Let me start by saying that I love TV movies, especially those
that air during the television sweeps periods (November, February
and May, when advertising rates are set). Usually, these TV movies
are completely outrageous, like last spring’s “Spring
Break Shark Attack,” which is perhaps the most accurate movie
title outside of something that belongs at the Hustler Store
(though I still maintain that the movie had way too much Spring
Break and not enough Shark Attack, but whatever).
The last TV movie commercial I saw was for a disaster movie,
which is common this time of year. This one, however, differed from
the rest in that it wasn’t something like “Earthquake
in New York” or “Atomic Train.” Instead, this
movie is a topical one. Its title? “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu
in America.”
Upon seeing this, my eyebrows nearly raised past my hairline. I
was treated to images of cities being quarantined with barbed wire
fences, bodies being thrown into pits and burned like the carcasses
of livestock with foot-and-mouth disease, and people lamenting the
end of the world.
After doing some research, I found an Associated Press article
that called it “a thinking man’s disaster movie, from
the writer of “˜Atomic Twister.'”
The question I find myself asking is whether this movie is truly
a responsible course of action for a major network like ABC.
We’ve been inundated with coverage about avian flu for the
better part of a year now. All of us have heard the dire
predictions: If a full-scale pandemic were to erupt, millions of
people could die from a super-charged flu virus. Of course, this is
a worst-case scenario ““ it’s not guaranteed that
something like this would happen. However, that hasn’t
stopped people from being more than a little on edge.
After all, this is the same country where people once freaked
out about a computer glitch that would supposedly destroy our
technological infrastructure and either launch nuclear warheads or
set us back to the stone age. And that was before Sept. 11 and the
war on terrorism made people even more frightened of their own
shadows.
Fear is the word of the day in the U.S., from politicians using
it in election campaigns (Dick Cheney’s infamous implication
that the U.S. would be hit by another terrorist attack if John
Kerry were elected) to the news reminding people of all the
different ways they could potentially get killed by just sitting on
their couches.
The best way to deal with unchecked fear is with education. A
lot of the things that people fear are pretty irrational (see Y2K),
and if the public were better informed, the same level of hysteria
would not exist.
“Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America,” however, is
not what I call informing the public responsibly.
With the recent release of “United 93,” some people
have cried foul at Hollywood attempting to profit off of tragedy.
While I disagree with this sentiment, I feel that projects like
“Fatal Contact” are far more insidious: these are
pieces of entertainment that profit directly off of people’s
fears.
I’m not saying that film and television shouldn’t
play into fear at all; after all, this has given us excellent
entertainment like “The X-Files” and basically the
entire horror genre. (“United 93″ could even fall into
this category.) However, in the case of “Fatal
Contact,” not only is it unclear if the situation depicted in
the movie would occur, but the network is also taking advantage of
a topical fear that people have and blowing it out of proportion.
The only thing a movie like this can do is scare people.
You could argue that all disaster movies are made to scare
people, and you would be correct. However, the difference here is
that in the past, these movies have been things like “Spring
Break Shark Attack,” “Earthquake in New York,”
“Atomic Twister” and “Asteroid.” Could the
catastrophes depicted in these movies occur? Sure. The events
depicted aren’t completely impossible. However, none of these
disasters are as impending or as tangibly real as bird flu, which
is why “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America” hits too
close to home. (The sensationalistic, ridiculously expository title
doesn’t help matters.)
If ABC is going to play the education card, they would be far
better served airing a “20/20″ or
“Primetime” special report detailing all of the facts.
Then again, why go the responsible route and air a well-researched,
factual piece of investigative reporting when you can hire D-list
television actors to over-dramatize events and get boffo ratings
numbers from people who would just as soon encase their houses in
duct tape and plastic sheets?
Humphrey thinks ExpressMart should start stocking up on
TamiFlu. E-mail him at mhumphrey@media.ucla.edu.