"It used to be so simple," journalist Katie Couric says in the opening narration of Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric (NatGeo People, Wednesday, 7.30pm). "You were a boy or you were a girl, girls wore pink, boys wore blue, girls played with dolls, boys played with trucks, girls played house, boys played sports."
It's a hyper-simplistic window into a profoundly complex debate but this two-hour documentary does a deft and sensitive job of peeling open the issues without either losing its way or getting mired in one issue at the expense of others. It is ambitious from the outset but it sets a target and gets there via an effective, and slightly unpredictable, route.
There are a few things going on here, so let's tackle them in order. Firstly, it's a big call by NatGeo, given the channel's history of more traditional-style documentaries. In the post-channel revolution it's hard to know who's supposed to do what (scripted series on E? what is going on here?) but this fits beautifully within the channel's humanistic brief.
Secondly, Couric acts as a brilliant guide, with her disarming breakfast telly smile. She approaches the project with her own questions and curiosities which, along with her blend of innocence and wisdom, serves the issue well. It works brilliantly particularly when you consider the ambition to bring the subject (and the answers to those questions) to a broader audience than ever before.
Finally, there is the subject itself. There's no doubt it's thorny but it's also omnipresent: in our lives and in the way the media and society reflect them back at us. It's tackled nicely in the documentary, with the kind of delightful unease that comes from "that conversation" with your parents that most children endure with gritted teeth, fearful eyes and nervous expectancy.
But that sensibility also makes it nicely accessible and not at all preachy. Getting that balance wrong would have been disastrous. While there is no doubt somewhere in the media someone will try to politicise what is being said here, what matters is that the documentary does not. It never judges, never preaches, it just explains patiently.
"Let's talk about penises and vaginas," Couric says to gender author Sam Killermann at one point. He responds: "If you haven't already talked about penises and vaginas, we need to talk about penises and vaginas." And from that amusing exchange we're off into some fascinating questions: does external genitalia define gender, and what is the difference between gender and sexuality?
The documentary flies through a raft of subjects at speed, so it requires your attention. It deals with the obviously scientific (hormones, genes and the like) to the curious and slightly hilarious (phall-o-meter fridge magnet, anyone?). The beauty of the humour in the narrative is that it never undermines the respect which permeates every frame.
It also comes with a gentle authenticity in that much of it is given over to people telling their own stories. And it is there, when the camera is turned on others, where Couric comes into her own: the greatest skill of a great interview is not in what they say, but in how they listen. That rhythm, and its intimacy, coat this unpredictable and illuminating documentary, in a compelling shell.
