• Todd Puhl

Movie Review: Nobody Speaks: Trial of the Free Press

Updated: May 28, 2019

Netflix acquired the documentary for the infamous Bollea vs Gawker trail and released it last month. Since its release this film has garnered a lot of heat because of how it affected the First Amendment in some people’s eyes. I am willing to debate that.

“This examination of the duties of the press in an age of inequality delves into the trial between Hulk Hogan and Gawker Media. The duel pitted privacy rights against freedom of the press and raised questions about how big money can silence the media.”

What you don’t know is that there is 2 parts of this film. The Bollea vs Gawker trail and then the neutering of a Media News Outlet in Las Vegas. But no one would watch a documentary about the second part. But to have a headline that indicated that it has Hulk Hogan in it, well right there that’s money. 230 million dollars’ worth. But in reality, what this film should be labelled as “The time Gawker picked a fight with someone they shouldn’t have.”

Karma is a bitch. And she did come around for Gawker.

So, Hulk Hogan made a sex tape. And? Do you have an idea how many sexy tapes are made daily? Do they all get listed on Gawker as an advertisement? No. Why you may ask? Because they are not all celebrities. However, sex tapes have resparked or even kick started some people’s careers and made them stars. Hulk Hogan didn’t need either. He was already a household name. An icon. A wrestling God. But he is also human. Human’s makes mistakes all the time. However, celebrities are not allowed the “mulligan” on poor decisions, and the media gets free rein to destroy this persons career if see fit.

That’s why I rather enjoy what happened to Gawker. The site is a parasite. At least TMZ makes it a big joke when they report these things. Gawker looks at it as a pay day. That’s all it was. A payday. They weren’t toppling someone who was a horrible person and did horrific things. They toppled a guy who literally had his life ripped away from him and lost everything. I can’t even say they were kicking a man while he was down because it was more than that. Ultimately Gawker gets ahold of this sex tape and makes it public. WHY. WHY EVEN BOTHER?

Shock Value that’s all it was. However, they didn’t think Hogan would go after him. Nor did they think that someone mysteriously paid 10 million dollars for Hogan’s legal fees. The writing was on the wall right there. The whole trail they were trying to determine who the mysterious benefactor was. Years before, Gawker released a horrible story about a very powerful man from Silicon Valley named Peter Thiel. The story? They discussed his sexual orientation. What is the relevance? Oh, to get people to look at them. So because of Peter Thiel, Hogan is 230 million dollars richer. But does this affect the first Amendment?

Hell no. The media went too far on this one. And they paid dearly for it. The funny part is they didn’t understand the difference between Hulk Hogan the Character and Terry Bollea the man. They are 2 separate identities. Hulk Hogan is an over the top cartoon character and at times can be the perfect heel in life. Hulk Hogan was created to build the wrestling empire. He is Terry Bollea with personality volume cranked way up. However, regular Terry Bollea is quite the opposite character. So when he was made his comments on Stern, that was Hulk Hogan making jokes, not Terry Bollea. But hey, no one ever heard of this before. Idiots.

After all that, they spend a little bit of time whereas the First Amendment was actually being ignored. The problem is, people who watched this documentary was checked out at this point. Once we got through the trial what was the point of watching. It would have made more sense to put that at the beginning of the documentary rather than the end.

It was an ok watch but its something to watch when nothing else is on.

#nobodyspeak #trialofthefreepress #hulkhogan #terrybollea #netlfix

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