It’s getting worse. So much worse.
I have bored my friends and relatives for years with my condemnation of docudramas and biopics. I complain that they are neither fact nor fiction and, so, I can’t enjoy them as either. They take a real event and dramatize (say “fictionalize”) it thereby presenting a false narrative. Sure, people have the ability to research the event further and discern what to believe and what not to believe. But, if you are going to go to the trouble of doing that research to learn about what really happened, why go to the movie in the first place?
There are other problems with these movies, but the principal one is that they contribute to the dissipation of the idea of truth. That was a concern in the past, but now, in the era of Trump, it is crucial.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I, too, subscribe to the idea that truth – real truth – is an elusive concept. What people believed decades or even, in some cases, months ago, we now dismiss based on new scientific or moral developments. That’s not the kind of truth that I’m talking about. I mean the stuff that is right in front of your eyes – the stuff that now our President distorts on a more than daily basis.
I could list examples of Trump’s lies, his blatant lies, but, to do so, would be to minimize their number. It’s like listing examples of the women Leonardo DiCaprio has slept with. You don’t get the full breadth of the man’s capacity.
The Washington Post has counted of 10,796 false or misleading things Trump has said in his first 869 days in office. That calculates to 12 untrue statements a day. As CNN points out, that’s more lying a day than most Americans brush their teeth.
Yes, I have cited both the Washington Post and CNN – Trump’s principal targets as “fake news.” But, I’ve done that deliberately. Trump’s “fake news” mantra may be the grandest and most dangerous of all his fabrications. By labeling the truth as false, he turns the world of fact upside down. He leaves docudramas in the dust when in comes to distortion.
Rather than rail against the dying of the light, maybe I should join the party. Maybe I’ll start my own website that reports on the world not as it is, but how I want it to be. Here would be some of my lead stories:
“Yankees Win Their 125th Consecutive World Series Remaining As The Only Team To Have Ever Won The Championship”;
“United Nations Declares That No Person Went Hungry Last Year”; and
“Leonardo DiCaprio Concedes To Guy Michael As The Man Who Has Slept With The Most Women”
Hey, maybe they’ll even make a docudrama about that last one.
We were right 