Line #11 Film/Jonestown


1	[[quoteright:261:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jonestown_1700.jpg]]
2	%%[[caption-width-right:261:(Please have some taste if you're going to caption this.)]]
3	%%
4	%% Previous caption removed per the Caption Discussion/Repair thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900&page=206#comment-5142
5	%% Please consult that thread if you'd like to suggest a new caption
6	%%
7	''Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple'' is a 2006 documentary by Stanley Nelson, which aired in 2007 on Creator/{{PBS}}' ''American Experience''. It charts the story of UsefulNotes/JimJones and his Peoples Temple from their noble beginning in TheFifties, to their controversial history in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco in most of TheSeventies, to the notorious mass suicide at their Guyana compound on November 18, 1978. The film lacks any narration, instead allowing the story to be told by former Temple members themselves and archive footage of Jones.
8
9	The film is noted for being much more respectful about the event than other TV documentaries, some of which have tried to replay the story from a more sensationalistic angle. ''Jonestown'' takes a more subdued route and treats the carnage dead seriously. It received the Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.
10
11	----
12	!!Tropes:
13	* AffablyEvil: Jones' early Temple films show him enthusiastically describing the positive atmosphere and social safety nets the Temple affords to its members. He was also heavily involved in the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement, which won him significant support from the black community and liberal activists.
14	* AlliterativeName: Jim Jones.
15	* AnswersToTheNameOfGod: Here's his favored sales pitch, meant to entice newcomers to his flock, though in hindsight we know what it really means.
16	-->"If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. If you see me as your father, I'll be your father... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."
17	* AnyoneCanDie: Jones' victims included a congressman, a news team from Creator/{{NBC}}, and over 900 of his own followers.
18	* ApocalypseCult: Jones kept his church under control with fears of apocalypse. In TheSixties, he convinced his followers to move with him to the Redwood Valley, which a magazine article said could withstand fallout from a nuclear war. In Jonestown, he pumped people with made-up stories about America persecuting its racial minorities. When Ryan arrived, many were fearful that their children would be sent to concentration camps, which led some to choose suicide.
19	* ApocalypticLog:
20	** Jones' "death tape", in which he tells his followers that the Temple has failed and that their only course of action left is "revolutionary suicide".
21	--->"If we can't live in peace, we can ''die'' in peace."
22	** Shortly before the "revolutionary suicide" begins, we see grainy footage of the cultists firing at Congressman Ryan and his delegation at the Port Kaituma airstrip before it fades to static as the cameraman is shot.
23	* BecauseDestinySaysSo: Jones' rationalization for the unfolding massacre.
24	* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Once Congress got a whiff of what was going on, Jones figured the party was over, so he poisoned all of his prisoners to send a message to the government.
25	* TheCaligula: As Jones' mental health deteriorated and his excesses increased, so did Jonestown's standard of living and the treatment of its denizens.
26	* CameraAbuse: NBC cameraman Bob Brown was among those killed in the airstrip shooting. Footage from his camera, which had fallen to the ground, shows the Temple shooters climbing out of the dump truck and shooting at Ryan's delegation.
27	* CannedOrdersOverLoudspeaker: Jones did this a lot while in Jonestown.
28	* CaptainErsatz: InUniverse. Although the tragedy at Jonestown gave the English language the phrase "DrinkingTheKoolAid", the poisoned punch at Jonestown was not Kool-Aid but a knockoff brand called Flavor-Aid.
29	* CrapsaccharineWorld: Jonestown was depicted as a paradise in Temple films and enticed many followers to leave for Guyana permanently. Once they arrived, they were never allowed to leave, were forced to live and work in spartan conditions while Jones lived in comparable luxury, and were routinely tormented by Jones and his drug-addled madness. [[note]](Ironically, the promised utopia was actually close to the truth... until Jones and the bulk of the church started moving there. A community that had been generally happy and able to survive pretty well on subsistence farming suddenly had to deal with a large, abrupt increase in population. Between that and Jones' insanity, things went downhill fast.)[[/note]]
30	* CreepyChild: According to Jones' friends in Indiana.
31	* CorruptChurch: Jones can be heard saying "blasphemous" things about God, Heaven, and the Bible. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that the Temple evolved into more of a Marxist political organization than a religious one as he became more power-hungry and paranoid. Jones had always used religion for his own personal ends and didn't really hesitate to discard the church's purported Pentecostalism for Marxist ideology. At some point, it seems he started to [[BelievingTheirOwnLies believe the lies]] he'd told.
32	* {{Cult}}: One of the most notorious and enduring examples in history.
33	* DarkMessiah: Jones' life ambition was to die a martyr. To that end, he spent years mixing with the social potpourri of San Francisco, cultivating a church of impressionable people who believed the world was on the brink on nuclear annihilation.
34	* DeathOfAChild:
35	** Tim Carter, one of the few Temple members to leave Jonestown alive on the day of the massacre, recalls watching his son die from cyanide poisoning.
36	** Carter's story comes at the same time we hear the actual audio recording of the beginning of the massacre, in which children were forced to take the poisoned punch first. Young kids can be heard screaming in the background while Jones tells his followers to keep going.
37	* DeathSeeker: Jones not only applied this trope to himself, but to everyone and everything around him. The film suggests that Jones had always sought death; as a kid, he held funerals for (and allegedly killed) stray animals. Several incidents are described which suggest that Jones had planned a mass suicide years before the move to Guyana.
38	* DirtyCommies: Jim Jones' movement was a weird combination of religious fervor and utopian socialism. By the time of the mass suicide, Jonestown had the worst aspects of a socialist society; beatings, torture, and a population subjected to the mad whims of an absolute ruler.
39	* DoomedExpedition: Leo Ryan's fact-finding mission to Jonestown. Jones' death squad rolled up and shot Ryan and his delegation as they were boarding the plane. Back at the compound, Jones claimed no involvement in the attack, but "prophesied" the Congressman's death from a stray shot by his guards (he was actually shot more than 20 times). As Jones' self-discipline later started to slip, he admitted to ordering Ryan's murder.
40	%%* DownerEnding: A ForegoneConclusion.
41	* DramaticIrony: Jones denouncing euthanasia from the pulpit. "Who's going to decide who and when a person is going to die? We must never allow that!"
42	* DrinkingTheKoolAid: The massacre was the TropeCodifier, though not necessarily the TropeMaker (what they actually drank was a similar product called Flavor Aid).
43	* DrivenToSuicide: For almost the entire Jonestown settlement, on an enormous scale. Although some of the survivors would call it a [[PopCultureOsmosis mass murder instead of]] a mass suicide, since they were tricked or forced into doing it. [[note]](Jones couldn't have done what he did alone. He had plenty of true believers/henchmen who were happy to help, including but not limited to Annie Moore, Sharon Amos, Carolyn Layton, Maria Katsaris, Larry Schacht, and all those who assisted him with giving/injecting the cyanide; Larry Layton and the other airstrip assassins; the guards with guns and crossbows that ringed the pavilion that prevented people from leaving; and Jones' wife Marceline, who helped coax people into drinking the poisoned punch. These were Jones' co-conspirators, not his victims.)[[/note]] Jones is widely considered to be the only person who ''really'' committed suicide, as he [[DirtyCoward shot himself in the head rather than drink the poison]] like his followers.
44	* EverybodysDeadDave: The reaction of the few survivors, who are clearly still haunted by the events they describe in their interviews. (The presence of Jones' gun-wielding goons ensured that hardly anyone survived - of the over 900 people in Jonestown on that fateful day, only ''four'' managed to escape.)
45	* EyeBeams: Jones claimed that this was the reason for his SinisterShades.
46	* FakingTheDead: Jackie Speier tried to do this during the airstrip shooting. This didn't stop one of the Temple shooters from hitting her point-blank.
47	* ForDoomTheBellTolls: Heard at the start of the movie, then later right before the punch is brought out.
48	* AGodAmI: As time went on Jones started to view himself as an inerrant godlike figure, and many of his followers agreed (while other more pragmatic followers overlooked these claims because they felt the cause was the important thing).
49	* TheHedonist: Temple members, both male and female, recall sleeping with or being sexually assaulted by Jones, who was rarely sober.
50	* HeroicBSOD: Some Temple survivors recall experiencing these while witnessing the carnage unfold around them.
51	* TheHorseshoeEffect: Jones' vision of the future was a socialist paradise, but Jonestown had many attributes of facsism: extreme surveillance of the residents, forced labor with little pay, and isolation from the outside world.
52	* IWillFindYou: The relatives of the Temple members trapped in Jonestown.
53	* IfICantHaveYou: Jones was ready to have Temple members shot and poisoned before allowing them to leave.
54	* InterfaithSmoothie: Despite starting out as a Pentecostal pastor, Jones became increasingly critical of Christianity as time went on and began preaching a concept he called "apostolic socialism". Then he quit bothering with that and [[AGodAmI flat-out declared himself God]]. The general thrust throughout this evolution was that his was the only road to an egalitarian paradise.
55	* KubrickStare: Hue Fortson describes an incident where a female member who expressed romantic interest in Jones was stripped naked and denigrated in front of the entire Temple. Fortson noticed Jones giving her this over his sunglasses while sporting a SlasherSmile.
56	* LetNoCrisisGoToWaste: Part of Jones' rants over the Jonestown speaker system were claims that America had gone full fascist and were sending all of their minorities to concentration camps.
57	* MadeASlave: Jonestown inhabitants were made to work at almost all hours of the day, had to live in cramped rooms and huts, and were not permitted to leave the settlement except in (extremely) rare circumstances.
58	* ManlyTears: The male Temple survivors, ''especially'' Tim Carter.
59	* MaskOfSanity: One follower remembers an incident in the San Francisco Temple where Jones asked everyone to gather and drink from a vat of punch, before telling them that they just drank poison and were about to die. Then he tells everyone that there was no poison and that they have just taken a [[SecretTestOfCharacter test of loyalty]]. It makes you wonder how long Jones planned the mass poisoning in advance.
60	* MurderBySuicide: A large-scale example. Jones manipulated his followers into being largely willing to kill themselves for him, with his goons shooting anyone who refused, all in order to spite the people coming to break up Jonestown and potentially save its denizens.
61	* MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting: Jones' sermons, being geared toward post-UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement black audiences, were full of this. While initially justified, they soon evolved into obsessive anti-government paranoia.
62	* OffingTheOffspring:
63	** A massive example. Jonestown's children were the first to be given the cyanide-laced punch. Their parents led them to the vat, where they were either forcibly injected or had the poison squirted into their mouths.
64	** Tim Carter walked in on his wife as she was squirting a poisonous syringe into their baby son's mouth, and then took the poison herself. He graphically describes the poison's effects on the baby.
65	* PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny: The Peoples Temple and how it was run, with a message of social tolerance undermined by its being incredibly authoritarian leader. Jonestown was functionally a mini-totalitarian state, complete with armed guards, propaganda about how evil the outside world is, and brutal punishments for dissent.
66	* PhotoOpWithTheDog: Horrible as Jones was, he was a hero among impoverished blacks and white liberals for championing civil rights and often providing legal services and nursing homes for his followers.
67	* PlotArmor: Pointedly {{averted}}. Congressman Leo Ryan, likely out of naivete, seemed to think he had this when he told Vernon Gosney, a Temple defector, that he had "the congressional shield of protection around you". Gosney looked at Ryan as if he were "totally insane". Both Gosney and Ryan were shot at the airfield, the latter fatally.
68	* PrecisionFStrike:
69	** Jones, as quoted by Tim Carter: "[[DepravedBisexual I can fuck you in the ass if you want.]]"
70	** Then Carter himself: "It was fucking slaughter. Total fucking slaughter."
71	* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy: A very dark example. It is noted that Jones' early sermons had a lot in common with African-American churches, which made him popular with that demographic at a time when segregation was the norm. It is also theorized that Jones may have related with the black community through his own ostracization from society.
72	* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: One of the greatest RealLife examples out there. Jones started as a weird but friendly child that grew into a young man who believed in racial equality and socialism as a way to improve other people's lives. He then decided that TheEndJustifiesTheMeans, then got DrunkWithPower, and then things got worse. ''Much worse.''
73	* RedEyesTakeWarning: Due to his excessive drug abuse, Jim Jones' eyes were noticeably bloodshot pretty much all the time (which is the reason he wore his trademark SinisterShades)
74	* ReligionOfEvil: While it didn't start out this way, Jim Jones' cause degenerated from egalitarianism to blind worship of its increasingly maddened leader.
75	* SceneryGorn: Jonestown post-punch.
76	* SecretTestOfCharacter:
77	** How Jones characterized the trial runs for the massacre, where he'd gather his followers, convince them they were under attack, and have them pledge one-by-one that they were willing to die for the cause (and at least twice Jones actually gave them what he said was poison). Which is why it took a while for everyone to realize that the final meeting was the real thing.
78	** He'd also announce loyalty tests where {{Fake Defector}}s would ask their friends to help escape Jonestown, and they would be required to denounce them. Of course, this also discouraged genuine defectors from seeking help from family and friends.
79	* SinisterMinister: Jones psychologically and sexually abused his followers even before he coerced them into moving to a remote settlement in a strange country that he ran as his own psychotic fiefdom. The poisonings were merely the logical conclusion to his escalating behavior.
80	* SinisterShades: His trademark look [[note]](intended to hide the redness in his eyes caused by heavy painkiller and amphetamine abuse)[[/note]].
81	* TheSociopath: By the time of Ryan's visit, Jones was a controlling, egotistical, abusive, promiscuous madman. He soon ordered the murder of Ryan, then his followers to kill their children and commit suicide.
82	* StepfordSmiler: Temple members in archival footage who expound how great it is living in Jonestown.
83	* AStormIsComing: [[PlayedStraight Played eerily straight]] in RealLife. On the day of the massacre, hours before the vat was brought out, a severe thunderstorm poured torrential rain on the settlement. Survivor Tim Carter remarks that it was "as if evil itself had blown into Jonestown".
84	* TakingYouWithMe: What Jones' "revolutionary suicide" ''really'' was.
85	* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: The film hints that there was something seriously wrong with Jones as far back as his childhood.
86	* ThinkOfTheChildren: Christine Miller objects to the mass suicide.
87	-->'''Christine:''' I look at all the babies and I think they deserve to live.\
88	'''Jones:''' I agree, but what's more [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth they deserve peace.]]
89	* TruthInTelevision: Your children (and all of your family and friends) can be compelled to let themselves die based on the word of someone who is supposed to be their spiritual leader.
90	* UncannyVillage: Jonestown, which was purportedly built as a left-wing utopia but almost immediately evolved into a dystopia.
91	* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Before Guyana, Jones had a popular following among liberals and radical leftists in the United States, owing to the political and social activities of the Peoples Temple. In particular, Jones managed to forge links with UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco politicians George Moscone, Harvey Milk, and Willie Brown, as well as Vice President Walter Mondale and First Lady Rosalyn Carter.
92	* VillainProtagonist: Jones starts out very much a protagonist, but becomes more of a villain as his power and paranoia grow. He becomes a full-blown monster by the time the Temple settles in Guyana. [[note]](Jones was never truly fully benevolent. During his early preaching days, he claimed he received prophetic messages about congregants {he had his inner circle call up congregants' friends and family, and dig through people's trash to find out information about them} and had "faith healings" where he claimed to cure cancer {the "cancer" he claimed he pulled out of people's bodies were just chicken giblets he had hidden up his sleeve} and heal serious injuries {again, members of his inner circle pretending to be disabled and then "miraculously" cured}. Also, public beatings and humiliations of his congregants began many years before the move to Guyana, as did the draining of their bank accounts. On some level, Jones had always been an abusive fraud.)[[/note]]
93	* VillainousBreakdown: The whole massacre can be seen as this. In news footage, Jones becomes increasingly anxious as more and more Temple members choose to defect to Ryan's delegation. Knowing his paranoid nature, we are not surprised when he takes the extreme measures of having Ryan assassinated and organizing the mass death of his group.
94	* WouldHurtAChild: Jones demanded that the poison be given first to the Temple's children.

Context Film / Jonestown