The New Bob Ross Documentary is Out & the Internet is Angry

[masktaster]

The new documentary Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed dropped this week on Netflix and boy was it disheartening.

Click to view

It provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at Bob and his family life, the legal troubles his son, Steve Ross, and friends faced against Annette and Walter Kowalski who own the majority share of Bob's name and legacy as Bob Ross

Comments

[masktaster]

Yeah, they did show a bit of that. 😥

It was overall a pretty depressing doc considering what it goes into, but enlightening that they're bringing this truth to the forefront. It was reassuring he genuinely was a nice person and wanted to heal the world with art.

[masktaster]

Sorry guys if there are formatting issues with this! It's my first time posting in a long time and I was having issues with LJ. 😓

Please let me know if I should edit to have the tweet reactions behind a cut!!

[moonsenorita]

I watched this last night and the doc was ok. it felt a little all over the place and like it was 2 separate docs (his legacy and the kowlaski's) combined into one but both kinda skimmed the top.

I will, however, never buy anything from Bob Ross Inc. And it made me wonder about watching Ross on YouTube and twitch again.

I will say watching this made me think about how we deify people or ideas of people. He's not this perfect saint person as the internet has kind of made him to be, he was a human. Anyway, the worst the doc charges him with and it's rather glossed over is [Spoiler (click to open)]cheating, allegedly.

[masktaster]

I personally wouldn't watch the Youtube or Twitch channels, they're run by Bob Ross Inc. They even did a "documentary" on YT a few years ago trying to show how great they are. I'd link it but I'm petty and don't wanna give them any views lol

I don't hold it against him on the cheating allegations, it is really shitty but he was also human and def seemed to be taken advantage of by the Kowalski's. That doesn't excuse it, but context matters and in the grand scheme of things he still provided a great thing to humanity with his art and passion to help others thru it

[moonsenorita]

I'm not trying to drag him through the dirt. I had a response last night about it in ffaf saying they didn't want to watch because they didn't want to know any bad things about him, which is why I put in my little spoiler in case someone was curious about it. it doesn't even take 5 min of the whole doc.

overall, it seems like he was a great guy and what you saw is what you got.

like I said, it still made me think about how we deify people or ideas of people. because I think for a lot of people, myself included, didn't think of him as a human being but icon, an embodiment of kindness. It's interesting to me

[naturesluzzer]

I find it interesting too. It seems like especially nowadays people are inclined to cling onto the image of anyone who comes across remotely decent.

[screamingintune]

I TAed for an art history prof my senior year of undergrad who went on this rant once during a lecture about how Bob Ross' entire empire was a huge scam to make people buy his products and delude them into thinking they could paint like him and he had this whole lecture prepared about how he was selling people an impossible dream for massive profits, lmao, he felt really fucking raw about it

I personally think if the man made people happy that's good enough but go off old boss

I'm interested to watch this, just as a coda to that class

[masktaster]

LOL your art prof is going to be eating his words!

But I don't blame him for thinking that as the Kowalski's were the ones who pushed that agenda and gave that impression of Bob. All Bob wanted to do was teach people and make sure there was quality in the products if they were going to have his name on them

[screamingintune]

lol it's been like ten years or I would email him to ask him what he thinks of this documentary. If I was still TAing this class I'd so have the class watch it during my own sessions. I was the queen of "let's watch a documentary so I don't have to make a lesson plan" lulz

[__nocturna]

My dad bought the Bob Ross paints and followed along, all his paintings look great 🤷‍♀️

Maybe your professor just a real bad artist lol

[tippythepoodle]

It bothers me that a son doesn’t even have access to his father’s legacy.
Like his father intended.
Same with Nina Simmone.
It’s maddening.

The doc made my cry but also made me glad I’m not putting money in the grifter’s pockets.
I hope his son sues them again and takes back his rightful inheritance.