Docudramas Take Fiction’s Liberties With Our History

Millions of American television viewers are going to spend the February “sweeps” ratings period reliving events from our national past--although some of the events didn’t happen the way they will on television.

It is history as entertainment, currently one of the hottest forms of television programming. This is how many of us learn history these days--in our living rooms, munching popcorn, watching Annette O’Toole as Rose Kennedy, Powers Booth as super-spy John Walker Jr., Karen Allen as teacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe or Tom Hulce as civil rights worker Mickey Schwerner.

The big events of the February sweeps are CBS’ “Family of Spies” starting Sunday night, NBC’s “Murder in Mississippi” Monday night, ABC’s “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” starting Feb. 18 and ABC’s “Challenger” Feb. 25.

There are great liberties taken in the movies and miniseries airing this month. The private life, including bedroom scenes, of slain civil rights worker Schwerner and his wife, Rita, was fictionalized by the screenwriter of “Murder in Mississippi.” Stanley Weiser said he had to “take dramatic license” because the real Rita Schwerner declined to participate. The critical scene in “Challenger” in which executives of Morton-Thiokol OK the space shuttle launch despite questions about the safety of O-rings the company manufactured for the shuttle is based on one man’s recollection (the only man from whom producers bought story rights). There is no mention that other participants in the meeting depicted offer a contradictory version.

The bulk of the film is seen through Christa McAuliffe’s eyes. Yet, because McAuliffe’s family declined to participate, more “dramatic license” was employed in her private relationships, too.

“The Kennedys of Massachusetts” overlooks such minor facts as Joe Kennedy Sr. being a bootlegger, while it includes made-up bedroom scenes between the young John Kennedy and an unidentified Englishwoman.

There are a couple of simple reasons why we are seeing more of what Allen Sabinson, the head of motion pictures and miniseries for ABC, calls “true stories”: prestige and ratings.

“Look back at the Emmy nominations for last year,” Sabinson says. “ ‘My Name Is Bill W.’ (about the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous), ‘Murderers Among Us’ (Simon Wiesenthal and the aftermath of the Holocaust), ‘Roe vs. Wade’ (the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling on abortion).”

And “true stories,” both particular and historical docudramas, get ratings, too. The highest-rated movie or miniseries of all time is the historical docudrama “Roots.” Such recent historical docudramas as “Cross of Fire,” “The Murder of Mary Phagan,” “Roe vs. Wade” and “My Name Is Bill W.” have all done well in the ratings.