As an aspiring creator of documentary, you could say it’s pretty pertinent to engage with different documentary material often. I spend a fair bit of time doing this, keeping an open mind to watching a variety of films, created in line with a range of styles and across a plethora of subject matter.
There’s a lot of different topics that I would say interest me, yet one of the strongest sentiments I have is the importance of the approach we take to our health, individually and collectively as a community. What’s important for us to understand is the heavy hand media and communication yield in influencing our perception of what is “healthy”. Thus, we can appreciate the potential power of documentary to put forth information that is void of bias and an agenda (of the same degree) as certain industries.
What I find interesting about the function of documentary in this capacity is not necessarily its ability to put forth arguments for or against certain health care measures. Instead, I find the role of a participatory documentary in engaging with and inviting adverse opinions and the response the maker receives quite fascinating, putting into context the facts and opinions being given.
For example, “What the Health”, a recent Netflix documentary by Kip Anderson that attempts to dispel the supposed health benefits of animal agriculture consumption, is one such example. It’s important for me to note that assessing the health claims made in this film are outside the scope of this blog post (although they did have me thinking about my personal choices as a consumer). Instead, what I think is significant is the film’s highlighting how corporate sponsorship and funding is, sadly, pivotal in influencing the health and nutrition information we receive.
Anderson shows in his film how he tries, several times, to have an interview with representatives from (for instance) the American Cancer Association to discuss the role of diet in disease prevention. (This is after Anderson finds on their website that the ACA recommends a diet high in animal proteins, despite studies (particularly by the World Health Organisation) illustrating the carcinogenic (and thus cancer causing properties of these foods). Again, the validity of whether or not a vegan diet is, in fact, safer in prevention of disease is irrelevant to this conversation.
What I do believe, however, the documentary successfully highlighted is the unfortunate role in funding and manipulating the information that we, as consumers and citizens, do receive. Thus, this bias causes us to make skewed decision making, probably more often that what we realise and I appreciate documentaries that help bring this to the fore. As the film shows, interestingly, Anderson’s interviews are cancelled upon the representatives learning of the direction in which they were headed. The film also reveals that the American Cancer Association is sponsored by, as one example, Wallmart, a leading producer in highly manufactured and processed food products.
Putting information into context is crucial to creating an accurate and valid argumentative film. All documentary films have an agenda and bias to a degree. But comparing your bias to that of alternative organisations (which I believe this film does) is a clever and considered approach that leaves your audience a little more critical of the information that they really receive. I believe that should be the function of documentary foremost anyway.
