Today in angry people on Twitter: My Octopus Teacher and tentacle porn
So, there’s this documentary. Netflix’s My Octopus Teacher, directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, centers on Craig Foster, a filmmaker who forges a bond with an octopus in the wild. And before we get into all the sturm und drang of the thing as it exists on Twitter, take a moment to watch the trailer. First of all, it is very cool to look at because the ocean is, to use a technical term, bonkers. But second, the tone is important here, and before we start talking about octopi and eroticism and stuff we should probably all be on the same page. Go on. Hit play. Enjoy the weepy music.
Welcome back! You may have picked up on an undercurrent of plaintive longing and hushed wonder throughout that video. It’s intentional! The story put forth by the doc is, unabashedly, one of a life-changing connection betwixt diver and octopus. It’s right there in the trailer. You would not be alone in sensing that vibe, probably because the octopus is filmed like she’s in a flashback about a dead wife in a comic book character’s gritty origin story.
Craig Foster was diving, bare-chested, in bitterly cold waters off the southern-most tip of Africa when he saw her—an octopus hiding under a cloak of shells and stones.
Enchanted, he began following this incredibly shy creature, trying to prove he wasn’t a predator by staying very still in her presence. For weeks she evaded him: hiding in her den, camouflaging herself, or pushing her liquid body into the nearest crack to escape.
And then, after 26 days of near obsessive wooing, she reached out and touched him.
