''United Gates of America'' is a 2006 BBC

television documentary Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. *Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

directed by Alex Cooke, featuring

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

Charlie LeDuff Charles Royal LeDuff (born April 1, 1966) is an American journalist, writer, and media personality. He is the host of the ''No BS News Hour with Charlie LeDuff''. LeDuff was employed by ''The New York Times'' for 12 years, then employed by ''Th ...

. He lived for a month within the

gated community A gated community (or walled community) is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences ...

Canyon Lake Canyon Lake, Lake Canyon, or lakes named "Cañon", may refer to: Bodies of water * Canyon Lake (Arizona) * Canyon Lake (California) * Canyon Lake (South Dakota) * Canyon Lake (Texas) * Canyon Lake (Michigan) * Lake Canyon (Lakeland, Florida) Place ...

Riverside County Riverside County is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most populous county in California and the 10th-most populous in the Unit ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, to try and discover why people wanted to lock themselves behind gates and fences, and what effect it had on the residents. The documentary also explored the issues of

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

from

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, and highlighted the issues of

segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...

and

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

that exist in the United States. The one-hour made-for-TV documentary premiered on British TV channel

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

in 2006, with ongoing repeat showings. The film also appeared at the 2007

Ann Arbor Film Festival The Ann Arbor Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Ann Arbor in the U.S. state of Michigan. Established in 1963, it is the fourth-oldest film festival in North America (after the Yorkton Film Festival, 1947; Columbus International Film ...

, the

USA Film Festival The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, and the

Santa Barbara International Film Festival The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) is an eleven-day film festival held in Santa Barbara, California since 1986. The festival boasts screenings of over 200 feature films and shorts from different countries and regions. SBIFF al ...

.Films listing
Ann Arbor Film Festival 2007. 25 March 2007. The film met with positive reviews. Ian Johns of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' (London) found LeDuff to be "an acute interviewer and astute observer in this entertaining documentary." TV Scoop found it "hilarious", emphasizing LeDuff's style: "He just ambles along, asking simple questions before pouncing Columbo-like with a killer last line. 'Oh look, there's a Mexican over there....gardening.' " Matt Kettman of the ''

Santa Barbara Independent The ''Santa Barbara Independent'' is a news, arts, and alternative newspaper published every Thursday in Santa Barbara, California, United States. History The weekly paper was founded in November 1986, the result of a merger between ''The Santa ...

'' wrote that the documentary was "eye-opening", "hilarious, probing, and meaningful," and that LeDuff "does not draw any solid conclusions for the viewer. We are left wondering whether these Canyon Lake residents are paranoid or correct."Kettmann, Matt (30 January 2007)
"Inside the United Gates of America"
''

.'' Soon after filming completed, Sharon Rice, the assistant editor of Canyon Lake's ''The Friday Flyer'' wrote an open letter to LeDuff listing a large number of "good people" and activities not covered in the documentary. Three residents of Canyon Lake who later previewed the film were "disgusted by it" enough to write letters to the editor. After the show was broadcast in the UK, and the UK tabloid ''In the Know'' labeled Canyon Lake "The World's Most Paranoid Town", the editor again wrote that the film omitted truthful positive information about the "little bit of paradise."Rice, Sharon (17 November 2006)
"A funny thing happened on the way home from London"
thefridayflyer.com; ''The Friday Flyer'' (Canyon Lake).

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, id=1055324, title=United Gates of America
''United Gates of America'' full film
Documentary films about racism in the United States British documentary television films Documentary films about immigration to the United States BBC television documentaries 2006 television films 2006 films 2006 documentary films Documentary films about cities in the United States Documentary films about California 2000s British films