Anyone watched the Gabby Petito documentary

[Worriedsickmostofthetime]

So disclaimer first… I have only watched the first episode. Not worried about spoilers because obviously we all know how the story ends. The story is told from the perspective of people in Gabbys life, her friends and her family.

Whilst it is evident given what happened that Brian is guilty of what he did. Did anyone notice how often Gabby clicked her tongue or rolled her eyes at him in annoyance.

@Tabbsi What evidence is there that the abuse was mutual? She admitted to hitting him on the arm, he grabbed her face and shoved her. Witnesses called the police because they saw a man hitting a woman.

All abusive relationships are by nature toxic.

I have little interest in young bloggers anywhere but especially in the US. The van life vlog has nearly been done to death by now, and I feel that a lot of them are obviously portraying an ideal that may be far from that off camera when they are emptying the toilet canisters or having a dump on the side of the road etc. and sweating buckets in a tin can in the desert.

Anyone would go a little crazy with that lifestyle although some have made successful vlogs from it. However, we rarely see the warts and all. As to GP and her boyfriend, I'm sorry that it happened but only from the point of view of domestic violence and who did what and why and where. Other than that they can all go and stay in their vans all around the world. It's not reality. But watching it can be escapism I suppose.

I had to have a quick look on Netflix, and forgive me, but natural in front of a camera they were not. So I doubt their vlog would have been much of a success anyway. I think Laundrie realised this as G was far too desperate to make it a wow channel or something. Lesson learned. Note, I didn't watch all of it, just snippets so that may result in my jaundiced view of it all.

They both seemed awkward on camera but she probably did get annoyed with him. I don’t think she had ocd in the clinical sense but apparently he was a messy fucker getting his dirty feet over everything in the van.

This thread is vile.

'Nuance' is not required. There is one victim here. ONE.

I have a cousin who has recently come out of an abusive relationship alive.

Her story is horrific. He tried to kill her more than once. He tried to push her off a boat on a lake, observers witnessed and called the police. He and she convinced the police he was 'having a laugh'.

When she finally left he's beaten her black and blue again, this had been happening frequently since covid. This time she went to the police and left.

She decided to try to prosecute and despite eye witness evidence the jury was convinced that his story that a woman banged her own head against a bedside cabinet to feign his violence was enough to create reasonable doubt. He also claimed that being diabetic his hypos were to blame. He got off stock free and she's still at risk from him. He still appears outside her friend's houses or where he thinks she might be.

So fuck off with nuance.

The whole criminal justice system is anti women. It's always what was she wearing? what had she drunk? what was their relationship like?

Like any of that is relevant.

For shame that there are women posting on this thread who can't see that.

This is such weird thread. "Oh he murdered her but she was kinda annoying sometimes, right?" I'm sure we've all been in annoying situations without ending up CHOCKING SOMEONE TO DEATH. No one forced him to stay in the relationship.

^ Choking sorry.

For shame that there are women posting on this thread who can't see that

And men posting no doubt.

Why shouldn’t it be discussed as the documentary was about her? It’s a pretty key element I’d have thought.

As PP’s have said, the majority of the information provided was from her close friends and family, who loved her and were naturally going to present a certain biased account of her due to losing her in such tragic circumstances. It’s what ppl do. They’re hardly going to throw shade at her after she’s been violently murdered and discuss her negative qualities.

But the programme isn’t a tribute to her life, it is a documentary focusing on her death, and how and why it happened. A lot of people are interested in receiving a more 3-dimensional picture of the woman to try to understand her character and the circumstances surrounding her murder.

Nobody is saying she deserved it bc she rolled her eyes at her fiancé on camera. They’re discussing the fact that she was being presented in a very specific way, as is common when a young woman is killed, and pointing to the fact that there are a couple of elements which seem to contradict the overwhelming portrayal of what she was like. It is a discussion - ppl want to talk about it. The fact that a documentary has been released, in which her family have participated, lends itself to the idea that they are happy for it to be in the public domain and therefore discussed.

People are allowed to form and share opinions . We may not agree with them but no one can tell other ppl to think a certain way about a subject like this or any other. It’s not 1984 (yet). Documentaries can be biased to fit a particular narrative as much as any other form of media. It rests solely with the film makers and the ppl paying them to do it. I’m not saying there was an ulterior motive to this documentary at all, but we know from history and what is happening right now in Europe and America that we need to question things to try to get to the truth and not rely on one or two sources of information. This is being encouraged by liberal governments. It’s surely a good thing that ppl don’t just passively accept everything presented to them as fact and question things that stand out to them.

I don’t think I’ve read one post saying her behaviour led her to being murdered deservedly.

As long as ppl are being respectful of Gabby and her family, they should be allowed to point out elements of her personality contained or omitted in the documentary and question why this was done.

I wonder whether their were threads on the documentary that a pp said earlier 'My wife, my abuser's about a male DV victim saying, 'well he was quite annoying, not that he deserved the abuse though'?

It is the oldest trick in the misogyny book to watch a documentary about a violent murder of a woman with evidence that he's abusive and instead of looking at the character of the murderer we look to assassinate the character of the woman.

@Notsosure1 Why would her character be discussed in court? Not why would her character be discussed in general.

His flaws were documented in the programme. People probably think it’s unnecessary to go over them again? I think the discussion is centred around presenting her in a more realistic rather than idealised way. It’s not about being disrespectful to her as a person, or a victim, but being truthful to who she really was to better understand her I think.

Sorry what do you mean?

I was responding to a poster who said her character would be discussed in court. I asked the poster why her character would be discussed in court.

You responded with why people would discuss her character after seeing the documentary. I'm asking why her character would be discussed in court.

The poster was saying that analysing her character as we were doing following her portrayal in the documentary would have also been the case in court had BL not killed himself and been tried for her murder. It was a hypothesis.

Us analysing her character here does not mean that her brutal murder was justified. The poster was noting that if BL had lived to see his day in court her character would have been analysed in a similar way by his defense team as a means to get his guilty admission reduced to manslaughter or whatever the lesser sentence is in the US. Still doesn’t justify her death and it would be a poor excuse to murder her, but they would use it. (feel like I have to repeat this often)

All just a hypothesis and discussion based on what was seen in the documentary. Nobody here is victim shaming or an undercover man trying to infiltrate MN. Just pure critical thinking and objective discussion without a personal relationship to either victim nor perpetrator.

@Worriedsickmostofthetime
That's not what the poster said. The poster said this:

As I said, if BL hadn’t killed himself he would have been tried for her murder, yes?
His sentencing would have been entirely dependent on whether the jury found him guilty of first degree or second degree murder. In the eyes of the law, there is a difference between him planning her murder for weeks or him ‘lashing out’
Her character would absolutely be discussed in order for the jury to decide whether it was 1st degree or 2nd degree.

So I'll ask you, why would her character be discussed in court?

Nobody here is victim shaming or an undercover man trying to infiltrate MN. Just pure critical thinking and objective discussion without a personal relationship to either victim nor perpetrator.

Why did you say this then? You other posters must have some personal relationship with Gabby

I don't think I understand the motivation of understanding her character more, pp called her annoying, highly strung etc. Why would anyone be discussing this if not to understand why he killed her, and therefore suggesting some of it was her fault? Otherwise, what's the point in assassinating a dead womans character?

Abusive men abuse women, vulnerable women, confident women, rich women, poor women and from every ethnicity and it's standard practice of society to somehow blame the woman. She could have left him, she wouldn't dare roll her eyes at him if she was scared of him - it's perpetuating myths around DV.

She very clearly says that her character would be discussed in court to try and get him a lesser sentence. Can you not understand why they would discuss her character? Is that not a statement of fact? Doesn’t make it right to crucify her character to get yourself off of a crime. But they sure would do it!

@Bakedpotatoes
Your post is spot on

How would discussing her character get him a lesser sentence? I understand what the poster wrote.

Good golly.
Hopefully it wouldn’t get him a lesser sentence because being annoying is not justification for being murdered. But you can bet your bottom dollar that they would pull up the exact same videos we watched to convince the jury that his acted in a reactionary way and not in a premeditated way.

I feel like I’m being baited here and you cannot possibly be that thick.

There's no need to question my intelligence. But we have the crux of your thinking here:

She's 'annoying' and he 'acted in a reactionary way and not in a premeditated way.'

This is why you began the thread in the first place, you think he had a reason to kill her - because she was 'annoying'.

It's highly unlikely that a man who murdered his girlfriend by bashing in her head and strangling her, would convince a jury that he reacted because she was 'annoying'.

It would be difficult to prove it was premeditated but any expert witness could explain how domestic abuse escalates and there was plenty of evidence that he was abusive.

You don't get a lesser sentence for murder because someone annoyed you. And you're calling me thick.

Ladies, I live in a country where a woman is raped every 12 minutes and I myself live behind burglar bars because it is just not safe. You cannot convince me that I am a victim shamer or don’t understand how awful men can be.

You will literally have to accept that I, on a Sunday afternoon, watched a documentary on Netflix for its interest value on a case which got global attention. I was genuinely surprised that the producers showed a side of Gabby which had not been portrayed at all. That of someone who didn’t seem all that happy to be in her van, was often displeased with her boyfriend etc. The documentary did not explore more of this.

I mean, if we wanted to be all sensitive and offended about this can we explore whether we think that Gabbys parents got paid for their part in this documentary? Do we think profiting from your daughter’s death is ok?

Dear oh dear... I would stop digging that hole if I were you OP.

You seem determined to cast a murder victim, and now her poor poor parents in a bad light.
It really is not a good look from you at all

BTW have you actually watched the whole thing now, because when you started this thread you had only seen one episode. .

Why are you surprised producers showed her uncomfortable in the van? It's not like that's a personal failing on her part. She was stuck in an abusive relationship, and van life isn't all it's cracked up to be. I got the impression she worked long hrs to pay for the trip/van, but obviously didn't have experience with editing and was frustrated by the lack of content they were able to produce.