A Filmmaker's Review: "Casting Jonbenet" (2017) [Netflix]

"Casting Jonbenet" (2017) is one of the more uncomfortable documentaries on Netflix but it reinforces one, key idea that many documentaries on child murders and mainly murders in general do: men are our enemies. They seek to hurt us, kill us, cause brutal harm and should not be trusted in any way, shape or form with children or vulnerable people especially.

A perfectly preventable death if a man was not allowed near her, this documentary has an analysis on the idea and the repulsive notion of the fact that men are attracted to cute children, especially little girls. The documentary focuses on a pageant child and some may blame the parent, who was a beauty queen herself, some may blame the parent for dressing her up like that but no matter how she is dressed or dolled up or not, there will always be a male predator, a male wanting to harm her. So in reality, did it matter that she was a pageant child? Not really.

The documentary is told from the point of view of people who knew the family and had actually met Jonbenet. The possibility that this could happen to someone's child is repeated over and over again by people in the documentary who are portraying the mother, father, policemen etc. and it is the most uncomfortable thing to watch because they're talking about a child who has died as a result of something horrible like sexual assault. The worst part about it is that it may have been the father, which highlights my claim that men should be kept away from female children at all times. It doesn't matter whether they are the father or not. Keep them away.

The child is such a small and adorable young girl, she was innocent and there is something incredibly personal about the stories being told. They tell stories about their own families and someone who has lost their brother to a murder. There was something very upsetting about that and it really makes you wonder about how these people felt on the night of the child's murder and what was going through their mind. Who did they blame? Who did they see? What did they do? What did they see?

It is very important for female children that they feel safe at all times and I don't think that this child was protected properly, especially by the father. In this documentary, there is little mention of the father apart from when the sexual assault/rape happens and he is accused. When it comes to raising the child and protecting her, there is little to be said about him. He seems to be the corporate big-shot who is absent and absent-minded. I have zero sympathy.

As for the mother, the image painted of her is the typical crazy woman who seems so isolated you really ask yourself whether any of these people actually knew her. She died young of cancer and you really do wonder whether people used this as an accuse to blame her for her child's death instead of placing the blame on the father who most likely raped her. It seems damning and completely stupid. A woman who has cancer murders her child in cold blood - it really doesn't seem viable does it? However, father rapes and murders child seems more viable, even possible. Actually, that sentence has happened if you've seen "Forensic Files", you'll know that's true. Jonbenet was a child, she wasn't protected by her father, wasn't raised properly by her mother, wasn't loved by her brother - she was a child who died lonely, who died scared and who died in extreme agony.

If that doesn't scare the hell out of you then you have no heart or soul and probably are just as bad as the murderer. The murderer was a man who sexual abused, hurt and caused great harm upon Jonbenet just because he could, he caused her a great deal of pain because he could and he did what he did and got away with it - it is the case for most men who go on abusing children. In my opinion, we should keep men away from kids, they clearly can't control themselves.

This documentary made me so damn upset.