"Me @ the Zoo" Documentary About Chris Crocker on HBO Chris Moukarbel and Valerie Veatch/HBO Me @ the Zoo Chris Crocker is the subject of a documentary that has its television premiere Monday night at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time on HBO. When Chris Crocker screamed "Leave Britney alone!" into a camcorder in 2007 and posted the clip online, it seemed less like a rallying cry and more like a cry for help. A transgendered gay man from Bristol, Tenn., Mr. Crocker had already made a small name for himself in Internet-video circles with sassy, humorous, catchphrase-filled clips of himself. This was the most outrageous of those videos, the most timely, the most cut-and-paste-able. In retrospect Mr. Crocker's bedraggled defense of Britney Spears - which has now been viewed over 43 million times on YouTube - looks far less disturbing than the sorts of video clips that depict Ms. Spears being mauled by paparazzi, who surround her in swarms and yell at her like a prisoner to be shamed: "Why you crying, Britney?" Do you need to talk to someone, Britney? Several of those clips are repurposed in the documentary "Me @ the Zoo," about Mr. Crocker's life, which had its premiere at Sundance this year and will have its television debut Monday on HBO. Early on, Mr. Crocker shows off his wall of Britney pictures and pans the camera over an arrangement of three of his heroes, side by side: a poster of Ms. Spears, a doll of Ariel from "The Little Mermaid" and a portrait of his mother. Mr. Crocker's relationship with his mother is a hard-to-overlook subtext in this sometimes difficult, but strategically untragic film. "A child's perspective" is how he now describes his tone in that Britney defense. "I think I saw some of my younger mom in Britney when I was a kid," he says. Mr. Crocker, whose mother gave birth to him at 14, was largely raised by his paternal grandparents. His mother, he says, was a victim of domestic abuse and has struggled with addiction to meth. Their relationship feels more siblinglike than parental. They interact like children, tickling each other in one scene and riding swings in another. Near the end of the film he picks her up from a hospital and checks her into a hotel, and it's clear who the responsible one is. Directed by Chris Moukarbel and Valerie Veatch, this is less a conventional documentary than a pastiche, relying heavily on Mr. Crocker's archive of self-shot footage, spliced in with new material. "Me @ the Zoo" has echoes of "Tarnation," the formally inventive and emotionally taxing 2003 autobiographical documentary by Jonathan Caouette. Like Mr. Crocker, Mr. Caouette understood himself best through the camera and used it in part as a defensive tool, but there's nothing as textured as Mr. Caouette's disturbing childhood videos here. Mr. Crocker's mood, even at its darkest, is far more concerned with glamour - which in and of itself is a novel form of resistance. What the directors of this film provide is a steadying hand - left to his own devices, Mr. Crocker might never sit still long enough fully to tell his own story - and context. Sometimes the documentary is a character study of Mr. Crocker, and sometimes it's a broad and paper-thin take on the commercialization of the Internet. But the film suffers when Mr. Crocker isn't on the screen or when he's not interacting with his family. No friends speak on his behalf, which appears to be a deliberate choice. In at least a couple of scenes he appears chummy with people, though they never address the camera. At the end, after fame recedes and his shot at reality-TV stardom has fizzled, Mr. Crocker is presented as directionless, even flirting with a porn career. But he is not in fact a total outcast; his story has resonated. This film was made in part with help from some gay celebrities - Michael Stipe ("80" percent gay, as he said in an interview with The Observer) is an executive producer, and Nico Muhly wrote the score. From the beginning Mr. Crocker saw the camera as a tool to fight bullying. The camera, he says, "was my way of defending myself against the people in my hometown without having to fight back physically." As he became famous (or notorious) all the coarseness - toward him, toward his mother, toward Ms. Spears - began to bleed together. One of the most memorable clips comes from Glenn Beck, then the host of a cable news talk show, who replies to Mr. Crocker's save-Britney plea with dunderheaded machismo and cruelty: "I'll leave her alone if I can target this guy for a while." Me @ the Zoo HBO, Monday night at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time. Directed and edited by Chris Moukarbel and Valerie Veatch; Vincent Farrell, Jim McKay, Michael Stipe and Rachel Grady, executive producers; Mr. Moukarbel, Ms. Veatch, Nicholas Shumaker and Jack Turner, producers. For HBO: Sheila Nevins, executive producer; Sara Bernstein, supervising producer.