A 'Film' Critique: 'The Mind of Jake Paul'

Nobody can deny that Shane Dawson has ultimately been changing up the game of YouTube. Since his documentary with Tana Mongeau, he has been stepping out of the bounds content-wise and should be given props for that. For the record, I am a fan of Shane, have been since I was a kid, and I think always will be. I digress, however, that this does not affect my view of his latest “documentary” style videos about Jake Paul. Even though I am a fan of someone, I am able to look at a perspective of just watching the video.

Before I begin to look at the actual videos, I find it imperative to point out the discussion regarding this documentary before it even came out. When Dawson released that he would be doing this type of content with Jake, he received quick and harsh backlash that he should not be giving someone like Jake a “platform.” I really think people came to these videos with a bad mindset already. In my opinion, Jake already has a platform and Shane contributing in a non-biased way really should not make a difference. I also believe that someone with the background of Jake should be given a chance before the whole entire world hates you. Also, if you do not want to watch something, don’t watch it. It is not that deep.

I want to talk about the format that Shane chose to do with the videos. There are eight parts. So far, the five parts that are up at the time of this posting are usually around 40 minutes each. Going with the pattern we have now, all eight parts together would be around three hours long. Now, imagine sitting down and watching a movie for three hours straight. I would get pretty bored and honestly I have. This is the main complaint I have with these videos. There are far too many parts to keep track of. I also lost my own excitement from the videos as they keep getting posted. It is evident that I am not the only one who feels this way, as his first post had 20 million views and the latest one is at 10 million (at the time of this posting).

Going off of that point, my next critique would be that with the videos being in so many parts, I feel as though they are dragged on. For example, the third “episode” per se is actually 45 minutes of Shane on the couch watching videos of his parents. It was difficult to watch and finish. From Shane’s point of view, I get it. I really do. I think it is important to show that he is researching, that he is trying to learn things about Jake from his parent’s videos, etc. I also find some of this information is crucial to build off of. But honestly, he could have spent 10 minutes in the video watching those videos, then cut right to meeting Jake in the house. In some ways, this is not a dig at Shane whatsoever. I feel like he knew these videos would get a lot of views and he did want to drag it on. But it felt really unnecessary and bored me.

I also just want to touch on the first criticisms he got from the first video he made with people saying he made it too scary with the editing and the music. I did not feel the same way. Kati Morton is a licensed therapist I have been subscribed to for years. She was even on Shane’s podcast some time ago. I trust her in the field and do not believe she would make a video with ill-intent. If you know Shane and his style of editing, this is just him and he loves scary things. He was not calling the disorders themselves scary—the symptoms as they are in the DSM are, though. Knowing that someone with those disorders are so common is a little icky and I do not think that is so terrible to admit. Yet, as the internet does, they completely attacked Shane and Kati very undeservingly.

Lastly, do I think it was necessary to go the whole “is he a sociopath” route? Honestly, not really. However, I do think it added an objective to the film as without that question I do think the series would be disorganized. With an objective to answer, he found ways to incorporate many other aspects of Jake Paul’s personality into the videos. It gave it a new level of interest that would not otherwise be there.

I really do think Shane Dawson’s video series, so far, are well-made and have good intentions. You can see that Shane put a lot of effort with his team to produce this content. I do wish he condensed the series, yet I hope he learns from his mistake this time around and makes more series of this kind in the future (but maybe with less parts).