"But aren’t all adoptions in some way manipulative? Children aren’t assigned by lottery. Agencies look for the right fit and routinely make matches based on a range of subjective criteria. The current practice among adoption agencies is to never split up twins. Was this the standard in 1961? The film should have told us one way or another. The film also cheats a bit on the central issue of the twins study itself: nature vs. nurture..... An ominous montage depicts the boys as anguished children and strongly implies that [SPOILER DELETED] was biologically determined. But the film later shifts gears and seems to place an inordinate amount of blame on Eddy’s adoptive father, a self-described strict disciplinarian who appears haunted by what he might have done differently as a father."
From "DOES ‘THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS’ PLAY FAIR WITH ITS AUDIENCE?/The story of three triplets reunited as teenagers after having been separated at birth" (The Jerusalem Post).
We watched "Three Identical Strangers" last night. Have you seen it? It was very interesting but I have some problems with it!
There was a lot in the movie about the ethics of the adoption agency and the psychiatric researchers, but the movie had its own ethical problems, most notably in the way it used and accused Eddy's father.
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I appreciate the spoiler deletion, and many people don’t do it.
Were the triplets actually identical? That would be exceedingly rare.
The Minnesota Twin Family Study does similar studies.
Let me guess. One of them is gay.
"Do individuals have free will, or are they prisoners of their environments or DNA?"
LOL. What a horrible article.
If only Trump had been adopted.
Most studies find what the sponsors of the study wanted to be found.
(no matter what the subject is!)
"The three brothers were born to a teenaged single mother on July 12, 1961. They were actually quadruplets; the fourth brother died at birth, although this information reported by UPI was not included in the film." Wiki
An unusual number of school-shooters have been adopted.
and all have the same taste in women (whatever that means)
It means the women they are attracted to or have accepted into their lives have observable similarities- usually personality or physical attributes but could include career or interests.
Smarten up.
I THINK I saw this doc last year. Has it been around that long? I saw A doc on this case. Must be the same.
There are *no* honest documentaries anymore, if there ever were. Maybe the market is saturated due to low-cost digital equipment, so filmmakers must stretch the truth to get noticed.
Documentaries hold a special power. They are so convincing. Then you read an article pointing out how misleading one is, and you realize there aren't any truth-tellers out there.
Saw the movie a while ago, and I agree. They were searching for a villain and found one in a guy who couldn't remember anything.
What you’re describing is why I tend to avoid documentaries, even when the subject really interacts me (as this does). There’s just too much emotional manipulation. An article or a book can be manipulative, too, but it seems like documnentaries have a bit more power to them to really force a viewpoint that might not be fair.
I’ve always wondered about the “don’t split up siblings” line of thinking. I’d be interested to see more of what Althouse thought of the movie.
I have seen it, but it's been a while. IIRC, the [SPOILER DELETED] (which is not really a spoiler if you've heard about the story from other reporting; this is non-fiction, after all) is something that was true of more than one of the boys, yet they dealt with it differently. I have known multiple people who also [SPOILER], but none of them have have followed in Eddy's footsteps. Yet.
I feel like the kid in the "Why not both?" meme.
I saw the movie a year ago and thought it was a bit too conspiratorial. The adoption agency was presented as a dark and evil manipulator for a study that was never published ( probably because the results were inconclusive for the nature/nurture question it tried to address. Yes, one of the adoptive fathers comes off badly in the movie - but by the same token on of the other fathers is presented as a savior/ outrage angel. And big surprise! Being identical does make you more prone to having similarities.
That said - the person in the movie that to me came across as the most dispicable was the secretary of the study director. Not only was she morally a black hole ( I could see her cheerfully running the showers in Auschwitz) she was the most disgusting social climber I have ever seen. “Oh. Here is me with XXX”. Her interview was enlightening toward the plot - but left me wanting to take her behind a shed with an iron bar.
An unusual number of school-shooters have been adopted.
Anecdotally, anyway. Data says stuff like:
"Twelve to 14 percent of adopted children in the United States between the ages of 8 and 18 are diagnosed with a mental health disorder each year, and adopted children are almost twice as likely as children brought up with their biological parents to suffer from mood disorders like anxiety, depression, and behavioral issues."
Lyssa
Exactly right. And most documentaries have an agenda. It’s really easy to just leave stuff out and make a case.
What is the point of doing studies when you know going in that your sample size is too small to prove anything?
I saw the movie last year and had a similar reaction as AA. I also thought 1) the filmmakers underplayed the crime and 2) the siblings were a bit whiny in their now middle ages -- looking to be the victim. But that is what urban society is all about now, so they really are a product of their environment.
Also interesting was the determination of the adoption agency to ensure that kids of Jewish moms got placed with Jewish families. They definitely has more in mind than the best interests of the child.
I also have two adopted siblings of other races and one biological sibling, so have experienced adoptive interaction for many years. My folks were active in the adoptive family circles for a while when we were young. It is no surprise that some adoptions work out great, and some are very difficult. Just like non-adoptive families. We were fortunate. All of us are still close though we have certainly gone down separate paths.
My sister tracked down her birth family earlier this year. She was stunned at the dysfunction, prison, drugs, and death that her biological siblings and first cousins experienced. She has expressed gratitude for many years now to my parents after some pretty rocky teenager years, but the reality of what life would probably have been like without adoption really shocked her.
"I’d be interested to see more of what Althouse thought of the movie."
Here are 7 thoughts I jotted down right after seeing it:
1. if it was such a big ethical problem to use human subjects why wasn’t it also a big ethical problem to use eddy’s father in the movie the way they did
2. also, I thought they used a sensationalistic style, with anxiety music playing all the time. it was very different from the classy approach used by erroll morris
3. the brothers caused a lot of their own troubles by choosing to commercialize and milk their story for years and years. there’s no way to say [SPOILER DELETED] was because of the initial experiment. He was already involved in a MURDER and he had inherited tendencies that would have been there whether or not the triplets had been separated
4. i thought they tacked on a happy ending: that nurture can win out over nature (without much proof and really selling out eddy’s father who really did nothing wrong!)
5. the filmmaker was obviously on the side of saying the researchers were horrible and didn’t fairly explore the choices the brothers made.
6. i also find it hard to believe that the adoptive parents didn’t know they were participating in a study! Who did they think was coming to their house and testing and photographing their kids?! [UPDATE: Apparently they knew they were participating in A study, but not that there were separated triplets and that the idea was to study the same heredity in different socio-economic environments.]
7. i suspect that the real reason the study wasn’t published was because the researchers were hoping to prove that nurture made the difference (the same happy ending the filmmaker chose) but the data showed that it’s mostly genetics
Quasi-religions... The researchers assumed/asserted a dependence of factors (e.g. economics and principles), but rediscovered a correlation of nature, nurture, and divergence in the wild.
Saw the movie on an airplane. As I get older, it becomes clearer and clearer to me that parents can be good parents and still wind up with a troubled child or children. Parents can also be awful and wind up with a kid or kids that rise above it and turn out well. So, I felt that putting the blame on the one strict Dad for the son's suicide was unfair. I also thought the agency should have at least attempted to keep the brothers together. Obviously, the brothers were very glad for the most part to have a relationship with each other.
AA's point 7 sounds very plausible indeed.
i suspect that the real reason the study wasn’t published was because the researchers were hoping to prove that nurture made the difference (the same happy ending the filmmaker chose) but the data showed that it’s mostly genetics
Yes. Problems caused by "Nurture" and "Environment" require ever-expanding study and chronicling, a boon for researchers and journalists, and open up a never-ending array of political solutions to problems.
"Nature" and "Genetics" are boring. Not a lot of stories to tell, and the research is all medical, not headline-grabbing "social science." And nothing for political activists to activate about, like capitalism, the patriarchy and lead paint.
CJinPA said: There are *no* honest documentaries anymore, if there ever were.
So true. This "documentary" would have been impossible if the two remaining siblings had not cooperated. In exchange, the film pretty clearly acceded to their wishes not to discuss their own emotional/psychiatric problems, which were not trivial, among other matters.
It included extensive quotes from a researcher who's written more than anyone else about identical twins raised apart, and then it came to a conclusion that, based on his writings, he would have rejected utterly.
It took a sad old man, a retired teacher who had adopted one of the triplets and cried on camera about his loss, and it hung him out to dry -- based on nothing. This tied the story up in a nice bow but was shameless.
I saw the movie when it was playing in the theaters, and I liked it very much.
Yes, a few elements of the story are not explained well, but it still is a superb movie.
I wonder how much of their developmental problems were progressive conditions that originated while in the womb of a stressed teenage single mother, who may have not appreciated or was deceived about the personal responsibility of sexual relations.
"But aren’t all documentaries in some way manipulative?"
The key point is--how evil is it to not tell adopted parents and their children that they are triplets.
My recollection is that in other cases the agency did the same thing--it failed to tell adoptive parents that their child had a twin or another sibling.
That said - the person in the movie that to me came across as the most dispicable was the secretary of the study director. Not only was she morally a black hole ( I could see her cheerfully running the showers in Auschwitz) she was the most disgusting social climber I have ever seen. “Oh. Here is me with XXX”. Her interview was enlightening toward the plot - but left me wanting to take her behind a shed with an iron bar.
9/9/19, 9:19 AM
I had the same reaction. I saw it about a year ago and I remember that awful woman.
I also got the sense that because the triplets had so much in common on a superficial level that they immediately assumed that they had found instant soulmates. It wasn't long before they were living and going into business together. But if adults are close to siblings they were raised with, it's not just because of genetics. They share a common history and grew up in the same house. There are years of inside jokes, shared tragedies and joys (and also, of course, rivalries and resentments). When you grow up together, there are also family roles that develop - my relationship with my older sister is different from my relationship with my younger brother, even though I get along well with both.
There are things you might share with one sibling, but keep from another. It's complex and can't just spring up out of nowhere with strangers, even if they look like you and like the same foods and the same movies.
The Girl Who.... books use this kind of genetic study as a plot device to explore the evils of communism, socialism and modern social networks.
Were the triplets actually identical? That would be exceedingly rare.
Yeah, they were all identical. I saw the movie. Very interesting doc, and highly watchable.
the film later shifts gears and seems to place an inordinate amount of blame on Eddy’s adoptive father
Yeah, that was my reaction. I thought the filmmakers were unfair, harsh, and judgmental. The opposite of what you want from documentary filmmakers. You can tell they were really focused on their narrative. They wanted their doc to be entertaining, and it was. But they were so focused on the story they were telling, their narrative became more important than honesty.
The movie poses an interesting question re nature vs. nurture. Are documentary filmmakers innately jerks or is it the process of their work that brings out and highlights their jerk qualities. My own guess is that it's probably a combination of the two. but further studies must be done before we can say defninitively.
I thought it was one of the other two who had been involved in the murder.
I have not seen the show. I am however an adoptive parent of two children. During our adoptive experience “agencies” had no babies. We moved across the country in order to be able to adopt independently. Adoption remains a rare thing. There were only about 135,000 adoptions last year.
Robyn Wright doesn't even know his name: Sgt. 1st Class Elis Barreto Ortiz, 34, from Morovis, Puerto Rico.
Althouse: :"You're wrong. The name is in the article. Why make assertions without checking?"
I did check. My mistake was when I got to the bottom of the page where it says:
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I thought that was the end. Although now I see the article continues beyond that. Thank you so much for taking the time to point out my mistake.
Althouse: Really, Fen, your commenting needs improvement.
No, it really doesn't. It's been very sharp lately, more than usual. You are just saying that because I challenged you yesterday on another topic and you are holding a grudge. You sure you want to play that game? Because I am more stubborn than you.
Althouse: I'm going to start deleting you a lot more, beginning with this comment in half an hour. You may copy what you've written and attempt to rewrite it. If you don't want to go to the link and read or you need and don't want to get a subscription, you need to be circumspect about what you say is in the article.
OH. GO. FUCK. YOURSELF.
I will now happily copy everything I post here to repost 10 times over every time you delete it. And if you manage to ban this profile I will make several more and do it all over again.
OR
You can front page a public apology to me for being a vindictive bitch and singling me out because I had the audacity to challenge you on something stupid. What was it again? Oh right, I said I was "skeptical" that you were aware of the NPC meme. LOL.
(lets see now... New desktop folder: Althouse, new txt doc: Althouse1, copy and paste and save. Ready to launch upon deletion. Your turn....)
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