Rec: "Three Identical Strangers"
Apr. 14th, 2021 02:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sasha_featherThree Identical Strangers - documentary, 2018. Source: Library. Dir: Tim Wardle.
This film is incredibly well-made and thought-provoking. Once I started watching I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. It's also sad.
You may want to watch it unspoiled, so, discussion and content notes are below the cut.
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Content notes: Unethical experimentation; a person dies from suicide. Talk of heavy drinking.
The first part of this story tells the often funny, seemingly improbable reunion of three identical twins who were separated at birth and raised by different adoptive families. The year is 1980. One of them goes off to attend a community college where he is welcomed warmly, but called by the wrong name. People keep wanting to hug him and they call him Eddy. A friend figures it out and they drive to Eddy's house, where the two of them meet for the first time. When this story gets in the papers, another brother sees it and discovers himself to be one of a set of three: Bobby, Eddy, and David.
They go on talk show circuits, live together, and eventually open a restaurant in NYC.
The second part of the movie reveals that these three were not separated by some kind of accident or simple bad decision. They were part of a secret experiment. From Wikipedia, the study was run by "psychiatrists Peter B. Neubauer and Viola W. Bernard, under the auspices of the Jewish Board of Guardians, which involved periodic visits and evaluations of the boys."
The results of this study were never published; in fact that data was locked away at Yale and put under some kind of seal, meaning the documentary film makers could not access it. I don't understand what sort of legal nonsense this is, nor why a Freedom of Information Act request couldn't let them get it; this isn't really explained in detail in the film.
The film focuses largely on the emotional toll this study took on the three boys and their families. (Eddy died from suicide at age 33, and the sense I got from the film is that his brothers and other family members were devastated in a way that they will never recover from.) The brothers felt like lab rats. The parents were furious. One aunt who is interviewed thoughtfully and sadly reflects on the loss the babies must have felt, being separated at six months old. Others comment upon how the brothers never really got a chance to grow up together and learn how to get along in a family environment. This same aunt, Hedy, remarks that from her own experiences of the Holocaust, she knows how evil it is to play with people's lives. The fact that everyone involved in this story (or nearly everyone) is Jewish, is a bitter irony.
The film makers track down two research assistants who worked for Neubauer in their youth. Both of these people come across as flippant and lacking in understanding of the harm they were involved in. One man says, well, it was his first job and he only worked there for 10 months; he never felt a sense of responsibility for the situation. Yet he kept his research notes for decades, which strikes me as odd. The other assistant called the study "monumental." Both of them seemed to think the science was important, but, as the study was never published, and never discussed in any kind of public way by the researchers, this also is jarring and odd. If you truly believe that your work is important and needed, you publish it, you disseminate the knowledge any way you can. Instead these scientists buried the research, which to me indicates they knew it was wrong, and that they felt ashamed. The adoption agency and funders were also complicit, of course: it was a whole system of people, and apparently no one spoke up to put a stop to it, not for decades.
Other siblings were involved in the study besides these three brothers; two sisters also appear in the film. But disturbingly, it seems that some of the twins never found out the truth at all.
This film is a scathing look at unethical research. If I were teaching a class on this subject I'd absolutely include it; it's very moving and thought-provoking. Bobby especially is charismatic and a good story teller who draws listeners in.
The film left me with sadness and questions, but only because that's how the people in the film feel too. Some of their questions will never be answered.
This film is incredibly well-made and thought-provoking. Once I started watching I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. It's also sad.
You may want to watch it unspoiled, so, discussion and content notes are below the cut.
.
..
...
Content notes: Unethical experimentation; a person dies from suicide. Talk of heavy drinking.
The first part of this story tells the often funny, seemingly improbable reunion of three identical twins who were separated at birth and raised by different adoptive families. The year is 1980. One of them goes off to attend a community college where he is welcomed warmly, but called by the wrong name. People keep wanting to hug him and they call him Eddy. A friend figures it out and they drive to Eddy's house, where the two of them meet for the first time. When this story gets in the papers, another brother sees it and discovers himself to be one of a set of three: Bobby, Eddy, and David.
They go on talk show circuits, live together, and eventually open a restaurant in NYC.
The second part of the movie reveals that these three were not separated by some kind of accident or simple bad decision. They were part of a secret experiment. From Wikipedia, the study was run by "psychiatrists Peter B. Neubauer and Viola W. Bernard, under the auspices of the Jewish Board of Guardians, which involved periodic visits and evaluations of the boys."
The results of this study were never published; in fact that data was locked away at Yale and put under some kind of seal, meaning the documentary film makers could not access it. I don't understand what sort of legal nonsense this is, nor why a Freedom of Information Act request couldn't let them get it; this isn't really explained in detail in the film.
The film focuses largely on the emotional toll this study took on the three boys and their families. (Eddy died from suicide at age 33, and the sense I got from the film is that his brothers and other family members were devastated in a way that they will never recover from.) The brothers felt like lab rats. The parents were furious. One aunt who is interviewed thoughtfully and sadly reflects on the loss the babies must have felt, being separated at six months old. Others comment upon how the brothers never really got a chance to grow up together and learn how to get along in a family environment. This same aunt, Hedy, remarks that from her own experiences of the Holocaust, she knows how evil it is to play with people's lives. The fact that everyone involved in this story (or nearly everyone) is Jewish, is a bitter irony.
The film makers track down two research assistants who worked for Neubauer in their youth. Both of these people come across as flippant and lacking in understanding of the harm they were involved in. One man says, well, it was his first job and he only worked there for 10 months; he never felt a sense of responsibility for the situation. Yet he kept his research notes for decades, which strikes me as odd. The other assistant called the study "monumental." Both of them seemed to think the science was important, but, as the study was never published, and never discussed in any kind of public way by the researchers, this also is jarring and odd. If you truly believe that your work is important and needed, you publish it, you disseminate the knowledge any way you can. Instead these scientists buried the research, which to me indicates they knew it was wrong, and that they felt ashamed. The adoption agency and funders were also complicit, of course: it was a whole system of people, and apparently no one spoke up to put a stop to it, not for decades.
Other siblings were involved in the study besides these three brothers; two sisters also appear in the film. But disturbingly, it seems that some of the twins never found out the truth at all.
This film is a scathing look at unethical research. If I were teaching a class on this subject I'd absolutely include it; it's very moving and thought-provoking. Bobby especially is charismatic and a good story teller who draws listeners in.
The film left me with sadness and questions, but only because that's how the people in the film feel too. Some of their questions will never be answered.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-14 08:24 pm (UTC)You sum up my reaction well. Given the righteous disgust at Josef Mengele's twin studies (horrifying details at the Holocaust Memorial), I'm just boggled that Neubauer and Bernard would even think of doing this.
... and then I went down a rabbit hole. Neubauer and Bernard have their defenders (didn't convince me)! Back, forth, and references to research which was published at Psychology Today.