Dirty Money is a documentary series that recently launched on Netflix, on January 26th. Comprised of six episodes, each episode provides a deep dive on a seemingly different topic. On the surface, it seems as though each individual episode is completely unrelated to the others. The first episode covers the Volkswagen emissions scandal, while the second episode covers the payday loan industry. The third episode covers the growth of big pharmaceutical companies. All of these episodes completely work as self-contained stories, well done deep dives of their respective subject matter. All of these stories work together, to offer a poignant criticism of completely unregulated and cutthroat capitalism.
This is a very interesting way of tackling such a large idea, and making a documentary about it. Each episode is at least one hour, with some clocking in at and hour and fifteen minutes. Any feature length documentary trying to cover all of these topics related to this theme in one piece would be unpalatably long. However, each episode provides such a deep dive into its particular topic, that it certainly could not be covered by a documentary short or even a regular length TV show. This series strikes the perfect balance and allows all of these important topics to be covered, while still tying into a much larger point.
We have talked in class about the importance of picking a narrow, focused topic for our documentaries. I think this series offers an interesting way of tackling bigger, larger concepts and ideas. The idea that maybe capitalism within our society has gotten out of hand is a huge, philosophical question. Tackling it with a documentary series in this manner allows the filmmakers to tackle such a large idea, and touch upon many points without sacrificing depth.
Furthermore, I think this subject is an incredibly important one, and the breakup of the larger idea makes it much easier for the viewer to digest and grapple with the societal criticisms the documentary series is offering.
