Catfish: A Re-Portrayl

In the film Catfish, Nev embarks on a relationship with a woman online named Megan, a complete stranger to Nev at the beginning. He soon realizes that some of the information that Megan has been giving him could not possibly be true. This is Nev’s initial instance where he could stay in the shadows, or come into the light. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, we can see Nev have some dissonance within himself. Should he believe what he is being told, or should he follow what everyone else is telling him which is she’s feeding him a falsity? There is something scary about learning the truth, let alone testing it. This has to do with the questioning of how things are done. We can look all across history to see examples of how ignorance is equated with blissfulness, and those who threaten it will be extinguished. Just as when the one prisoner was freed from the cave and began to know the reality of life outside the cave, he saw his beliefs of the shadows he once glorified but also saw that they could be what they were—shadows.

 In Werner Herzog’s, “On the Absolute, the Sublime, and Ecstatic Truth” he also questions what reality is. Herzog says, “…Can we ever really trust a photograph, now that we know how easily everything can be faked with Photoshop?” He touches on a note that very closely relates to the documentary Catfish. Nev is presented with a beautiful, talented woman who he desperately wants to believe is who she says she is. But with modern day technology, it’s completely impossible for him to remain faithful in this prospect. Anyone can be whoever they want to be on the internet.

Ultimately Nev chooses to step into the light and finds that there is a completely different story underneath the surface of the lies. This underneath was Angela. She is a housewife caring for her two stepsons who have severe handicaps. She is deeply unsatisfied with her real life, so she created a life she could be satisfied with online. But Herzog says that this is all in attempts to reach a deeper “stratum of truth”. In the portrayal of fine arts, there is no fakery. Plays, movies, literature, etc. are all things that writers and authors use to elude to actual, real life events but this does not mean they are false. They are a re-representation of life. This is what Angela was doing. She was re-representing her life. Not all the things she showed or told Nev were fabricated. Some of them were truly her. In Angela’s mind she was Megan. She was the girl who lived in this big family that could make Nev happy, and she did. She made Nev happy and gave him this emotional relationship. The difference is, we go into the fine arts knowing whether or not something is fiction or nonfiction. Nev did not know if Megan was fiction or nonfiction. Nev easily could have continued on with Angela in this portrayal or re-representation. Each learning deeper, clearer meanings about themselves through this relationship.