Is Lisa Frank a real person? Is she really an artist who built her career on airbrushed puppies and dolphins? The answer is, according to the new Prime Video documentary series Glitter and Greed: The Lisa Frank Storyis complicated. While Lisa Frank is indeed a real person, over the course of the four episodes of this series we find out that the real mastermind of her eponymous operation was her ex-husband James. But while James acknowledges the artistic side of things, he clearly places the blame for the company’s toxic environment on Lisa. Ultimately, the problem is that the film makes it difficult to know who to trust because everyone seems pretty terrible.

Opening shot: “Let’s say I was an alien with no idea. How would you describe Lisa Frank’s style?” a director asks several people interviewed in the film. One by one they respond with answers like: “It was an explosion of color.” “It was bright, it was alive.” Happy.” “Magical.” “Something with a dolphin on it? Forget it.” And of course there is one thing that defines Lisa Frank more than anything else: “Unicorns and rainbows!”

The essentials: The name Lisa Frank is synonymous with a certain aesthetic, colorful, bright neon colors mixed with glitter and metallic colors as well as whimsical, cute animals. But who the hell is Lisa Frank and what is she up to? Glitter and Greed: The Lisa Frank Story is a four-part documentary that focuses on the real woman behind the massive brand that began producing colorful stickers at the height of that craze in the 1980s and expanded into school supplies, toys and decorations.

Although the company’s employees sold Lisa Frank an optimistic vision of a world full of cute characters and images that evoked whimsy and happiness, they were taken advantage of and their salaries were cut to the point that they require food stamps despite working full-time (and even though Lisa and her business partner and Husband James Green watched them having fun in large staffed houses and wearing designer clothes). After Frank and Green had two children and Lisa was seen less and less in the office, Green began to rule the office through fear, intimidating employees, often throwing tantrums, and even trying to lock people in the building so they wouldn’t leave were able to do so early (which ultimately violated fire safety regulations).

But is this just a story of disgruntled employees? Later in the series, it’s James’ turn and not only denies all the accusations made against him, but also comes across as cold and emotionless, discussing his marriage to Lisa as purely transactional and even explaining the matter: in fact, he never wanted children with her have. James doesn’t come across as very likeable in his interviews, perhaps because his directness, coupled with smug confidence, comes across as brutal honesty with little empathy. But as the story progresses, it becomes harder to tell whether James is the bully everyone thinks he is or whether Lisa is the real monster He claims now. Forced out of the company after the couple’s bitter divorce, James has no feelings for his ex, and over the course of the show he and his eldest son Hunter, now also estranged from his mother, paint a picture of a woman whose ambition is great is hampered by her own lack of talent and she used James as a means to an end.

Unfortunately, the series swings from one accusation to the next, making everyone involved seem unsympathetic. (At first, James is portrayed as the bigger villain, but as time goes on, everyone starts to turn against Lisa herself for taking advantage of James, angering her children and employees, and screwing over other artists and entrepreneurs.) There are victims here: those of the company The Formers Employees and business associates on the record all seem to have experienced this couple’s wrath, and it is obvious that their time at Lisa Frank was miserable and they suffered emotionally and financially. But the question remains: Is Lisa Frank herself truly terrible, does she just surround herself with terrible people, or is she just an incompetent businesswoman? Without her side of the story, it’s hard to really know.

Our opinion: We love a complicated success story, but for one thing Good In order for a complicated success story to be told well, the participation of everyone involved is helpful. Marthathe Netflix documentary about Martha Stewart, may not have received rave reviews from Stewart herself, but when she appears in it she’s a pretty open book, admitting her mistakes, infidelities and indiscretions, a full and willing participant. We have a chance to decide whether it’s worth vilifying them based on evidence we’ve seen with our own eyes.

Although Lisa Frank provided a written statement to the producers of this documentary series, her absence and inaccessibility harm this documentary because it allows everyone else to see what she is like without the audience formulating that opinion for themselves must. And while this is primarily a Lisa Frank brand story, it does leave a negative impression of Lisa Frank the person, thanks to the bitter, complicated relationships she now appears to have with her estranged ex-husband and one of her sons, who is his Describes mother as a Jekyll and Hyde figure. Characterizing Frank in this way may well be true, but it also feels like an uncomfortable airing of the family laundry. And some of the people in this documentary, particularly James Green, don’t feel like reliable narrators since most of the other people interviewed for the film seem to hate him. Ultimately, all this back and forth insults only proved the film’s most obvious point, which is that Lisa Frank was a terrible, borderline abusive place to work for a lot of people. Unfortunately, this type of exposé is all too common White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch To Bob Ross: Serendipity, Betrayal and Greedwhere greed and impropriety lead to abusive working conditions and/or the tarnished legacy of a beloved brand.

And while the experiences of the employees who suffered under Green and Frank’s regime sound horrific, the fact is that this film simply reflects something that happens regularly and unsurprisingly with many successful brands. The pressure to make money and remain successful, coupled with unscrupulous leadership, creates a toxic workplace. What sets this story apart is simply the – ironic – presence of puppies and rainbows that has helped to gloss over this fact until now.

Gender and skin: None.

Parting shot: Episode one culminates in dozens of allegations against James Green, ranging from cruel treatment of his co-workers to an employee’s accusation that he tried to put padlocks on the building’s doors. But in the final moments of the episode, we see Green agree to do his own interview to refute these allegations. He explains that he was not a tyrant. “The bully was on the other side,” he adds, saying, “There is a time to be silent and a time to speak… this is the time to speak.”

Performance worth seeing: She doesn’t appear until episode two, but Rhonda Rowlette, Lisa Frank’s human resources manager at the height of the company’s success, is a Lisa and James loyalist who doesn’t seem to care that she herself worked 15 hours every day She worked one day a year (except Christmas) and laid off over 100 employees during her time with the company. It’s safe to say that she has a special charisma that is captivating to watch and impossible to understand.

Memorable dialogue: “Not everything was rainbows and unicorns.”

Our call: SKIP IT. There is definitely an interesting and dramatic story Glitter and greed about a company that sells an image that the people who ran it disagree with. But when we focus on telling the story of this dysfunctional company, it drags a bit and four episodes feels like too many. In the third episode, the story feels unfocused and like a personal attack, especially given the way James and Lisa’s divorce and custody battle played out. It feels unbalanced and as if the filmmakers allowed Green’s narration to dominate the story.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer based in Massachusetts. She gained her greatest fame by winning the game show Chain Reaction.