Subscribe to Love Mondays newsletter updates via email »
LM: #325: Documentaries suck
Have you seen that documentary?
It’s about that mysterious thing that happened. Most people think it was this, but the documentary shows it was actually that.
They interviewed this one lady, who explained that what people think is this was just manipulation on the part of some guy. That guy said what really happened was that, but you could tell he was lying.
WANT TO WRITE A BOOK?
Download your FREE copy of How to Write a Book »
(for a limited time)
How? Well, when they interviewed the lady, there was soft, blue lighting, and very gently playing, touching music. When they interviewed the guy, the main color on the screen was brown, and they lit it so there were dark shadows on his facial features. While he was talking, they cut to a document showing he was lying slowly moving across the screen, at the pace of the creepy music they had playing.
Documentaries suck. There’s probably no worse way to learn about something than a documentary.
I know that sounds crazy, and I’m painting with a broad brush. No doubt there are some subjects that should be covered in the documentary format, such as nature and visual things such as art or events that were caught almost entirely on film.
But if you really pay attention to most documentaries, you can see the tricks they pull to try to persuade you of one thing or another. Tricks that don’t have anything to do with what evidence they’re actually presenting to support that argument.
The actual content of most documentaries is also very thin. You could learn more about a subject in 90 minutes of reading Wikipedia than 90 minutes watching a documentary.
The next time you think of watching a documentary some streaming platform cobbled together to get you to mentally justify your monthly subscription, consider reading about it instead.
Aphorism: “[A writer] wants life to proceed with the utmost quiet and regularity. He wants to see the same faces, to read the same books, to do the same things day after day, month after month, while he is writing, so that nothing may break the illusion in which he is living – so that nothing may disturb or disquiet the mysterious nosings about, feelings around, darts, dashes and sudden discoveries of that very shy and illusive spirit, the imagination.” —Virginia Woolf
Book: Clear Thinking (Amazon) is Shane Parrish’s guide to recognizing and acting on ordinary moments with extraordinary potential.
Best,
David
P.S. Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Image warned – 60 years ago – of the dangers of image-based media. Here’s a summary.
