Hopefully, this is the last year we’ll hear of Natalia Grace and the years of emotional, physical and possible sexual abuse she has suffered by people who should’ve never been allowed within 10 miles of her.
The documentary series The Curious Case of Natalia Grace may have concluded after three seasons with the recent installments of shows about Natalia who is a Ukrainian-born orphan with a rare form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita. For the most part, the three seasons have been highly exploitive of Natalia as the first one didn’t even have her being interviewed.
Instead, we saw much of her former adoptive father, Michael Barnett, whine and perform a huge display victimization. Other interviewees included people who had known Natalia who hopefully regret their criticism of her claiming she was an adult pretending to be a child. Michael and his ex-wife, Kristine, tried to claim that Natalia was actually born in 1989, not 2003. This was to obviously avoid all the criminal and legal issues they would’ve been subjected to through Indiana law.
Any damned fool could’ve seen that Natalia was a child when she was living with the Barnetts. But it’s that the Barnetts, who are the worst of the worst parents, got in more than they anticipated by adopting the young girl. The second season with the subtitle Natalia Speaks seemed to present a happy ending as she was adopted by a couple, Antwon and Cynthia Mans, she had been living with for years.
Yet, things are rotten in Denmark. Mainly it’s because like the Barnetts, the Mans felt they could treat Natalia, who was in her late teens (and technically an adult), as a child themselves. It’s been reported that Antwon, who wants to be called “Bishop” even though he has no accredited church affiliation, was very abusive toward Natalia and others. It’s alleged in this season that the Mans are scam artists, taking in children with physical and/or developmental disabilities to get their money from the government.
The tragedy of this whole series is that Natalia has no concept of how things work because she has been constantly abused or used throughout her whole life. I could sense in the second season that her behavior and attitude felt a little off, as if she was putting on for Antwon and Cynthia. This season deals with her escaping from the Mans with the help of her boyfriend to live with Vince and Nicole DePaul, who are little people, who live in upstate New York.
The DePauls, which were featured in previous seasons, attempted to adopt Natalia in 2009, when she was probably just 5-6, but things didn’t work out that way. It’s been alleged that Kristine was inspired by the movie Orphan to say that Natalia was actually an adult claiming to be a child. However, Kristine has been accused of leading a fraud scheme to profit on her own son, Jake.
Kristine rose to prominence over 10 years ago with the publication of a book The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism which focused on Jake. However, there’s been questions in recent years as to whether the claims Jake was smarter than Albert Einstein is true. Some criticism is that the Barnetts saw Natalia as a project to make her “smart” like Jake. However, the education of Jake has also been questioned as some of it doesn’t seem too legitimate.
I’ll admit the whole documentary series has been more exploitative itself rather than informative. Some of the footage looks a little too easy for footage that should’ve just been shot on the fly. Yet, a lot of documentaries fudge some footage to make it fit the narrative more. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
I’m hoping that Natalia’s struggles are coming to an end. But with an upcoming Hulu series based on her life and case, it might be far from over. And there are still people online who speak negatively about her from the comfort of their computer chairs. Sadly, I feel Natalia will need a lot of therapy for the rest of her life or well into her middle-aged years to get over the abuse she has endured her whole life.
It angers me she was allowed to be shuffled around from people to people who wanted more out of her than love. Sadly, Natalia’s case is more common, even though it’s curious.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 