“What Jennifer Did,” Netflix’s new documentary, is accused of using photographs of a convicted murderer generated or manipulated by artificial intelligence.
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The new Netflix documentary, ‘What Jennifer Did,’ tells the real and chilling story of Jennifer Pan, who in 2010 hired hitmen to kill her parents after they discovered all the lies their daughter was telling about her life, including her academic achievements.
Throughout the program, interviews, police tapes, and photographs of the Canadian woman are shown to explain how Pan was deceiving her parents and what happened on the night she desperately called 911 to report intruders in her family’s home.
But despite the documentary being based on a true story, some viewers believe that the photographs included in the program were manipulated, after noticing some odd details. In one of the conducted interviews, Nam Nguyen, a former high school friend of Pan’s, describes her as “cheerful, happy, confident, and very genuine,” his words accompanied by a series of pictures of Pan in a red dress, making the peace sign and sticking her tongue out at the camera.
At first glance, the images appear completely normal. However, as viewers began to look closer, a series of discrepancies were pointed out, and the documentary quickly became a source of controversy. Viewers noticed inconsistencies in Pan’s earrings, nose, and hands. Upon closer inspection, Pan’s left hand appears to have only two fingers, missing a thumb, a ring finger, and a little finger, while the other hand seems to be missing the pinky.
Although it’s hard to know if there was any image manipulation, viewers believe that a documentary about real crimes should be told honestly, without the use of any gimmicks that could make the story more appealing.
In an interview with the ‘Toronto Star,’ the executive producer of the ‘York Regional Police,’ Jeremy Grimaldi, declared that the photos are genuine: “Any filmmaker will use different tools like Photoshop in films,” he said; “Jennifer’s photos are real photos of her. The close-up is exactly her.”
Jennifer Pan, who was 24 years old at the time of the crime, was convicted of the attack that killed her mother and seriously injured her father. Now, at the age of 37, Pan is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
This content was created with the assistance of AI.
