Teenage Paparazzo, directed by Adrian Grenier, is a documentary that follows a young boy who has taken up the strange (for his age) profession of being a paparazzo. His name is Austin Visschedyk and when he starts his paparazzi work he is only 14.

Through the film we see signs that he is a shallow, stubborn child, but after watching the documentary himself a year later, he realizes what kind of person he has become and undergoes some deep changes. However, the film is about much more than that. It focuses on the world of idolism, and the interwoven relationship of paparazzi, celebrities, and their worshippers. The most interesting aspect of the movie is its focus on the ethics of being a paparazzo and the exploitation of celebrities.

The film is cut into many different sections to try to get a 360-degree view of what a paparazzo really is, but the most interesting subject Grenier explores is the ethical standpoint of taking photographs, which are then used to make false, insulting stories. Grenier interviews many paparazzi and they all end up evading the ethical points of their lives, while stressing the fact that everything they do is technically legal. Whoopi Goldberg points out that nothing on the Internet needs to be proven. People can say anything they wish about celebrities, as long as they have a photograph (taken by paparazzi) that looks like proof.

The film involves an in depth analysis of “parasocial” relationships; for instance how we all feel we know celebrities in an personal way, even though we have never met them. Grenier focuses on how celebrity magazines have realized that humans need some sort of people to idolize. And if they can take these perfect seeming people (these “gods”) and show that they have the same problems that normal people do then everyone will feel as though they can personally relate to these famous people. Since the beginning of time humans have worshiped beings they viewed as ideal, and now through photography those beings are brought into our everyday life and their humanity is revealed.

This movie reveals a world that one might never get a glimpse of on a day-to-day basis. It also explores some deep, philosophical questions about the human mind and what it means to worship people to a point of breaking moral boundaries to get a photograph of them.