I recently watched the new Netflix documentary American Murder: The Gabby Petito Story, a documentary that tells the story of Gabby Petito’s disappearance and death using real digital evidence. We see through her Instagram posts, text messages, police bodycam footage, and clips from her and her fiancé Brian Laundrie’s 4 month travel vlog. It’s a heavy, emotional watch and what stuck with me the most wasn’t just the tragedy itself, but how much of Gabby’s life was already being presented as content before the story became national news. The documentary really makes you think about the difference between how people appear online and what’s actually going on behind the scenes.
This made me think back to the film Portrait of Jason. That film also explores what it means to be “real” in front of a camera. Jason Holliday spends most of the movie performing through telling stories, laughing, crying, and joking about serious topics. You can tell he wants to control how the audience sees him, but as the film goes on, it gets harder to tell which parts of him are real and which are just part of his act. In the same way, American Murder shows us Gabby through her own edited videos and aesthetic social media posts. But behind the perfect videos, photos, and everything else she presented online, there was a much more serious and dangerous situation going on.
What’s powerful about both of these works is that they show how people behave when they know they’re being watched. Jason is trying to be entertaining, but you can also see he’s hurting. He puts on different masks, switching between characters, and trying to make himself appear more interesting or funny. Gabby does the same for her audience. She smiles for the camera, shares beautiful places she’s visiting, and makes the travel and van life seem peaceful and fun. During the trip, a police bodycam footage was released and shows Gabby’s interaction with the police after a fight with Brian, and you can tell she’s not okay. Her voice shakes, she cries, and she tries to downplay what happened. Just like Jason, she’s trying to hold it together and avoids showing signs of abuse, which is what was really going on.
Both films also show how being on camera can bring out a different version of a person. In Portrait of Jason, the camera slowly wears Jason down. At first, he seems confident and in control. But the longer the film goes on, the more cracks start to show. You see moments of real sadness and loneliness. In American Murder, the documentary shows us the version of Gabby she shared online, which was happy, in love, and secure. But it also shows the real Gabby who was scared, unsure, and hesitant. The police footage in particular shows the emotional weight she was carrying, which her social media never revealed.
There’s also something important to say about how both stories make the audience feel. Watching Portrait of Jason can be uncomfortable, because it’s not always clear whether we should be entertained or concerned as the film doesn’t give easy answers. Similarly, American Murder shows us the danger of mistaking performance for truth. Family, friends, and followers followed Gabby and Brian’s journey online and they looked like a perfect couple. But no one really knew what was going on between them until it was too late. The documentary makes us question how much we can ever really know about someone, especially when we only see what they choose to show.
In the end, both Portrait of Jason and American Murder make us think about performance and identity. They challenge us to look closer and not take things at face value. Whether it’s Jason telling stories or Gabby smiling in a van-life vlog, these are real people with real struggles, and what they show us might only be part of the story.
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