The documentary series LuLaRich from Amazon opens with an interview of DeAnne and Mark Stidham, cofounders of the multilevel marketing company LuLaRoe. They seat themselves and make small talk, unaware that the camera is already rolling — a shortcut the filmmakers have taken to signal to viewers that this documentary won’t merely channel the Stidhams’ point of view. DeAnne and Mark, dressed to convey prosperity, are grateful for the opportunity to tell their “side of the story,” but we already know they won’t be given the benefit of the doubt.

In the first fifteen minutes of the series’ first episode, the filmmakers take several other shortcuts to communicate their unsympathetic view of the couple. We learn immediately that they’re Mormon and have seventeen children between the two of them, some of whom are adopted. We learn that DeAnne’s mother once showered her children with cash from their home’s second-floor landing in order to make a point about the fruits of hard work. We watch uncomfortably as Mark is moved to tears while recounting a story about his father saying he’d never want to work for someone else. DeAnne and Mark are unlikable and unrelatable, and the film wants us to know it before we even begin to hear about how they took advantage of thousands of people to build a multibillion-dollar leggings empire.