The "Amy" documentary, directed by Asif Kapadia in 2015, depicts the life and death of the late Amy Winehouse by using a wide range of home footage, interviews and conversations with Amy Winehouse herself and her friends and family. The documentary offers what is presented to be a personal and in depth insight into the jazz singer's life, although some has criticised the documentary for being too deeply personal. For example, Steve Persall from Tampa Bay Times wrote that "Amy feels like another intrusion on the singer's privacy, like the gossip vultures circling her drug and alcohol binges, awaiting her 2011 death."



This also highlights the issue that was presented within the documentary of the bombardment of the paparazzi and mistreatment from the media on a personality that was evidently vulnerable, emphasising the toxic effect that fame can have on a person.

It's difficult to imagine that the predatory behaviour from the paparazzi is legal, let alone socially accepted, which was something detailed largely within the documentary. This highlights the concept of the paparazzi supplying the demand as the public indulged in the media's obsession with a falling star; consuming reports and footage of each fall back associated with the star, or even content manipulated to at least appear as a fall back.

The documentary also highlights some of the ways that the mainstream media other than the tabloids treated Winehouse, showing footage from Jay Leno's talk show and Graham Norton's BBC talk show where the culture of kicking people when they're down was largely perpetuated with the cruel remarks made by comedians and television personalities regarding Winehouse's personal life, appearance and behaviour. Likewise, it showed the hypocrisy of the media and how they are likely to back the popular culture of the time: when Amy Winehouse was a celebrated new breakthrough artist, television personalities were keen to offer support yet did anything but show support when things began to take a downward spiral for the singer, publicly ridiculing her.

I think that the treatment of Amy Winehouse in the media, even after her death, plays a part in enforcing gender roles as well. Women are widely expected to maintain composure and class, ridiculed should they fail to meet these expectations, yet stars such as Kurt Cobain and other famous personalities and musicians who were notoriously involved with drugs were not offered the same media treatment or presented in the same derogatory and patronising manner.

I think that the documentary offers a key insight into how the media and music industry (in it's obsession with keeping her producing material and appearing on tours) had no regard for the singer's vulnerability and arguably played a large role in many of the problems that she faced.