads that JonBenét might have been sexually abused. The series takes issue with the consideration of evidence that JonBenét's bed-wetting was getting worse at the time of the murder, and this can be a sign of sexual abuse. In the series, John shrugs as he dismisses the police's consultation with former Miss America Marilyn Van Derbur, an expert on incest, who cautioned police that a 'normal,' image-conscious father and family wasn't evidence of a lack of abuse."
• "Cold Case never quite acknowledges how, early on, even intimate friends of both Ramseys found their lack of cooperation with police unethical. John and Patsy gave DNA samples in 1996 but refused to come to police headquarters for an official interrogation. Instead, in an early January 1997 interview on CNN, a subdued Patsy declared a 'killer on the loose.' In April, they finally went to police headquarters. Did their class entitlement contribute to confusion between them and friends and police? By framing them unilaterally as underdogs, the documentary leaves that question unanswered."
• "In 1998, [District Attorney Alex] Hunter brought in detective Lou Smit because Smit had solved one case involving a murder and abduction. Smit later claimed the Ramseys were people of faith and couldn't have murdered their daughter. He offered an unproven 'stun gun' theory, claiming that two marks on JonBenét's skin were about the size of a stun gun used to keep her quiet, which would point to an intruder. The documentary re-platforms these claims, and the series presents Smit, uncritically, as the 'Sherlock Holmes of his time.'"
• "The series's portrait of John, now a remarried grandfather, bears no trace of the litigious figure who hired Trump attorney L. Lin Wood early on to sue media outlets for libel. (That attorney has since been disbarred.) John ran for a congressional seat as a Republican and wrote two more books claiming innocence. John's domination of the narrative-both in the docuseries and in his books-has helped occlude the fact that it was the 'Patsy did it' theory that allowed the case to even land before a grand jury."
Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey claims her parents, John and Patsy, were railroaded by the police and the media. But the doc’s argument isn’t very convincing. https://t.co/1KLGVIbO7u
- New York Magazine (@NYMag) November 22, 2024
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