Documentary of Lies: Difference between revisions

Sometimes, though, a documentary filmmaker just doesn't care, and any attempt at accuracy or finding the truth goes out the window, but the result is still [[Dan Browned|presented as]] [[The Tasteless But True Story|non-fiction]]. When this happens, you usually end up with a '''Documentary of Lies'''.

 

 

 

Frequent topics of this sort of program include psychics, UFOs and [[Alien Abduction]]s, [[Conspiracy Theory|conspiracy theories]], ghosts and other supernatural entities, and [[Faux Symbolism|objects with alleged religious significance]].

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Mondo Cane]]'', and, in general, any [[Mondo]] film, was this. Content was exaggerated and sensationalized in hopes of fulfilling the films' primary purposes of drawing as large a box office return as possible. Though the films would boast of featuring authentic footage, the greater majority of what was in them was in fact staged.

* ''[[What the Bleep Do We Know]]'': The constant [[Artistic License Physics|misrepresentation of the laws of physics]] (''especially'' [[Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything|quantum physics]]) is ''unbearable''. Not surprising, since the whole thing was produced as [https://web.archive.org/web/20130819223444/http://www.rickross.com/groups/ramtha.html a giant promo for J.Z. Knight's Ramtha cult]. Additionally, the film selectively edited an interview with Columbia University physics professor David Albert in order to make it appear that Albert endorsed its claims, when he had actually spent four hours explaining why they were wrong.

* [[wikipedia:The Money Masters|The Money Masters]] contains what is an essentially accurate description of how money is created and destroyed by fractional reserve banking, but the filmmakers also draw some rather strange conclusions about the process, present various conspiracy theories involving bankers, and end by suggesting an extremely unorthodox "solution" to the problems they think are present in the modern monetary system.

 

* ''Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor'' argues that Franklin D. Roosevelt and the US Government in general deliberately provoked Japan into war and manipulated an isolationist America into a horrific conflict against their will. The book has been thoroughly rebuked by historians and military experts over the years. It's also part of a long line of conspiracy theories that play on antiwar pretensions, emphasizing "War is Evil" polemics over actual facts in a similar vein to ''Hearts And Minds'' mentioned above.

* ''Men Against Fire'' by S.L.A. Marshall made several claims and statements that were found wanting long after his death. Among these were his findings from World War II that only 25% of American soldiers actually fired their weapon or killed anyone, which dramatically increased by [[The Vietnam War]] through better "training" techniques. This would go on to be standardized and expounded upon, especially in works like Dave Grossman's ''On Killing''. In later years however, historians and military experts noticed several discrepancies such as questionable authenticity and unverifiable data, putting Grossman and Marshall's work in more dubious and controversial territory ever since.

* Zoe Quinn's 2017 memoir, ''Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life'' is ostensibly about [[Gamergate]], her experiences in the events around it and the harassment, bigotry and sexism she and others are said to have suffered. Although lauded by critics, her book has come under criticism for, among others, distorting information surrounding Gamergate, questionable claims on harassment and appeals to online censorship. To say nothing of downplaying if not ignoring allegations of hypocrisy and defaming individuals accused in the book of attacking her.

 

** According to the book ''How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World'', the people who made the alien autopsy film did it as a prank ''and couldn't stop laughing while filming it''.

** In 2001, Fox aired an hour-long "documentary" titled ''Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?'' which presents and "confirms" the thesis that the Apollo moon landings were faked. A thorough rebuttal of the show can be found [http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html here].

* Many television series, such as ''In Search Of...'' and ''Sightings'', were notorious for being composed of these. They now occasionally air on a more appropriate venue: [[Syfy]].

** It's probably no coincidence that the point at which the aforementioned History Channel began briefly to show ''In Search Of'' reruns was the point at which they began to go downhill.

** The 2016 series ''The Internet Ruined My Life'' is less a collection of testimonies from traumatised victims about the perils of social media and online culture. And instead, is more a vehicle for opportunists and propagandists to push a narrative at the expense of the truth. The episodes featuring Suey Park and [[Brianna Wu]]<ref>Whose commentary ties in to [[Gamergate]] and her alleged harassment from its supporters.</ref> are among the more infamous ones.

* In 1993, [[CBS]] aired a documentary titled ''The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark'', featuring a man named George Jammal who claimed to have discovered Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat in Turkey and brought back "sacred wood" from it. Only Jammal was an actor, and the "discovery" was a hoax [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ark-hoax/sun.html intended to discredit Sun International Pictures], a studio that had been making documentaries (including this one) pushing fundamentalist pseudoscience while presenting themselves as factual, "scientific" investigations. Jammal claimed to have been assisted by people named Mr. [[Jerkass|Asholian]], Vladimir [[This Is for Emphasis, Bitch|Sobitchsky]], and Allis [[Blatant Lies|Buls Hitian]], names intended to be obviously fake. He had never been to Turkey (a fact reflected on his passport), and the photographs he claimed Vladimir had taken of the site didn't exist (since the photographer didn't either). The "sacred wood" smelled like teriyaki sauce, since that was part of how he had artificially aged the wood. All these errors were intentional, to demonstrate just how bad SIP's fact-checking was.

* [[Netflix]]’s ''Our Planet'' fundraiser for World Wildlife Fund plagiarized Disney lemming thing. Only with walruses, supposedly throwing themselves off the cliffs because of stupidity or bad eyesight and (you guessed it) Global Warming. What was left off screen? [https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/15/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/ A whole pack of polar bears]. There was a bit of polar bear overpopulation, which means many hungry bears wandering around and being threat to most animal life unable to run fast and far. Bears learned to drive the walrus herds off a rocky shore, then feast on carcasses, since they aren't keen on actually plowing through a herd of 100,000 or so to see how many will fight back. Because blind panic in most cases is an adequate reaction at a sight of [[Bears are Bad News|approaching twenty polar bears]], and walruses aren't as agile as mountain goats, so if some are on a high place, it ends predictably. There were similar cases reported in 1990s and in 1930s, too.

 

* In March 2012, ''[[This American Life]]'', one of the most popular shows on [[National Public Radio|NPR]], spent an entire episode retracting, denouncing and dissecting a prior episode, which was based on monologuist Mike Daisey's ''The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs'', about [[Nightmarish Factory|alleged working conditions]] at Apple production plants in [[China]]. Large portions of Daisey's monologue was shown, with very little effort, to have been fictionalized and fabricated.

 

* ''[[Loose Change]]'', an internet 9/11 conspiracy theory "documentary" that has been edited and re-edited multiple times in response to heavy criticism. Even so, most of the points highlighted, for example, [http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/ here] have still not been addressed.

** One of the sequels to ''Loose Change'' uses various out-of-context quotes from [[Kevin Smith]]'s podcast, where the director claims that everyone "needs to see" the film, seemingly an "endorsement" by a celebrity of the project. What the documentary doesn't do is ''end'' that quote, as the reason why Smith wants people to see the movie is because he believes it to be hilariously incompetent and incorrect, and he spends most of the rest of the podcast mocking it and its contents. The rest of Smith's quotes used are still obviously dripping with sarcasm regardless of the [[Manipulative Editing]].