‘Tickled’ probes subculture’s underbelly
In “Tickled,” mild-mannered New Zealand reporter David Farrier, who specializes in pop culture, discovers the world of “competitive endurance tickling.” Soon, Farrier and co-director Dylan Reeve tumble down a deviant rabbit hole, and suddenly they’re not in Auckland anymore.
When he requested an interview with Jane O’Brien Media, an American company sponsoring, holding and recruiting for CET events, he was told they were not interested in having anything to do with a “homosexual journalist.” As some might say, “Wait. What?”
Welcome to the fun house, others might announce. Farrier, who receives threats of lawsuits from an American attorney, travels to Los Angeles, the epicenter of “tickle torture,” with TV editor Reeve, where they track down more information and more tickle enthusiasts. Farrier provides a kind of voiceover visual diary; reenactments of events; interviews with participants and one “leery” protective mother, some of whom have been threatened and harassed; existing videos of restrained people being tickled; and original footage. “Tickled” belongs right up there with “In the Realms of the Unreal” (2004) and the more recent “Marwencol” (2010).
This tickling subculture takes Farrier and Reeve to the depressed U.S. city of Muskegon, Mich., where there were many young men willing to be filmed tickling one another for money, some underage, unaware that the videos would be posted on the internet. Casting agent David Starr may not be particularly savory, but what happens to him when he runs afoul of the tickling empire, including “e-mail bombing,” constitutes a form of assault. “This tickling empire is way bigger than anything we had imagined.” As it turns out, there is even more distressful cloak and dagger to be uncovered. Eek.
(“Tickled” contains profanity and what some might see as deviant behavior.)