Parents' Guide to Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy

Even though an epilogue text slide indicates that many victims' families settled with Live Nation out of court, this documentary still doesn't hold back its criticism of Travis Scott and Live Nation. Thankfully, Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy has the evidence and analysis to back up this criticism, with Scott and Live Nation not looking too good in the process. Yet, it's also clear that this tragedy is not Scott's responsibility entirely. Yes, Scott didn't help things by encouraging aggression, chaos, and destruction and by not stopping his show when he could have (when he first saw an unconscious person being carried out). But also, the original crowd design and crowd flow plans were greatly flawed, safety protocols were ignored, general and crowd section capacity limits were quickly overrun, and many warnings before, during, and after the concert were completely ignored. And if there were only two people who had the authority to stop the show, one of them certainly should have done so.

The question of blame is one of the tougher questions raised by this movie. In reality, it seems the blame for this tragedy has been diffused and flattened out into different culprits. And this may even be accurate, even though the outcome isn't all that satisfying because no one faces comeuppance. At least the film highlights some of the people who lost their lives, who they were as people, what made them special, and how they were beloved. This documentary does well to show rich and famous people the human cost of not caring enough about how one's actions and messages might lead to violence, trauma, and casualty. Amidst their billions, films like this hopefully at least make Scott and Live Nation pause, if only for a moment, to think about the 10 young people and their families and friends and communities who have been affected by this tragedy.