How Ethical is Being Unethical?

A documentary is supposed to be a factual film that takes note of a significant or controversial event, but what happens when the documentary scenes or footage is altered by the director? It becomes an ineffective, biased film that ends up deceiving their audience all for better ratings and possibly a bigger pay check. Some documentarians say they alter the films to get their points across in a more effective way. Does that really seem like an ethical thing to do? I wouldn’t believe so unless you are the director receiving the big pay checks.

When filming documentaries, directors come across various conditions in which they have to make important decisions.  These conditions that the directors encounter can vary from staging or dramatizing certain events to deciding whether or not they should film and publish certain images or situations. When facing decisions that could potentially make or break the film, the directors then have to decide what they should do to get the outcome they want. Do they slant the life of the situation they are filming, or do they start their production idea over until they finally achieve a successful film?

Starting over on a production is typically not the most popular thing to do in this industry. Starting a film over includes finding new sets and equipment to rent out as well as paying actors and crew members for more hours. This would cause the producer and director millions of dollars, if not billions, on top of what they have already paid for. Most documentarians think about other possibilities, but there are a few who just try and fix their documentaries themselves.

There have been times where directors have lied or created a bias perspective when filming their documentaries, basically making them into mockumentaries, which according to http://www.dictionary.com is “a film or television program that is shot like a documentary but is fictitious and usu.” The question remains: is this the right thing to do? Does this help or hurt the documentary itself? In my eyes, this typically causes documentaries to lose their credibility.

“I watch at least 4 movies a week, and if it says it is a true story, it gets me excited to watch the film. However, if I find out something isn’t right, or that the person who made it lied about something, I am probably going to question every aspect of the film and the producer from that point on,” said Jessica Moore, a senior undecided major at Valdosta State University.

One of the things some people don’t know is that misleading facts can be just as unethical as staging certain events in a documentary. An example of this would be the 2004 documentary “Super Size Me” by Morgan Spurlock.

Spurlock’s documentary was about the legal lawsuits being brought upon the popular fast food chain McDonalds. It is said that their food brings severe health problems; in order to prove those accusations, Spurlock decided to film himself eating McDonalds three times a day every day for a month. During this experiment if he was asked did he want his meal supersized he would have to say yes. He also had to eat at least everything on the menu once by the end of that month. He was seen by numerous doctors both before and after the experiment to prove the accusations.

To me, this work was indeed based on nothing but facts; however, I believe eating anything over a certain amount of calories per day, and not exercising presents a risk. On top of that, no one really eats McDonalds three times a day every day of their life. In fact, www.ginahansenconsulting.com provides some alarming facts about the movie, but in those facts there are also statistics and facts that don’t add up to the documentary’s purpose, and some aren’t even about McDonalds. Included is a fact stating that at least 30 minutes of physical activity or exercise was needed a day to maintain a healthy life. Spurlock unfortunately did not do this, and this made him seem as if he was just trying to prove the accusations right by doing things for one side of the argument instead of both.

However, after speaking with the film fanatic and professional blogger Nathanael Hood, I found that not all ideas of slanting a documentary are a negative thing. Being a journalism major, I have always thought prepping a subject is not really the honest thing to do. It is almost like the director of the subject is deceiving their audience. Little did I know, I was completely wrong.

Prepping subjects that a director is about to film was one of the things I thought would hinder a documentary. Hood brought it to my attention that it was actually one of the basics of making a documentary. You need to let people know you are filming them. “There are laws about filming people, about using their images, and even if you want to leave the country, there are miles of red tape you have to deal with if you want to make a documentary because some places, they don’t allow documentaries,” said Hood, “If you put someone in a documentary that doesn’t want to, they can sue you.” He is absolutely correct.

So, I guess documentaries are a lot more complicated than I thought. Documentaries may even be more complicated than movies, but that is surely another debate for another time.

* Photo rights belong to IMDB.com

*Info graphics belong to Morgan McFarland.