DOCUDRAMA--THE AWFUL TRUTH

This is a true story, except for the parts that are false.

If they ever get around to conducting the Nuremberg Television Trials, they may pick me up for questioning.

That’s because not too long ago, when I was a young and desperate ex-bartender and CBS was a fatter and much happier corpocracy, I spent six months working in the network’s docudrama department. Our main job was to verify scripts of made-for-TV movies that purported to be true stories--movies just like CBS’ “Manhunt for Claude Dallas” that aired last Tuesday.

(In Calendar last week, writers Jennifer Leonard and David Johnston looked into the making of “Manhunt,” the story of a still-at-large mountain man who gunned down two Idaho game wardens, and found that factual errors could give viewers the mistaken impression that Dallas killed the wardens in self-defense.)

Ideally, we’d read a script like “Manhunt,” do some research, meet with the producers for an $80 waffle breakfast at the Polo Lounge, discuss our factual concerns and eventually work them out.

Sometimes there were big fights, but when we fact-checkers were finally satisfied that Truth had been served, we’d certify the movie’s veracity and CBS could then claim in ads that it was “Based on a true story.” (The big tubes at CBS knew that if they could tout a movie as “true,” it meant higher ratings.)

In those days the term docudrama was already universally hated. One critic had called the docudrama “as crooked as a camel’s back” and others had accused them of gross inaccuracies and biases.

Docudramas were--and still are--inherently confusing. Docu and drama, truth and fiction, real names and real events--all twisted into a double helix of ambiguity. What portion is true? How can anyone tell?

The networks insist that producers of docudramas stick to the true story, but everyone in televisionville knows the inevitable effect of too many facts and too little drama: Mass ennui, followed by the sounds of millions of clicking dials.

That’s why some brilliant future vice president of programming somewhere invented the Dramatic License. It can’t be revoked or even suspended, but it permits certain liberties to be taken with the facts to heighten drama--and elevate ratings. In theory, these “dramatic effects” do not qualitatively effect the essential truth of the story being docudramatized. But I’m afraid we fudged many a fact in the service of the great Drama god.

And what about the hapless viewer? How can he possibly know where fact ends and fiction begins in docudramas like CBS’ “Manhunt” and ABC’s “Easy Prey” (“Based on a true story”), which aired last week, or NBC’s “Stranger in My Bed” (“Inspired by the true story”), which America still awaits?

He can’t. He watches an indistinguishable parade of representative, composite and real-life characters. Some real-life people never show up on screen--sometimes to keep the number of characters down, sometimes just because they wouldn’t sign over their rights. And even Albert Einstein couldn’t spot such common script-writing tricks as telescoped time and rearranged chronology.

In general, the more you know about a real event, the more surreal the TV version will appear. We “Truth Squad” guys were truly concerned about the poor viewer’s plight--honest. We often joked that if CBS really cared about the viewer, a little light should blink in the corner of the screen whenever the facts were being fooled with. But of course that would spoil the drama.

To prove that I was an unwilling participant in any televised crimes against humanity, or at least to try to reduce my sentence, I offer this guide to help viewers see the Truth through the docudrama fog:

Sign up for speed skepticism lessons.

Despite living color, TV still paints most everything in stark black and whites. Rarely is life so simple, good and evil so unmistakable.

Seek “Truth”--subjective and illusive no matter what its origin--from alternative sources.

Stereotypes thrive on TV like dandelions on peat moss. If you think you’ve seen that bad cop, mad scientist, greedy businessman, redneck, angry black, tough woman, strong mother, etc., before, you’re probably right.

Most personal docudramas are hopelessly sanguine, white-washed and sugar-coated. Earth’s quota of saints is not that high.

When dead people are docudramatized, distortion is often magnified, mainly because dead people don’t file law suits.

Forget about time. Dramatic effects warp time beyond all comprehension.

Always trust courtroom dialogue; it can be checked. Just don’t pay too close attention to the order of witnesses or evidence.

Finally, remember always the phrase heard many times a day, wherever TV shows are in production: “It’s close enough for television.”