The best parts of Steven Mango's 'documentary' on Scientology's Celebrity Centre - 2014-01-29

The best parts of Steven Mango's 'documentary' on Scientology's Celebrity Centre January 29, 2014, Tony Ortega, Underground Bunker

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On Monday morning, we posted Steven Mango's two and a half hour video about his experience as a member of Scientology. Now that we've had some time to absorb the entire thing, we thought we'd highlight some of the really good stuff in it.

In our title, we put the word 'documentary' in quote marks because what Steven Mango has put together is probably better described as a testimonial. It's mostly him talking to a camera about his experiences, and at two and a half hours, it's ludicrously long.

The film particularly drags when Mango is talking about things he has no personal knowledge of — life in the Sea Org, for example, or Leah Remini's reasons for leaving Scientology. When he's not on camera, the film often relies on borrowed material from others that Mango didn't ask permission to use. We asked him about that, and he explained that he's really just an amateur and was unfamiliar with copyright law and didn't intend to harm anyone. We believe him, but that borrowed material will limit the video's reach — we'd like to see the best 20 to 30 minutes of Steven's own personal story pulled from it and edited professionally for a product that might have some real potential to reach a large audience.

Wikipedia cite:

{{cite news | author = Tony Ortega | title = The best parts of Steven Mango's 'documentary' on Scientology's Celebrity Centre | url = https://tonyortega.org/2014/01/29/the-best-parts-of-steven-mangos-documentary-on-scientologys-celebrity-centre/ | work = Underground Bunker | date = January 29, 2014 | accessdate = August 21, 2017 }}