Remote Control
The medium is the menace in a scary new documentary
With evidence mounting that the current administration made America's mainstream news media its cellblock bitch on the path to war, the activist agenda of Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain's incendiary documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised seems as urgent as gunfire. It starts as an admiring profile of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who rose to power in 1998 on a populist plank that included redistributing the country's vast disparity of wealth and reclaiming control of its coveted oil reserves. (At this point a little ping should sound in your head: This guy's toast.) But when the country's corporate-backed media and military launched an overt coup in April 2002, with the tacit approval of the oil-hungry Bush II brigade, the Irish filmmakers found themselves in the thick of snipers and bombs, hunkered down in a presidential palace with the enemy's tanks at the gate.
What makes this mandatory election-year viewing—and absolutely terrifying—is its irrefutable demonstration of the danger of consolidated mass media. With Chavez's deep-pocketed enemies controlling all but one state-owned low-power TV channel, pundits and on-air personalities kept up a steady drumbeat of discord that started with lies and slander and advanced to outright image manipulation. In the movie's most astonishing sequence, the filmmakers prove that the Venezuelan media faked reports that Chavez loyalists opened fire on protesters—reports that were used to justify, even inflame, the tumult that followed. Meanwhile, American news outlets passed along the coverage without question. No wonder the local newscasts announcing Chavez's apparent overthrow echo the clubby, celebratory tone of U.S. cable networks reporting the fall of Baghdad (or the New York Times' approving editorial on the Venezuelan coup).
As gripping and valuable as the movie is as historical record, you'll have to look elsewhere for a measured critique of the Chavez administration. His privileged opponents are portrayed (perhaps with justification) as spoiled, opportunistic fat-cats, and while they tend to impale themselves on camera—one upper-class twit cautions to keep an eye on the servants—the filmmakers' use of menacing music smacks of the same manipulation they condemn. What they have to show us is scary enough: The snowballing success of a disinformation campaign. If the relevance of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised isn't self-evident, just double-check to make sure the letters "WMD" are still in the alphabet.
—Jim Ridley
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