Hear
Ashley Madison: sex, lies and scandals (Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & ScandalUnited States/2024). Address: Toby Paton, Zoe Hutton, Gagan Rehill. Photography: Jean-Louis Schuller. Music: Mat Davidson. Edition: Dan Setford, Holly Bridcut, Wesley Thomas. Available in: Netflix. Our opinion: good.
In matters of love, virtuality has long since won outright and by turning its back on the casual meeting, the formal date, the casual beer or the bouquet of flowers. Periodically, dozens of options aimed at uniting lonely hearts multiply in the application stores. However, before this boom, there was a website that revolutionized the concept of finding a partner. Not only because its algorithm could find the perfect match, but because all its users were unfaithful.
Ashley Madison – a company created in 2001 – was for more than a decade the favorite meeting place for those who chose to have a double life to escape routine. Until 2015, a group of hackers obtained the databases with the personal and intimate information of 37 million users distributed in several countries and gave those responsible for the site an ultimatum: “You close the website or we publish everything.” The first were arrogant and did not pay attention, so the second published it.
The documentary Ashley Madison: Sex, lies and scandals, which is now available on Netflix, delves into the details of this story of betrayal, hypocrisy and cynicism, which resulted in separations, crises and even suicides. At first glance, it is striking that this exhaustive research work directed by Toby Paton, Zoe Hutton and Gagan Rehill is divided into three episodes, but as the story progresses, an irrefutable logic emerges, which allows us to gauge the seriousness of what happened from multiple perspectives. references and approaches.
The first chapter focuses on the birth, growth and success of the site, as a response to the need of a part of society to feed its darker side with lies and hypocrisy. While those responsible for the website explain the concept, the eye also falls on some of the affected users, especially on the marriage of Sam and Nía, a viral couple on YouTube for showing the archetype of the perfect marriage. Except for one small detail: he had been cheating on her with other women for years, and Ashley Madison became the perfect tool to enhance this.
With the first blows of the first leak (because there was more than one) the second part of the work begins. And while the company searches for answers, no one is innocent until proven otherwise, even CEO Noel Biderman, an unscrupulous businessman who was largely responsible for the success of the platform. The leak devastates the company’s hopes of continuing to make millions, and is also devastating for Sam and Nía. The two stories develop in parallel, like a mirror that cracks little by little. At the same time, other consequences of the event are known, including the suicide of a pastor, who cannot bear the blame for his name becoming public.
The conclusion of this triptych on human relations offers the closest thing that can be expected to a conclusion, taking into account that it is a real case, and not a fiction where each subplot comes to a good or bad end according to the whim of a screenwriter or director.
The scandal surrounding Ashley Madison has had, from 2015 to date, extensive media coverage. Not only to point out the responsibility of the hacker attack in the event (it was never known if it was a single person or a group), but also to reveal a second plot of negligence, apathy and fraud on the part of those who were supposed to ensure the absolute privacy of their users, as the foundation stone of their clandestine proposal.
Although neither the website nor its subsequent media tragedy had such an impact in these latitudes, Ashley Madison: sex, lies and scandals It is followed with interest, while at the same time it questions the viewer about the chiaroscuros in the construction of a romantic relationship “for life.” And although it is implicit in its conclusion that those responsible are betting on an outcome linked to morality, good customs and second (or third) chances, the numbers do not lie. At the time of finishing the documentary work, the reborn platform had 70 million users, a number that will surely grow in direct proportion to the days in which the film is at the top of Netflix’s offering.
As one of the interviewees says: for offers such as a website for unfaithful people to exist, there must be users. Men and women who resist succumbing to the monotony and frustration of a monogamous life and, therefore, go out in search of adventures outside with mobile technology as an ally, without considering dishonesty or consequences. This added value arises in the form of an open question, and transcends the police case to settle into the couple’s conversation. As a challenge to promote better communication, and also as a sign of the times.
