All this occurs unbeknownst to the tapes' subjects, raising all sorts of legal, privacy and ethical questions. To its credit, "Shut Up Little Man" attempts to address these questions, even at the expense of making Eddie and Mitchell look more sinister, superior and slimy than it probably intended. When the film finally spends some time with Pete, who is interviewed by a San Francisco journalist, the waters muddy. "Whom can I sue?" Pete asks. The waters further darken when we learn that a filmmaker interested in making a Pete and Ray movie seduces the lonely Pete into signing over his rights to any royalties for $10. The hilarious way "Shut Up Little Man" redacts the name of this filmmaker, and several others who have tried to make a movie out of the cassettes, doesn't prevent it from returning to those troubling questions of exploitation.
Eddie and Mitchell question this as well, and several times attempt to reach out to offer royalties to Pete after Ray's passing. They also embark on a side mystery to discover the whereabouts of a third party who occasionally shared Pete and Ray's apartment. On the tapes, he played mediator and may hold the key to the dynamic of the Pete-Ray relationship. Why did they stay together despite all that fighting? They fought like an old married couple, so were they lovers? Was Pete a self-hating gay man? These are answers I didn't need, and "Shut Up Little Man"'s journey down that road threatens to provide an unwarranted sense of closure when the other gentleman is found.
One question I did want "Shut Up Little Man" to answer, though I know it cannot, is "Why are Pete and Ray's interactions funny?" All Ray does is call Pete all manner of unfriendly gay names, and Pete responds with his catchphrase or by getting into fights with Ray. The rants make little to no sense most of the time. Both Ray and Pete cuss incessantly and it seems endless. If an arguing, fussing and cussing household is funny, then I grew up in an episode of Def Comedy Jam. But to me, it's not funny, and this isn't a generational issue. The "Shut Up Little Man" tapes surfaced when I was in my 20's, around the same time as other audio-verite features like The Jerky Boys and radio station prank calls. Twentysomething guys were the target audience, but I never found any of these items very amusing. Perhaps, as one of "Shut Up Little Man"'s talking heads notes, finding amusement in audio-verite requires the human trait of being voyeuristic and nosy about other people. This isn't a trait of mine, because Kitty Cat, I know what happens to nosy fellows.
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