Issue 26: Bending The Truth

During World War II, military analysts were trying to figure out how to better armor their planes. Research showed that many returning planes had bullet holes in the wings, tail, and fuselage (I think this means the body of the plane but I’m not looking it up). The immediate assumption was to reinforce these areas, but a statistician named Abraham Wald made an observation. Have you ever made an observation? He observationed that these were the planes that survived. Smart guy this Wald character. The planes that didn’t return might have been hit in other areas, like the engine which seems pretty important. By focusing only on the success stories, they were missing crucial information. Instead, they reinforced the areas where there were no bullet holes on the returning planes as he realized the planes hit in those parts likely did not return.

What do we learn from this? Nothing. Last week’s issue taught us not to learn.

Now, onto some news. I know I claim this is a newsletter and rarely actually provide news. That changes this week. Newsflash buddy, this is a serious issue. People’s lives were affected by events and I’m going to tell you about them. Turns out reporting news is easier than cleverly and creatively being introspective to provide insights and humor hand in hand and I’m feeling lazy this week.

One of the biggest stories right now for me is (shocker) in sports. I mean, it is also technically pop culture, but it’s about shattering the dream, the fantasy that we have about the feel good story of the movie The Blind Side with Academy Award winning Sandra Bullock and depicting the great story of Michael Oher, the football player, being brought from the dregs of the streets into the home of a rich white family and making it to the NFL with this firecracker of a woman by his side and a loving brother and sister in a mixed family of happiness. How about that for a sentence. Anyways, turns out it’s all fake. We’ve heard over the years that Michael Oher was never all that happy about The Blind Side. He didn’t like all the attention. He wasn’t necessarily pleased with being portrayed as a player, or as a person, who seemingly stumbled through life, barely able to survive, and needed all the help he could get.

But it was a movie. That was the drama. That’s what brought us in so many times. We watch movies and we want the stories to be real. Movies like this are “based” on true stories. That’s the legal word that’s used. This is “based” on a true story. Some of it happened, some of it didn’t. And then, in little letters that get buried deep in the credits, “Some scenes have been fictionalized or dramatized for the purpose of time or for the purpose of entertainment.” But for the Blind Side we said no, this is all good. And how upset were we when Michael Oher said, well, that’s not me, that’s not really a good reflection of me? We were okay living with that. But then last week shattered our plausible deniability when Big Mike claimed that he was never adopted by the Tuohy family and the entire premise of the movie was fake. He, instead, was Britney’d. Britney’d is a verb about conservatorship. Keep up people. You know, what her father did to her. She’s now free. But is she free? If she is free, is it helpful? How’s she doing? How’s her mental state? Another topic, another time.

Conservatorships are a legal way of protecting people from themselves. Conservatorships are when a court decides that somebody needs to control somebody else’s finances or the skill and talent which they have that can be monetized so it won’t be squandered. Michael Oher is claiming in a lawsuit that the Tuohys never adopted him and, as a matter of fact, they tricked him into signing a document which gave them all power over his finances and over any money he could get. He signed away his life rights and didn’t see a penny from The Blind Side while they’ve gotten rich.

Last week I said, “Don’t ruin a good story with the truth.” This proves it. What was once a feel good story is now a feel bad story all because the truth decided to get all involved. On The Bright Side (no relation to The Blind Side) it does make the parody video where the Tuohys kidnap Peyton Manning that much funnier. I’m linking it below.

Peyton Manning: Blind Side Spoof

Sadly, this is not the only movie that took its fair share of liberties only to be later revealed as entirely false. How long are we going to let Hollywood get away with this? Here at the Daily Dispatch we have earned a reputation of holding up the sterilizing light of truth and reporting back with our findings. As an independent journal, I am beholden to no special interests or big money influencers. The only checks on my ability to pursue the truth are my own skills, my own perseverance, or the opinion of any potential high dollar donor to the Daily Dispatch.

We like to see ourselves as the voice of the people. We are truth tellers, question askers, word writers. When other newsletters won’t, the Daily Dispatch will. When other newsletters can’t, the Daily Dispatch can. David had Goliath. Blockbuster had Netflix. Sears had the 21st century. Today, we are taking on Hollywood and their lies.

Let’s reminisce for a moment. The year is 2006. The world is simpler. Houses cost much much less and banks were making sure you bought those subprime mortgages to prop up our economy. A little teeny bopper movie with a simple name dropped and the world wasn’t ready for the star power, and attractiveness, that accompanied it. I’m talking about a little documentary called High School Musical. Though primarily fictionalized, it was always intended to be based on the real life of Troy Bolton. Immediately we must, almost to an extreme, suspend disbelief. Troy is portrayed as a high school basketball star, a D1 prospect, and eventual (spoiler alert) state champion. Standing 5’8 and playing the shooting guard position, actor Zac Efron (the aforementioned attractiveness) gives us a performance so dynamic, so charming that we almost believe it. Sure he’s a little undersized, maybe D1 schools are hoping he can transition his game to a more true point guard role, but let’s quickly look at the others on the team.

This isn’t the best shot. The picture I tried to add kept saving as a web file rather than a jpeg and I don’t feel like working any harder on this than I have to. This shows enough to prove the point I’m trying to make. Nobody is over 6 feet tall. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with being under 6 feet tall. Many of our most attractive men are under 6 feet tall (Zac, Seth, Tom Cruise, others…) but do you expect me to believe this small ball roster won a state championship in Arizona?

Moving on, it has come to light since the release of the documentary that there were, in reality, no choreographed dance numbers in the middle of the game and there was no beautiful and sentimental moment where a spotlight shone on Gabriella (Vanessa Anne Hudgens of Princess Switch fame) while they shared a song. Does this diminish the enjoyment of the film? Should it? It’s a feel good story of following your heart and passion. It shows us we can be a salmon swimming against society’s stream and singing for love and loving to sing. Can’t we just accept that, regardless of the truth?

Can we accept a story when it misrepresents important history though? I’ve watched every season of Netflix’s The Crown. I’m a history buff. It is well documented that The Crown took some creative liberties in early seasons, but when they announced the later seasons were going to be focused on Princess Diana, I got a little nervous. Famous for her role as an actress on the show Suits, this commoner turned royalty took the world by storm in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Many revolted against someone like her marrying someone like the Prince, but class system be damned, love prevailed. As many threw dirt on her name, most notably Michael Jackson in his hit song “Dirty Diana”, she shook it off (which later inspired the Taylor Swift classic “Shake It Off”). A woman of many songs, she sang her swan song on August 31, 1997 in a high speed car chase in a white Ford Bronco or something like that. I don’t really know what the real story is if we’re being honest. I’m more of the buff and less of the history in the phrase “history buff”. What I do know, is that people smarter than me have said the show The Crown took some creative liberties. When film or television stretch the truth of a small story meant to inspire, we don’t tend to mind, but where do we draw the line when it comes to world history? At what point do the scales tip in the battle between a good story and the truth? What is the minimum threshold? Is 51% true a suitable line? Should we really get into the game of measuring and defining truth or is an all or nothing policy a better approach? To tell you the truth, I don’t know.

What I do know is the Tuohy family did a bad thing, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens stole our hearts in 2006, and Princess Diana deserved better.