HBOs Game Change & Media Literacy

[Frank W. Baker]

Another media literacy teaching moment/opportunity:
This docu-drama uses real news coverage of the 2008 race from both CNN, FOX and others throughout the two hour film. Thus here is another fictionalized account, based on a book of the same name, which many people will see and believe they are (again) watching/witnessing history, when they are (obviously) not. Some Palin aides have been quoted in the news as saying the film is "sick" and inaccurate..while another admitted it hit painfully close to home..and Senator McCain disputed the foul language the film shows him using. Last week, The Christian Science Monitor (among many others) published a story on the movie's inaccuracies..in it, the filmmakers are vouching for the accuracy..

Not to be outdone, a PAC supporting Palin has released a video debunking many of the films claims: Meantime, the buzz around the film just keeps Palin in the news....

[Alan Teasley]

Funny, people watching it at my house thought the filmmakers humanized Palin and made her more sympathetic than we had previously been willing to consider. The "character" Palin is ill-informed and egotistical, to be sure, but it really wasn't her fault campaign officials didn't vet her enough to find out how ignorant she was. It's a shame that the film's language will likely prevent the film from being used in classrooms, though I guess there are scenes one could use. 

Thanks for bringing this up in the context of media literacy, Frank. You have re-enactments based on a nonfiction book (whose accuracy has probably been challenged as well), real TV clips, embedded TV clips (actors watching SNL sketches)--a whole panoply of "real-ish" contrivances.

It made me want to see the 60 Minutes piece with Steve Schmidt (assuming there was one) as well as to revisit some of the moments they "faked"--McCain's concession, Palin's entrance during the VP debate, among others.