AFTER TRUTH: DISINFORMATION AND THE COST OF FAKE NEWS
US, 2020, 95 minutes, Colour.
By Andrew Rossi.
This is a film about conspiracy theories, American conspiracy theories – which may seem very wild in the United States but seem even wilder to those outside the United States.
This documentary was released by Home Box Office in 2020, at the beginning of the election year and President Trump hoping for a second term. The thrust of the documentary is that the conspiracies portrayed in this film tend to be perpetrated and believed in by Trump supporters. Some of them have been used to bolster support for him. There are a number of sequences from the 2016 Trump rallies, the denunciation of Fake News, urging the crowds to turn to the press boxes and shout at them.
In 95 minutes, not all conspiracies can be considered so there is a selection here. The point is made that a conspiracy is not just investigating an event and having opinions but rather holding that the opinions are the truth.
This is particularly the case in a conspiracy that was heard of outside the United States but was particularly American. In order to target Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign, this conspiracy theory focused on a family pizza establishment in Washington DC, where families could gather, have recreation, especially with ping-pong tables, and enjoy their pizza. The conspiracy concerned the proprietor of the pizza establishment: Comet, James Alefantis speak emotionally to camera. The venue was frequented by politicians and the media. Stories were told that the pizza establishment was a cover for a paedophile ring, organised by the manager and by Hillary Clinton herself, that the menu items were codes for choosing boys or girls for sexual activity, that the basement of the establishment was where the abuse took place. This conspiracy received a great deal of coverage, detrimental to Hillary Clinton. The film shows the journey of a conspiracy theorist from South Carolina, so incensed that he rode his bike to Washington DC, brandished a gun, threatening the staff and patrons. Quick thinking on the part of the staff meant that the police arrived quickly and overpowered him, no injuries to customers.
There are talking head interviews with quite a number of journalists, a focus on to right-wing conspiracy fabricators, Jack Bergman and Jacob Wohl, scenes of their planning their work, press conferences with innuendo rather than facts – and being challenged by the journalists present.
Indications are given on various extreme websites and information on those sites. Perhaps best known outside Australia is the broadcaster, Alex Jones, who said that the murder of the school children at Sandy Hook was a hoax. There are quite a number of excerpts focusing on him, information given that he is Internet presence was closed down, his going to Washington, enraged, confronting journalists and denouncing them.
The tone of the film is set from the beginning with a conspiracy about military exercises in Texas in 2016, locals up in arms, the theory that Barack Obama was preparing prisons for his opponents. There is a scene with a local meeting, the military Had explaining what was happening and the locals telling him that they didn’t believe a word he said.
The film is helpful in presenting these conspiracies and their backgrounds, the personalities promoting, the experts critical of them. While the immediate response from some audiences was favourable, commending the expose, there was a great deal of hostility against the documentary from large numbers who believed that the film was all propaganda against American citizens who wanted to know the truth.
