As Vicky Donor of another land lands in trouble

Parbina Rashid

In 2012, Ayushmann Khurrana’s debut film ‘Vicky Donor’ created quite a stir for its bold concept. Critics hailed director Shoojit Sircar for his ‘fertile’ imagination for touching a taboo subject like sperm donation. We loved serial sperm donor Vicky (Khurrana) for his ‘spunk’. He was the biological father of 53 healthy children!

The word ‘consanguinity’ didn’t come to our mind then. As we watched 53 happy families celebrate Vicky’s contribution to their lives, we had no idea such a ‘contribution’ could have actually landed the hero in trouble. Had the film been set in the Netherlands, where the law prohibits sperm donors from fathering more than 25 children, Vicky would have been stopped from making any more donations, or would be liable to pay a Euro 1,00,000 fine for each one. Like a Dutch court’s verdict to serial sperm donor Jonathan Jacob Meijer after it was found that he had fathered close to 600 children, although some believe the actual count exceeds 1,000.

‘The Man with 1000 Kids’ centres on Meijer, a handsome Dutch man whose profile is quite a hit on sperm donation websites for his blue eyes and flowing blond hair. We meet him through lesbian couple Suzanne and Natalie; Joyce and John, who cannot conceive due to John’s medical condition; solo parents Nicolette and Vanessa as they meet him as a private donor.

“I want to look the sperm donor in the eye and see if his personality fits my personality,” says Natalie, a privilege sperm banks deny to their clients. When they meet their donor, they all fall for his ‘five-families-only’ line.

But suspicion arises when Nicolette, during a chat with her colleague, discovers that Meijer donated his sperm to both of them.

This leads her to investigate, uncovering the fact that Meijer had donated his sperm to 11 banks in the Netherlands and similar banks in the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Hungary, Kenya, and more. Not to mention uncountable donations to women who preferred to source the sperm privately.

As the maths gets complicated, the docu-series takes a serious turn. Meijer enjoys free air tickets and hospitality from sperm donation clinics in various countries, and uses those opportunities to make videos for his YouTube channel.

Meijer is not alone in this trade. In a sick game, he collaborates with another Dutch sperm donor, Leon, and mixes their samples to see whose sperm would father the next child.

What makes him do it? Some blame it on his thrill-seeking character and others on his God complex. Patricia, who claims to know him closely, feels coming from a large family makes him an attention-seeker.

The docu-series, however, does not offer a conclusion as Meijer refused to participate in it. Director Josh Allott makes uses of whatever is available to him — victims’ interviews and the footage from Meijer’s videos. But we don’t notice his absence much as the delightful and informative graphics, footage and emotions captured on the camera fill the gaps in the narrative. Allott stitches the elements well.

The courtroom drama begins once the recipients realise the potential repercussions in their children’s life, which could be from psychological trauma to incest, and unite on a Facebook group to stop him from donating any more. We see footage of a nervous Meijer playing with his goldilocks!

Spearheaded by fertility fraud activist Eve Wiley and advocate Mark de Hek, the fight throws light on the million-dollar fertility industry and its regulation; rather, the lack of it. Meijer’s case also becomes an exemplary verdict that has curbed male bodily autonomy for the first time.

Interestingly, ‘The Man with 1000 Kids’ ends exactly like ‘Vicky Donor’ did, with one of the mothers recognising Meijer’s 50,000 hours of ‘effort’ spanning over 16 years to create one big, happy family. Who says life can’t be filmi?