It’s rare that I ever feel like I should apologize for having watched a documentary but that was the feeling I had after watching Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy.

This documentary examined the career and death of actor Matthew Perry, with most of the emphasis being put on Perry’s struggle with addiction.  Excerpts were read from his book.  Lots of clips were shared from Friends.  People in the industry talked about what a charming actor Perry was and they also talked about how hard it is to free oneself from addiction.  This is especially true when you’re rich enough to have a bunch of people around you who will literally respond to your every whim and not take a second to ask, “Are you sure?”  One of the worst things about celebrity culture is that we tend to root for the worst until it actually happens.  When an actor is publicly struggling with addiction or their mental health, it’s treated as entertainment  It’s only after that actor dies that we talk about how tragic it was and people hop on social media to talk about how addiction is a disease and no one should be shamed for their struggle.

And that brings me to documentaries like this one.  There’s something really hypocritical about these documentaries that take a real life tragedy and turn it into entertainment while pretending to be a tribute or a serious examination of the addiction crisis in America.  For instance, this documentary tells you absolutely nothing that you didn’t already know about Matthew Perry and his tragic death and it really doesn’t do a good job of paying tribute to him as an actor either.  Those clips from Friends are the same clips that you’ve seen on every other special about the life of Matthew Perry.  There’s really no reason for this documentary to exist, other than to appeal to the desire of viewers to learn something sordid about a well-known figure.  It’s a documentary that exploits Perry’s death while claiming to mourn it.

And I’m not saying anything that you haven’t already heard or which hasn’t been said by hundred other people.  Nearly every review that I’ve read of this documentary says basically the same thing that I just said.  It’s exploitive and doesn’t have much to add to our overall understanding of how someone with so much talent and so many fans could also be so self-destructive.  And yet, while we all criticize documentaries like this, many of us still watch them.  I still watch them.  I watched this one.  I learned absolutely nothing new and I felt fairly guilty afterwards.  Matthew Perry’s death was a tragedy and a cautionary tale and, at the same time, it should take nothing away from the happiness that he brought his fans.  He deserved better than this.  For that matter, he deserved better than all of the speculative stories that came out after his appearance on the Friends Reunion Special.

But I can’t get self-righteous or too quick to condemn.  Because I did watch this.  I was bored, I saw that it was streaming, and I watched it.  And I’ll probably watch the next trashy celebrity documentary that come out.  I won’t feel good about it but I’ll probably do it.  I doubt I’ll be alone.