TABLOID: analyzing a spectacle

TABLOID is a documentary made of interviews about the crazy spectacle that is Joyce Kinney. First made famous in tabloid news in 1978 when she allegedly kidnapped and raped a morman missionary whom she had formally been engaged. The truth of the situation is not what is explored, but instead the many versions that different people call truths.
Director Errol Morris is a good director and the quality of all the interviews and archival footage is high, but by the end of the movie I wasn't fully sold on the true intention of the film. The story is salacious, and so over-the-top that it is easy to get sucked into the film, but at parts I felt the subjects were being mocked more then studied.
Joyce Kinney is the star of the movie, her interview is very up close, and I would say personal but the entire film is pointing out that someone is lying, and she probably is at times, or else she has fallen victim to more planted stories and evidence then one would have thought possible. According to her, her ex fiance left with her willingly and then later lied about the kidnapping/rape because of pressure from the Mormon Church. While it does seem unlikely he was an complete victim, there are several people who claim to have been involved that claim things about Joyce she rejects. That she was naked in front of them a lot, that she was delusional, and that she instructed men to take her ex by force if he declined going with them. While Joyce does admit she thought he was brainwashed and wanted to try to save him, she denies all the other claims against her and continues to say she was set-up later when many images of porn, featuring her, surfaced.
Just as the viewer is starting to feel like this woman denies everything, it also is pointed out that almost all evidence of this porn past has been "destroyed" and the men claiming it as truth, cannot produce any hard evidence.
So the real story of Tabloid is the spectacle, it is sort of a long metaphor of the saying "you can't prove a rumor, that's why it's a rumor". Joyce's identity in the tabloids is over the top, and has somewhat identified her as a person. She feels that everyone takes advantage of her, while she claims to simply be a good girl who was in love with a man.
To make the experience even stranger, after the movie ended and we were all leaving the theater, we were greeted by a furious Joyce Kinney outside, ranting on about how the movie was a lie, that she had been tricked into making it and now was not allowed to even watch it with the rest of us (she claimed SIFF would not let her enter the theater, which hearing her yelling and screaming on the street I was grateful for). The audience of the film grouped around her, eyes wide, mouths open. Unfortunately for Joyce, I feel anyone who left the film thinking perhapes she was just misunderstood, after seeing her go on like that was sure she was crazy.
For me, it just made the whole thing sadder. It was a front row seat for a rather disturbing element of our society; the glee in which we watch famous people self destruct. Unfortunately for Joyce, she is only famous for being involved in crazy tabloid stories.