Docs for political gain … Ugh
Posted by DocumentaryTech on May 30, 2011 · 5 Comments
The HuffPost reports that a new Sarah Palin documentary that Palin herself “has authorized” will possibly “set the stage” for her 2012 Presidential run.
HuffPost reports,
Palin supporters hope an upcoming documentary about her rise and time as Alaska’s governor will calm their worries. “The Undefeated,” set to premiere next month in Iowa, is stoking speculation she wants to reframe how that period is characterized.
“This film is a call to action for a campaign like 1976: Reagan vs. the establishment. Let’s have a good old-fashioned brouhaha,” Stephen Bannon, the filmmaker, said in a statement.
Palin asked an aide to reach out to Bannon about making videos on her time as Alaska’s governor; Bannon wound up making a movie instead, reported on the website Real Clear Politics, which broke the news of the film.
There is so much wrong with this. The idea that this is a documentary in any real way is preposterous, right? But at the same time, documentaries on Joan Rivers, Anna Wintour and Hugh Hefner have shown such documentaries can relaunch careers, burnish images and get a story told in a way they can control, but yet still in the veneer of objectivity. In The New York Times last year, Laura M. Holson wrote,
Celebrities used to eschew the documentary as little more than late-night cable fare. And such films rarely, if at all, make a profit. But with interest in last year’s “September Issue” (which really was about Anna Wintour, wasn’t it?) and image-boosting movies about the bad-boy producer Robert Evans or the disgraced boxer Mike Tyson, some are embracing documentaries as a visual editorial for the Internet era.
Twitter, Facebook and TMZ have made it difficult for celebrities to manipulate their public persona. A sympathetic documentary can be the first step in rehabbing a damaged reputation (think Mr. Tyson or Mr. Spitzer) or in the case of Vidal Sassoon or Rush, reminding viewers of an aging icon’s cultural relevance.
These celebrity documentaries have the Hollywood equation to them: People using each other for personal gain. But the idea of politicians authorizing documentaries of themselves seem to bend the very definition of the form. Isn’t it just a feature-length political ad? The fact that it will “premiere in Iowa” is another cue as to the cynicism of the effort.
Maybe she won’t run. Maybe documentaries that one authorizes (and we’d suggest anything the subject authorizes is not an actual documentary) is strictly an exercise in ego. But with Oprah’s new channel not just doing documentaries, but asking celebrities to make them (because celebrities doing films about celebrities is the perfect analog for our fame-obsessed culture). It seems, though, that the documentary as it had been, that of more staid, deep and probing inquiry, is potentially fading into history.
two thoughts:
1. most documentary films ARE “feature length political ads”
2. in these kinds of films, the filmmakers ARE politicians, or have the same goals as politicians (exposure of an issue, mobilization of support, ego gratification, etc.)
.. I think you are doing a knee jerk liberal thing here… this film doesn’t really seem like a threat to the future of filmmaking, I mean, and it doesn’t seem that crucial what is and what isn’t called “documentary”
Adam
Thanks for writing – I’m not sure I’d fall into the mode of “liberal,” more “middle of the road,” so it isn’t that Palin is dong it vs, say, Obama. It’s just the notion of an “authorized” documentary put into the market as a form of journalism (although the argument, as always, is whether documentary is journalism. Both your points, though, are well-taken). If Michael Moore or Charles Ferguson run for office, one can make the case their docs were simply such ads. And, I suppose, Palin isn’t officially running for office as yet. Back when I was a newspaper reporter I had to cover politicians and quickly came to loathe many of them (on both sides of the aisle). But if they can hijack the documentary form to serve their purposes, clearly they will, as they’ve all done with the book business.
Ted
A documentary that has a pre-determined conclusion is really an industrial/promotional film, regardless of the “style” is is made within.
I make industrial films, I also make documentaries, they are different, and the difference is; do I force the outcome or do I let events unfold and determine the outcome through discovery? this can be overt or very subtle, but there is a difference.
Most people in Palin’s position could not submit themselves to the documentary process, too reveling and may ruin their career, not promote it. Anything made about her will probably be an industrial film.
hi Ted,
Like Kurt, I taught Documentary Studies and this was a hard concept for students to grasp. When is a documentary no longer a documentary. The answer for us who have made enough of them and seen hundreds more is easy to recognize. For the young reality TV generation this is confusing. Deliberately so. Here is one important rule of thumb. Was it commissioned? Yes? Then there is less than a 1% chance it’s an authentic doc. Like MMatusky, I have to vote that this Palin piece is at best is an “industrial” and at worst is propaganda. I usually like to reserve the word propaganda for works by the government for the government. But, let’s face it, this is nothing smaller than trying to influence the next election for the most powerful office in the most powerful country in the world. UGH indeed!
visit my blog at docudiary.blogspot.com
Virginia
Virginia
Thanks for the comments – we’ll be checking out your blog. The thing that disturbs me is that the “media elite” that the pols denigrate also fall all over themselves for these people when they smell ratings. Reality programming has so skewed the definition of reality I often find myself speechless…
Ted