Like most college students, I love to binge-watch TV shows on Netflix. However, I've also been kind of obsessed with watching documentaries for many years and find them far from boring. Here are some of my favorite ones that I have watched on Netflix that are now streaming:
1. "Bridegroom "
I first heard about this documentary after seeing a video about it on YouTube, titled “It Could Happen to You.” In this video, a man named Shane shares his tragic story about his relationship with his boyfriend, Tom. After watching this touching video, I had to see the documentary that talked about what unfolded between the two men. "Bridegroom" is one of the most touching, yet heart breaking documentaries I have ever seen. Their relationship ends, due to Tom’s sudden death. At the time, gay marriage was not allowed in California due to Proposition 8. This documentary tells what happened at a time when marriage equality was not yet legally recognized.
2. "Food, Inc."
Before watching this documentary, I didn’t know much about factory farming or where my food came from in general. "Food, Inc." really opened my eyes to the horrors of what happens when you combine big business with farming, and it’s graphic. Chickens get their beaks cut off so they don’t peck at each other. Pigs and cows can hardly move an inch their whole lives because they are confined to pens. Male chicks get shredded while they are still alive due to their inability to produce eggs. Watching this was extremely disturbing, and although it didn’t make me become a vegetarian or vegan, it did make me want to cut back on meat and dairy and think about where my food comes from.
3. For the Bible Tells Me So
This is another LGBT documentary that speaks out against the church’s denial of LGBT individuals. Five families with LGBT children are interviewed and express their experiences coming out and their families’ attitudes towards discovering that their children are gay or lesbian. Additionally, the filmmakers interview theologians and show clips of fundamentalist preachers. Most of all, this documentary reveals how people misuse and misinterpret the Bible that leads them to practice discrimination.
4. How to Survive a Plague
This is the type of documentary that I kept replaying in my mind a few days after watching it. It tells the history of the 1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic and how members of two activist groups, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and TAG (Treatment Action Group) fought against pharmaceutical companies, the government, and homophobia in order to push for a treatment for HIV/AIDS. They changed the misconception of HIV/AIDS as a “gay cancer” to a disease that could be managed successfully.
5. E-Team
I recently watched this documentary, not knowing what the “E-Team” was. The “E-Team” is a group called the Emergencies Team that is part of the Human Rights Watch. When crimes against humanity are committed by dictators, this team goes to the countries in question and documents what the local governments are trying to hide from the rest of the world. In particular, they go to Syria and Libya, where innocent civilians are getting killed every day, seemingly for no reason, leaving families devastated.
