Coming to theatres and to VOD tomorrow, Friday, March 18: THE BRAINWASHING OF MY DAD
Jen Senko’s investigation into the obsessive appeal of right-wing media made its debut at Cinequest earlier this month, following a work-in-progress screening at Traverse City last Summer. It’s slated to screen at Sarasota, Beverly Hills, and San Luis Obispo fests in addition to one-off and limited theatrical exposure, plus a day and date VOD release on iTunes and other platforms.
As signaled by its title, Senko’s film found its origins and ostensible focus in the personal – after decades as a liberal Democrat, the filmmaker’s aging father inexplicably became an acolyte of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and their culture of conservative outrage and bombast. In practicality, Senko’s father actually plays a rather minor role in her project, which instead becomes more broad-based as it examines the roots of the rise of American extremism. Unsurprisingly, she locates this in the form of Nixon aide and later Fox chairman Roger Ailes’ cagey understanding of the use of media to manipulate public opinion, and follows this progression through the elimination of the fairness doctrine in broadcasting, paving the way for punditry to erupt on the airwaves. This history lesson, while coming with its own political bias, is by far the most interesting element of the otherwise often roughly-made doc – though the Bill Plympton cartoons provide brief escapes from a string of talking heads, Senko’s unnecessary on-camera appearances, and repetitive anecdotal testimony from other random folks who have gone through similar experiences with “brainwashed” loved ones.
what (not) to doc 