5 hours Ago By mliss1578
A good documentary or docuseries generates discussion amongst its viewers, whether that discussion takes place online or on the couch among the people watching. If the discussion can center around more than one topic, all the better. A new HBO docuseries not only generates discussion about how family vloggers let strangers into all aspects of their lives, but how one family suffered when they had to make a gut-wrenching decision about a child they brought into their family via adoption.
AN UPDATE ON OUR FAMILY : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? Opening Shot: Disjointed shots of a YouTube page. “Online, fans get mad,” says a voice, “But I’ve never seen people get so angry about something.” The Gist: An Update On Our Family is a 3-part docuseries, directed by Rachel Mason and produced by Vox Studios that examines the phenomenon of family vloggers, centering on the Stauffer family.
In 2017, family vloggers Myka and James Stauffer went to China to adopt a two-and-a-half year-old boy with special needs, after constantly vlogging about the lead-up to the adoption with their loyal viewers. By 2020, though, the needs of the child, who they named Huxley, became too overwhelming; his presence in their videos ended, prompting quizzical and sometimes aggressive queries from the channel’s viewers. After they posted a video telling viewers that they found Huxley a new family, the backlash was swift and vitriolic, including death threats and reports to law enforcement.
The Stauffers themselves, the subject of a New York article by Caitlin Moscatello that formed the basis of the docuseries, refused to be interviewed. But hours of their videos, across three channels, still exist, including videos that Myka made with her daughter before she met James. Mason talks extensively to Hannah Cho, a mom who was not only an avid fan of the Stauffer’s channels, but was brought from her home country of South Korea when she was adopted by an American family.
Mason also talks to other family vloggers about their experience connecting with viewers, how to feed the YouTube algorithm for maximum exposure, and why they do what they do. She also talks to journalists (not Moscatello) and people on social media who were on the forefront of analyzing the Stauffer’s motivation in adopting Huxley in the first place. Was it for love or just for clicks and sponsirships? What Shows Will It Remind You Of? An Update On Our Family reminds us of the Hulu docuseries The Age Of Influence .
Our Take: While the description of An Update On Our Family says that the docusereies is about family vlogging, in reality it’s telling the story of the Stauffers and their adoption of Huxley. The decision to concentrate on the Stauffers leads to a maddening pace that feels like the show is taking its sweet time to getting to the part of the story it really wants to tell. The first episode establishes what Myka and James did to establish their YouTube channel and how they grew their subscriptions and viewership by not only vlogging about funny things but about the tough things, like Myka’s miscarriage.
The second episode takes a deep dive into how the couple took their viewers on their adoption journey, leading up to the family’s trip to China to meet Huxley. The third episode discusses how the Stauffers gained viewers and sponsors, largely via Huxley-centric content, and then goes into the backlash the family — especially Myka — got when they announced that they had to re-home Huxley. It’s a frustrating watch, one that seems to be setting up the Stauffers to take a hard fall in the last episode, when they make the tragic announcement about Huxley then take the backlash from every commenter with a TikTok or YouTube account.
Refreshingly, however, the third episode takes a more considered view. They dive further into issues surrounding transracial adoption and the fact that kids adopted from countries like China often have special needs. There is also a consideration of why there are adoption dissolutions, including an interview with a mother went through what the Stauffers did, albeit out of the public eye.
What’s also considered is the crux of what really brought the Stauffers so much criticism: They spent all of that time building their following and courting sponsors via videos that feature Huxley, someone who was unable to give or take away his consent. Especially egregious were sponsored videos that showed Huxley and the other Stauffer children, which made them unwitting spokespeople. Mason was smart in blurring the faces of every minor shown, even from the vlogging families that sat for interviews.
And every video of Huxley replaced him with a sketch-like drawing, which showed him interacting with his new family but didn’t show his face. It reinforces the message she was trying to convey, that these children were participating in these videos without any ability to say yes or no to that participation. So while we weren’t a fan of how the docuseries was structured, we appreciated the measured approach taken in the final episode.
While the Stauffers aren’t portrayed as sympathetic figures, it’s not because of the dissolution, but because of what they did during Huxley’s time with their family. Sex and Skin: None. Parting Shot: “Like, end of story, close the book, but there are still a lot of questions,” says Cho about the Stauffers.
Sleeper Star: At first, you wonder why Hannah Cho is featured so extensively in the series, aside from the fact that she wears killer dresses and her arms are covered in Hello Kitty tattoos. But then you find out about her history as a transracial adoptee, and you appreciate her input all the more. Most Pilot-y Line: We could have done without the input from Rachel and Harold Earls, family vloggers who haven’t courted controversy, were very vanilla, and, well, made the Stauffers seem like a daring and edgy family by comparison.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite the structure of the series, An Update On Our Family is a worthy watch, because it starts a discussion on multiple fronts, whether your interest is in how family vloggers leave nothing unsaid or how traumatic the adoption process can be for the children being placed. Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie.
His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.
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