{"id":857781,"date":"2026-09-23T13:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T13:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857781\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T13:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T13:02:13","slug":"the-primetime-version-of-chris-hansen-is-an-ugly-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857781\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Primetime\u2019 version of Chris Hansen is an ugly one"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n \u201cPrimetime<\/a>,\u201d the new movie starring Robert Pattinson<\/a> as \u201cTo Catch a Predator\u201d host Chris Hansen, kicks off in 2006 \u2014 an era recreated on screen via puka shell necklaces and Fergie songs. Hansen and his show about uncovering pedophiles have become a cultural juggernaut. He\u2019s been celebrated on Oprah Winfrey\u2019s program<\/a>, and played himself on \u201c30 Rock\u201d<\/a> and in a Conan O\u2019Brien Emmys skit.<\/a> Later, he even appeared in an episode of \u201cThe Simpsons<\/a>.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Within a year, the show would be over and a man would be dead.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cPrimetime\u201d hits US theaters this week, but controversy has long been brewing. The real Hansen has made his outrage clear about what he\u2019s described<\/a> as \u201ca complete work of fiction attached to a real name.\u201d He\u2019s complained that he was not consulted about the film, and that he was also barred from seeing it in previews without first signing a non-disclosure agreement. Using particularly pointed language given the subject matter at hand, Hansen accused the filmmakers of acting in a \u201cexploitative or predatory manner\u201d<\/a> and being \u201csneaky\u201d and \u201cdisingenuous\u201d to produce an \u201cinsult\u201d that is \u201cessentially a horror film.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n He\u2019s probably right to be upset. In the movie, Hansen is portrayed as an egomaniac philanderer whose delusions become so all-consuming and chaotic that they eventually become fatal. \u201cAt the end of the day, a man must be held accountable for the decisions that he makes. Don\u2019t you agree?\u201d Pattinson\u2019s Hansen says in the film\u2019s opening sequence to an ex-marine (Tony Revolori) ensnared in one of the show\u2019s televised traps for men seeking sex with minors. That\u2019s a question \u201cPrimetime\u201d wants audiences to grapple with.\n <\/p>\n

\n At its core, \u201cPrimetime\u201d is a movie interested in the ethical quandaries and real-world implications of mixing entertainment and journalism. As the show-within-the-movie becomes increasingly popular with viewers, we watch as pressure rises to make each episode more compelling \u2014 whatever the cost.\n <\/p>\n

\n But as a Hollywood production, \u201cPrimetime\u201d is itself also out to entertain at the expense of sticking strictly to truth. Although based on a 2007 Esquire article<\/a>, it fictionalizes characters, plays with timelines (bringing forward a 2011 sex scandal<\/a> involving Hansen that was covered by the National Enquirer<\/a>) and ascribes fantastical motivations, all to up the dramatic stakes. And while creative artists don\u2019t face the same ethical responsibilities as journalists, Hansen\u2019s discomfort is somewhat understandable \u2014 even to the filmmakers themselves. \u201cI think in a lot of ways we\u2019ve tried to make him a complicated superhero, and I think before he forms judgments, I hope he watches the movie and he sees that we started as fans of his,\u201d screenwriter Ajon Singh said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cTo Catch a Predator\u201d began as a recurring segment in 2004 on NBC\u2019s \u201cDateline\u201d news program on which Hansen was an Emmy-winning correspondent. Partnering with a group called Perverted Justice, whose members would trawl web forums posing as minors, the show would hire young-looking adult actors to pose as children, lure men to a home filled with hidden cameras and then spring Hansen on them. Cops waiting outside would then arrest them on charges of soliciting minors.\n <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Hansen has maintained<\/a> that his journalistic objective was to try to interview the men in order to understand their motives, but there was an undeniable, if also dark, schadenfreude in watching the titular predators be exposed to millions. \u201cIn that moment,\u201d ethnographer Mark de Rond said in \u201cPredators,<\/a>\u201d a 2025 documentary about the show, \u201cwhat you\u2019re seeing is effectively someone\u2019s life end, and they realize it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Even after almost two decades since it ended, the show continues to enjoy many fans, but relatives of some of the men have spoken out against it. \u201cThe entertainment industry cannot act as police, judge, jury, executioner,\u201d said Patricia Conradt when she sued NBC<\/a> over the death of her brother Bill Conradt (played in the film by Alex Winter). (Her lawsuit was settled in 2008<\/a>.)\n <\/p>\n

\n As the movie begins, the \u201cPrimetime\u201d version of Hansen seems consumed by his fame to an unhealthy degree. He enjoys being recognized on airplanes, dropping his name when it might get him better service and waking up his young boys to show them his show, which he\u2019s thrilled will be taking on a counterprogramming timeslot opposite ABC hit \u201cLost.\u201d He also seems to be nursing a chip on his shoulder when it comes to a one-sided rivalry with Stone Phillips (Bill Heck), a more serious newsman who gets coveted assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan. \u201cThis guy thinks he\u2019s f*cking Chris Wallace,\u201d one sound engineer says mockingly of Hansen to colleagues during a funny, extended moment in which Hansen lays down repeated tracks of narration using his highly affected newsreader voice.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n According to \u201cPrimetime\u201d director Lance Oppenheim, it was this public image that Hansen had cultivated which first drew him to the idea of a movie about the host. When Oppenheim\u2019s wife purchased him a Cameo from Hansen to celebrate the release of his 2024 documentary \u201cSpermworld,\u201d Oppenheim marveled at the character he seemed to still be playing. \u201cHe\u2019s almost become this hyper performative, self-aware version of himself, almost like he\u2019s fully cognizant of the cultural mythology he\u2019s cultivated, and he\u2019s seizing on it,\u201d Oppenheim said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe liked the idea, almost the challenge, of creating a media collage of every Chris Hansen that\u2019s ever existed \u2014 the characters, the personas, the versions of himself that he himself has put out into the world,\u201d Oppenheim said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hansen is not the first public figure to take issue with their depiction in a work that takes dramatic license. In 2018, Oscar-winner Olivia de Havilland lost a court battle over the way in which Ryan Murphy portrayed her as a \u201cpetty gossip\u201d<\/a> in his drama \u201cFeud,\u201d in which she was played by Catherine Zeta Jones. More recently, the actor Daryl Hannah penned a New York Times<\/a> piece in March complaining that the FX series \u201cLove Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette\u201d depicted an \u201cirritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate\u201d version of her (played by Dree Hemingway) that was inaccurate and distressing. \u201cStorytelling requires tension. It often requires an obstacle. But a real, living person is not a narrative device,\u201d Hannah wrote.\n <\/p>\n

\n Oppenheim, the director, said he viewed this film in concert with some of his other works \u2014 including his upcoming documentary with Nathan Fielder<\/a> on disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, \u201cYou Can See Everything\u201d \u2014 as part of what he describes as a \u201cdocufantasia\u201d genre. This style embraces a \u201cmore operatic, heightened version\u201d of reality to better explore the highs and lowers of human experience, he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n The director believes this same mix of reality and artificiality could seen in \u201cTo Catch a Predator\u201d itself. \u201cIt felt like you were in sort of a house of mirrors, a funhouse, and a circus that was led by this ringleader who Chris Hansen,\u201d Oppenheim said. \u201cI liked that we could occupy that same space, that we could try and make something that was than stranger than fiction with this film.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Pattinson's<\/p>\n

\n Hansen still has not seen the film, but has said<\/a> he plans to attend a screening when it opens and then share his thoughts on one of his podcasts and on YouTube. (Requests for an interview sent to Hansen\u2019s agent and TruBlu, his true-crime streaming platform where he still films a version of \u201cTo Catch a Predator,\u201d were not returned.) But both Singh and Oppenheim insist their film makes no intentional value judgments about Hansen or his show\u2019s legacy. Their main goal, they insisted, was to explore Hansen as a character and try \u2014 as he did with the men on his show \u2014 to understand how he thinks.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cYou\u2019re seeing Chris Hansen go from man to meme. He goes from person to persona, and you see how spiritually, when you\u2019re in communion with punishing someone publicly on the world stage, it affects you,\u201d Oppenheim said. \u201cWe wanted to sort of trace what those effects are.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPrimetime,\u201d the new movie starring Robert Pattinson as \u201cTo Catch a Predator\u201d host Chris Hansen, kicks off in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-857781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}