What TV and movies do to reality is a dramatic crime
In ancient times, the mid-1980s, I wrote this helpful guide to spotting the 'Truth' and the BS hidden in TV docudramas about real people and real events. In the Age of Netflix it's still good advice.
Los Angeles Times
November, 1986
If they ever get around to conducting the Nuremberg Television Trials, they may pick me up for questioning.
That's because not too long ago, when I was a young and desperate ex-bartender and CBS was a fatter and much happier corpocracy, I spent six months working in the network's Docudrama Department.
Our main job was to verify scripts of made-for-TV movies that purported to be true stories — movies just like CBS' ‘Manhunt for Claude Dallas’ that aired this week.
Ideally, we'd read a script like ‘Manhunt,’ do some research, meet with the producers for an $80 waffle breakfast in Beverly Hills, discuss our factual disputations and eventually work them out.
Sometimes there were problems, but when we were satisfied that Truth had been served, we would certify the movie's veracity and CBS could then claim in ads that it was "based on a true story" (The big tubes at CBS knew that if they could tout a movie as "true," it usually meant higher ratings).
Docudramas were — and still are — inherently confusing. Docu and drama, truth and fiction, real names and real events — all twisted into a double helix of ambiguity. What portion is true? How can anyone tell?
The networks each insist that docudrama producers stick to the true story, but everyone in televisionville knows the inevitable effect of too many facts and too little drama: mass ennui, followed by the sounds of millions of clicking dials.
So some brilliant future president of network programming somewhere invented the Dramatic License.
Now, this isn't a laminated card, and it can't be revoked or even suspended, but it permits certain liberties to be taken with the facts to heighten drama — and elevate ratings.
In theory, these "dramatic effects" do not qualitatively distort the true story being docu-dramatized.
But what about the hapless viewer? How can he possibly know where fact ends and fiction begins in docudramas like CBS' ‘Manhunt,’ ABC's ‘Easy Prey’ ("based on a true story") and NBC's ‘Stranger in My Bed’ ("inspired by a true story")?
He cannot.
The viewer watches an indistinguishable parade of representative, composite and real-life characters.
Some real-life people never show up on docudramas — sometimes they're sacrificed to the god of simpler drama, sometimes they just would not sign over their rights.
Even Albert Einstein couldn't spot such common tricks as telescoped time and rearranged chronology.
In general, the more you know about a real event, the more surreal the TV version will appear.
We Truth Squad guys in the Docudrama Department who were truly concerned about the poor viewer's plight — honest — argued that if CBS really cared about the viewer, a little light should blink in the corner of the screen whenever the facts were being fudged. But of course the network tubes didn't bite on that idea.
In an effort to prove that I was an unwilling participant in any crimes against humanity, or at least to reduce my sentence at any future Tribunal, I offer this guide to help viewers see the Truth through the docudrama fog:
— Sign up for speed skepticism lessons.
— Despite living color, TV still paints most everything in stark black and whites. Rarely is life so simple, good and evil so unmistakable.
— Seek Truth — subjective and illusive no matter what its origin — from alternative sources.
— Stereotypes thrive on TV like dandelions on peat moss. If you think you've seen that bad cop, mad scientist, greedy businessman, good white person, angry black, tough woman, strong mother, etc., before, you're probably right.
— Most personal docudramas are hopelessly sanguine, white-washed and sugar-coated. Earth's quota of saints is not that high. When dead people are docudra-matized, distortion is often magnified, mainly because dead people don't file law suits.
— Forget about time. Dramatic effects warp time beyond all comprehension.
— Always trust courtroom dialogue; it can be checked. Just don't pay too close attention to the order of witnesses or evidence.
— Finally, remember always the phrase heard many times a day, wherever TV shows are in production: "It's close enough for television."