♡ Guided Documentary Reflection ♡

 The documentary I chose to watch for my project was My Kid Could Paint That, It's about a 4-year-old girl who produced widely loved abstract paintings. The first painting she ever made was because her dad was painting and she wanted to paint with him, so he gave her a canvas and let her paint. They ended up hanging it in their house and their art friend complimented it and asked who the artist was, they laughed and said it was their daughters. The friend asked to hang it in a coffee shop and from then on her paintings spread like wildfire and within a year she became a famous abstract artist. I think a specific scene that got to me was when they watched the 60-minute show about their daughter's art that claimed that the paintings were fake, saying the dad who was an artist himself helped. This broke my heart because they began to receive threatening, disgusting emails about them as parents. They were just a normal, loving family. I think this may have also upset me because this family reminds me of my family growing up, I also have a younger brother and my parents thought I was a talented kid. Of course, they mostly thought that because I was THEIR kid, but It hurt and brought tears to my eyes seeing these parents being so harshly criticized. 

Something that surprised me in this documentary was how many people bought the paintings. It really shows that being an abstract artist doesn't take much. That's what made a lot of people who aren't artists question why abstract art was considered art if a child could excel at it. What really confused me is the biggest fans of the child's art trying to talk to her about the meaning of her paintings like she would just start going into deep detail about her work. But, there were some who liked the childlike innocence of the paintings and the story the abstract paintings tell, not only in the picture but about the artist. I didn't only learn about the story of  Marla, but why people enjoy abstract art, which was also a big question in the film.  

A question that still remains after watching the film is whether or not the paintings were all by Marla. Part of me really wants them to be real, but the proof makes it very unlikely, and it's an upsetting feeling. Her paintings that were filmed of her making do not look like the ones that she had sold in the past, two of them that she did on film looking almost exactly the same. It was sad to know that the father probably polished the paintings and helped Marla make them because you can tell this is a genuine family that probably drowned in their own lies that started as the truth. It is fun to believe that they were truly made by a child, but it goes to show that anyone really can make abstract art. Do the paintings just stop looking good after knowing they weren't made by a child? That's what I am still trying to answer myself. 

I think we should avoid including research in our summaries because it might conflict with the documentary. The documentary was made to include all aspects of the story, and you could accidentally include incorrect information. Something else that could go wrong would be is including too much information and overloading the reader with information that was meant to be extended over an hour or more. Altogether, I really liked the documentary I chose and I think it's a very interesting, emotional story.