Weiner: A Documentary

Anthony D. Weiner is a New York politician who became a candidate in the 2013 New York City mayoral campaign (Handy). Weiner’s unsuccessful campaign came on the heels of his ouster from Congress as a Democratic U. S. Representative in 2011. He was forced out of Congress in 2011 because he sent a sexually explicit, flabbergasting photograph on his public Twitter account to a female follower. In an apparent effort to outdo himself, Weiner was caught in a second sexting scandal at the outset of his mayoral campaign. In order to hide his obsession with exposing himself to his constituency, Weiner sent other explicit photos and engaged in phone calls with an Indiana woman under the alias Carlos Danger. The woman, who presented herself as a 22 year old follower, was in fact Sydney Leathers, an alleged porn star and reticent albeit willing publicity seeker (Reisman). Their relationship, which started in 2011, was initially innocuous. Weiner and Leathers simply exchanged messages on Facebook, but Weiner later turned the conversations into sexual exchanges. As things progressed, the pair sent each other nude photos and engaged in prurient conversations by phone as often as five times a day. The scandal broke because Leathers’ boyfriend saw a message that Weiner had left for her, stating that his brother was aware of the affair. Her boyfriend was very upset and threatened to go public about the incident. Leathers, concerned about the story the boyfriend would tell, decided to get in front of the story and release it on her own terms (Reisman). Huma Abedin, unfortunate for her, Hillary Clinton’s long time aide, and former Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department, was pregnant with their child at the time of the scandal (Garcia).

The scandal broke when Leathers, hoping for anonymity, provided the contents of the texts and photos to The Dirty, a gossip website that is essentially true to its name (Reisman). The website posted the inflammatory information and explicit photos, and the Weiner campaign was unable to articulate an intelligible reply. The BuzzFeed staffers were able to determine Leather’s identity and after a few unanswered messages to her Facebook, proceeded to associate her name to the texts and photos.  Within hours the new celebrity was flown to Los Angeles for interviews. Although her behavior seems inconsistent with the term “reticent,” Leathers indicates that the outcome was not her original plan.  

The Documentary

Weiner, which is a full length documentary of the failed candidate’s campaign for mayor, gives extraordinary access to the politician’s world, entrée that most people would never allow to be filmed, much less allow to be distributed worldwide (“Weiner’: Sexts”). Documentary makers Josh Kreigman and Elyse Steinberg were granted such an open door into the candidate’s world because Kreigman had worked for Weiner previously. Kreigman was Weiner’s Chief of Staff at the Congressman’s district office. Kreigman, who became a filmmaker after his stint as chief of staff, asked Weiner to do a documentary with him, but initially the politician declined. Later, once Weiner decided to run for mayor, he asked Kreigman to document his campaign. In the documentary, Weiner speaks into the camera, giving the viewer quite a bird’s eye view. There is footage of private moments with his wife, business moments in his office and the challenge of the campaign trail.

Kreigman and Steinberg both expressed a passionate interest in character-driven verite (Saito). It is a type of cinematography, which, loosely defined is a documentary based on a character who drives or moves the story forward while the camera, in effect, becomes part of the story, as well. Most documentaries just show the subject, doing what they do. In verite, the audience knows there is a camera because, for example, Weiner is talking into the camera lens, or the producer can be heard in the background asking a question that further explains a concept that may not be clear to the viewer, or the cameraman, like Kreigman, is in the documentary because another camera is filming him, filming Weiner. The long running TV series COPS is also an example of the verite style, where you can see the police officer chasing a suspect, and the cameraman is running with the cops in an effort to shoot the footage, and perhaps he trips, and you see the camera fall to the ground, and you see the event take place from that angle, or you get the scratchy black and white lines across the screen and fade to black.

When asked what he learned about his former boss, Kreigman said that he was most surprised by Weiner’s intention to see his campaign and the documentary project through despite the controversy (Garcia). Steinberg said that unlike Kreigman, she did not know Weiner prior to filming, what she found was the person she believed him to be was not the person that Weiner actually was, not too surprising since this was probably true for most people, particularly Huma. 

Psychologists Weigh in on Weiner’s Mindset

Many wonder how a man who lost his coveted, longtime job as a Congressman, because of a sexting scandal, could run for another public job, knowing full well that he was engaged in career-ending behavior. Numerous thoughts come to mind. First, he must be extremely naïve to think that you can send pictures of yourself through the technological universe and no one would ever find out. Second, he has an intensely high level of poor judgment, to the extent that becoming a mayor, in a city as important as New York, would be a security risk. Third, the fact that he is so trusting of a person who is engaged in illicit behavior indicates, as the leader of a big city, that his gullibility far exceeds that of even a teenage boy. In a Vanity Fair article written by Bruce Handy, called What’s Wrong with Anthony Weiner?, three psychotherapists weigh in on Weiner’s stability, without giving a formal diagnosis or drawing clinical conclusions.  

Ana Fels, a psychiatrist and a faculty member at the Weill Cornell Medical College, on the question of what was most disturbing in the documentary, she responded that Weiner’s lack of impulse control stood out (Handy). The ease with which he took risks was stunning. He not only took risks with his career, but he took risks with his family and almost all components of his life. It was not clear to Fels whether he had poor judgment or whether it was poor impulse control, but perhaps it was a bit of both. Jeannette Stern, a psychiatric social worker who treats couples stated that Weiner seemed to have an addiction, adding that when you have an addiction, your judgment is “skewed” (Handy). In agreement with Fels, Stern said that Weiner had an impulsivity problem. She alluded to a scene in the film where Weiner was in a deli, and a man there heckled him, Weiner exploded at the man. But politicians are heckled all the time. Heckling is something that they have to learn to deal with in a politically correct way. Meg Kaplan, a clinical psychologist who deals with sexual disorders, and a faculty member at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, said that Weiner’s behavior was more reflective of “compulsive sexual behavior, or hypersexual behavior” rather than an addiction (Handy).

In addressing Weiner’s relationships with those close to him, Fels said, that Weiner suffers from an “incredible lack of interpersonal sensitivity” (Handy). After the second sexting scandal, when his manager and staff were devastated by the news and were feeling betrayed, Weiner did not seem to recognize the level of pain he had caused. Also, the fact that he would subject his wife and child to being filmed through the campaign, through the second scandal, through some of their most intimate moments, and through what looked like the crumbling of his marriage is an indication that Weiner does not have any level of recognition or appreciation for the hurt, humiliation and betrayal that he has put those closest to him through (Handy). 

Stern attributed his participation in the run for mayor and the documentary as his insatiable need for attention (Handy). Fels raised an interesting point, that not only does Weiner crave attention, and have a poor sense of recognition of others’ feelings, but he has an obtuse sense of “grandiosity about himself” (Handy). He lacks a true awareness for what other people actually feel about him. Larry O’Donnell conducted a disparaging interview with Weiner, on MSNBC, in which O’Donnell started the interview by asking Weiner, “What is wrong with you?” (Alman) A question that would humiliate most guests, but Weiner bantered on, and in the end thought that he did a great job dealing with Larry O’Donnell, to which his wife said, no, that the interview was a disaster. But Weiner wanted to watch the interview again, and was quite taken with the way he handled it. Stern suggests that this type of behavior reflects a disconnect with reality. For Weiner it is all about attention and public office seeking, so that he can derive more and more attention. Fels added that Weiner is in a bubble and is basically clueless. All of this makes sense when you consider that Sydney Leathers and the other six women he sexted, were willing to give him the attention that he so craved, to such an extent that the risk of career, family and public reputation was not as big as his need for attention and adulation.

But What About Huma?

Another big question that arises from the documentary is how does a woman with Huma Abedin’s credentials, intelligence, career trajectory, and position on the world’s stage, stay with a disgraced man like Weiner? In a video that appeared on The Daily Beast website, Huma, a very beautiful and articulate woman, explained her position on the matter of her husband’s scandal (Abedin). Abedin stated that after Weiner left Congress, the result of the initial sexting scandal, the couple faced a very difficult time in their marriage. But, after much discussion, consideration, work and hours and hours of therapy, Huma decided to forgive Weiner, for herself, for their child and for their family. She made it clear to the audience that she was well aware of what Weiner had done, and called his actions, horrible mistakes, both before he left Congress and after. The pair discussed their situation and she has decided to forgive him. Abedin also stated that she loved him. After listening to Abedin on the video, you come to the realization that first of all, Weiner is a very lucky man to have done the things that he has admitted to doing, for it to play out in front of the whole world, and for her to come out of all of the scandal still loving him. The video really answers the question that everyone with any level of intelligence would wonder about. How can Huma stay with him? When you listen to her presentation at the press conference, you see her intelligence, you see her strength, you see her loyalty. Despite the fact that we are all yelling at the TV set as a collective whole, “run Huma! Run for your life,” it becomes really clear why she has endured this scandal and has seemingly come out on the other side. The answer is actually quite simple, Huma Abedin loves Anthony Weiner, and she wants to give her marriage a chance.  She recognizes that she is not sure what will happen in their future, but she wants to try, and for this Anthony D. Weiner should thank his lucky stars.

Works Cited

Abedin, Huma. "Huma Abedin Addresses Husbands Scandal." The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast Company, LLC. 23 May 2016. Video. 22 June 2016. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/23/the-trials-of-hillary-clinton-s-second-daughter-huma-abedin-it-s-like-living-a-nightmare.html>.

Alman, Ashley. "Lawrence O’Donnell To Anthony Weiner: ‘What Is Wrong With You?’" Huffington Post. TheHuffintonPost.com Inc. 10 September 2013. Web. 22 June 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/anthony-weiner-lawrence-odonnell_n_3897489.html>.

Garcia, Maria. "Weiner: Sexts, Lies & Damage Control (INTERVIEW)." Biography. A&E Television Networks, LLC. n. d. Web. 22 June 2016. <http://www.biography.com/news/anthony-weiner-documentary-review>.

Handy, Bruce. "What’s Wrong with Anthony Weiner? We Asked Some Psychotherapists." Vanity Fair. Conde Nast. 24 May 2016. Web. 22 June 2016. <http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/05/anthony-weiner-psychologists>.

Reisman, Abraham. "The Secret Struggle of the Woman Who Took Down Weiner." New York Mag. New York Media, LLC. 20 May 2016. Web. 22 June 2016. <http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/05/pain-triumph-weiner-sexter-sydney-leathers.html>.

Saito, Stephen. "Interview: Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg on Running with “Weiner” ." The Moveable Fest. 21 May 2016. Web. 22 June 2016. <http://moveablefest.com/moveable_fest/2016/05/josh-kriegman-elyse-steinberg-weiner.html>.

Stern, Marlo. "The Trials of Hillary Clinton’s ‘Second Daughter,’ Huma Abedin: ‘It’s Like Living a Nightmare’" The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast Company, LLC. 23 May 2016. Web. 22 June 2016. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/23/the-trials-of-hillary-clinton-s-second-daughter-huma-abedin-it-s-like-living-a-nightmare.html>.