Lance Oppenheim kinda-sorta responds to one Chris Hansen Primetime complaint

“I can’t really speak to that because I wasn’t there when that all happened, but I know — and I hope he knows — that this film is an exploration of what this kind of work does to the people who make it,” says Oppenheim. “It’s based on and inspired by the experiences of working inside an extremely dark world 24/7, attempting to do extremely serious journalism, and how that becomes also extremely confusing when you’re tasked with turning it into an entertaining television show.” 

So what does that work do to the people who make it? Well, Oppenheim says that the idea for Primetime came when his wife bought him a Cameo from Hansen for his birthday, and after saying his “take a seat” line, Hansen quickly went into promotion for his other projects. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, he’s not just the crusading journalist, he’s also an entertainer, and he’s also self-aware of this media persona that he’s cultivated for a very long time,'” says Oppenheim. “In a weird way, this film is almost an adaptation of the Cameo video. He had been absorbed into this strange, performative version of himself.” Later, Oppenheim calls To Catch A Predator “a form of performative justice,” comparing it to the pillory or whipping post from the olden days. Says Oppenheim, “It’s ingrained in our DNA to want this spectacle of justice.”