Many words could describe former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, but a Netflix documentary hits the nail on the head: trainwreck. Mayor of Mayhem, an episode in the streamer’s Trainwreck series, revisits the scandalous reign of Toronto’s crack-smoking mayor. It’s not pretty.
Netflix advises that Trainwreck covers “some of the most disastrous events ever to blow up in mainstream media.” Other episodes in the below-the-belt anthology series revisit disasters like the “poop cruise,” in which mechanisms including flushing toilets failed on a cruise ship, and issues of sexual harassment at American Apparel. Ford’s story may be the most chaotic saga. But it also perhaps offers the one worthiest of a deeper dive. Audiences won’t find that here. They will, however, get a bit more of the story than Run this Town delivered with its half-baked dramatization of the scandal. Trainwreck offers a dizzying reminder of the recent nadir of Toronto politics.
British director Shianne Brown captures the gist of Ford’s rise from city councillor to his 2010 election as mayor and the 2013 scandal that made international headlines before his death in 2016. Mayor of Mayhem covers little, if any new terrain and offers no smoking gun, but it recaps the affair in Netflix’s true crime fashion. The brisk recap inevitably gives the Ford saga a treatment that’s barely as deep as a Wikipedia entry. But it’s admittedly novel.
Mayor of Mayhem gets words from key players in the Ford story. Parties like Ford’s chief of staff Mark Towhey and receptionist Tom Beyers remember Ford’s longshot bid to become mayor after David Miller stepped down following the garbage strike of 2009. They dramatically convey Ford’s ascent. It’s a dramatic tale of a man of the people who built momentum with rallies that made headlines with inflated numbers. These tactics drive the Ford Nation gravy train from suburb to suburb across Ontario nowadays with Rob’s older brother Doug as Premier, on his third term, no less.
Trainwreck doesn’t take interest in these bigger picture facets of the Ford story, though. Only Toronto Star journalist David Rider suggests that Ford’s vilification of the media foreshadowed Donald Trump’s playbook.
Other key voices from newsrooms appear between B-roll re-enactments. Interviewees include Robyn Doolittle, who broke the story for the Toronto Star about the former mayor’s infamous crack video. Her presence is welcome, since she literally got written out of Run this Town even though she’s an essential player. Doolittle details the idiosyncrasies of Canadian media that let American tabloid website Gawker scoop the story while players in the drug trade were shopping the video around to outlets. With smart reporting and respect for ethics, that story, for better and for worse, defines an era in Canadian politics.
But one unlucky crack pipe proves just a gateway drug to a scandal-prone mayor. Trainwreck puts its foot on the gas and doesn’t let up, mirroring Ford’s own chaotic mayoralty. Journalists like Katie Simpson recall one of Ford’s many choice soundbites. Audiences around the world get to hear Ford address a former staffer’s claim that he wanted to perform oral sex on her. His defense, played in full, informs the media scrum that, as a married man, his appetite was heartily satisfied. Simpson’s gag to the camera in the archival clip offers a defining snapshot of Ford’s era.
There’s a deeper, sadder story here, too, that Trainwreck acknowledges but treads superficially, if delicately. Ford obviously has all the signs of a troubled addict. Towhey, for example, shares how he repeatedly advised Ford to go to rehab—until the mayor fired him. The viral videos and disastrous late night talk show appearances signal a man who desperately needed help.
Meanwhile, Ford’s former driver and security detail Jerry Agyemang offers kind words regarding Ford’s character. Members of city council point to an aggressive and adversarial politician during Ford’s reign of terror. Trainwreck aims for balance by offering a story of a nice, folksy guy who was a man of the people, but simply out of control. But in favouring the gonzo scandal that defined Ford’s legacy, it also sweeps many valid concerns regarding his tenure. This low-brow glimpse of the past risks leaving viewers with the sense that things aren’t so bad nowadays.
The blunders, soundbites, and gaffes, however, are so wild that one wouldn’t believe them in a scripted drama. Even one familiar with the tale can’t help but laugh aloud at the snippets. The documentary admittedly delivers superficial thrills aplenty at the expense of the deeper questions, but Trainwreck won’t go there by design with the poop cruise on deck for next week. It falls into a specific variety of true crime trap: easy infotainment without much interest in the systems that create and perpetuate such chaos.
The larger than life blunders pulled by the likes of Ford and, in turn, Trump ultimately mask the larger ills caused by boring old policies and social setbacks. Trainwreck’s interviewees are intelligent enough and empathetic enough to let audiences read between the lines. Audiences who do the work can find some takeaways. There’s underlying reminder about journalistic integrity and the value of sound policy over choice sloganeering. Trainwreck might not serve a full meal, but it gives audiences enough to eat at home.
