 Today, we're not gonna be watching a movie, but we will be talking about them. Today, we are going to be talking about the harm and obsession of biopics. This is a video essay by Trin Lovell. Before we talk about biopics, we need to know what they are. And a side note, I will be calling them biopics through this entire video. I will not be saying biopics, and that's a personal choice, and you're gonna have to deal with it. A biographical film or biopic is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional person or historical-based person or people. The first-ever biopic on record is George Melly's Joan of Arc, which was released in 1900 in France. This comes from a 2012 book written by Kun A, which was released in 2012, and I found this from the Dictionary of Film Studies Oxford University. That's where I found all the biopic books, which you guys should look into. Now, if you're having a hard time, remembering what films are classified as biopics, I'll give you a short little list of some very famous biopics. Raging Bull, Malcolm X, The Social Network, I, Tonya, Bohemia Rhapsody, Rocket Man, The King's Speech, Elvis, King Richard, Extremely Wicked and Shockingly Evil, Selena, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyer's Club, Snowden, Kill Your Darlings, and many, many more. There are so many biopics released within every single year that just they pop them out like they are easy or something, which they should be the hardest films to make, in my opinion. Biopics lead the scene in today's culture with every new biopic gaming tons and tons of attention, specifically by award shows. Biopics show us the win-win scenario for studios, where it doesn't really matter if it's good, just if people watch it. And when you're banking off of famous people's stories, you're guaranteed to at least make your money back by telling their story. What I've realized when writing this video is that everyone is a sucker for the sentence based on a true story. And if you have anything to do with marketing, you know this and you thrive when you get to add that to whatever marketing spiel you're doing. For example, take any food commercial and you hear the phrase made with a real fruit. Our minds associate that with it being better. Now that also has a whole other aspect of it, where we're dealing with stuff we're putting into our bodies. But this also has an effect on how we view other things as well, specifically media and based on a true story. Made with real fruit is the true story and artificial is fiction. And if you think the general audience that is buying tickets at the box office is the only one getting fooled by this narrative, then you are completely wrong because award season is when biopics shine the brightest. And the Oscars loves nothing more than awarding biopics. In contrast to that, in contrast to the Oscars loving biopics and award season loving biopics, something has changed with original series. Original series from streaming sites have all taken on biopic stories. They want to tell true stories within their original series. And this shows within just the year of 2022. Now with talking about the recent popularity, it's important to know that biopics have been popular since the dawn of time, since they were being made. Most films that were made at the very beginning of time, a lot of them were based off of historical figures. And there's so many different reasons why biopics are popular, why they were popular back then and why they're popular now. And in short, my theory is this is not a fact. My theory is that depicting fictional characters is cool and the performances are cool, but depicting real people is difficult. And people, the audience, the academy, everyone wants to see something difficult to do achieved. The viewers want to know it's hard. They don't want this to be a creative outlet. They want to see something difficult to do. Like when you're watching the Olympics, a part of it is watching something that is cool, but it's also something super difficult to do that you cannot imagine doing. And part of this seeps into us watching films. And something that biopics do is actually give you a scale to judge films on, which you can judge any film, but this gives you a direct comparison of this is a real-life person, you are playing them, I can compare these two people. And now it's game time, bitches. Now I am judging you harder than I ever was before, and now this is a very fun game. And this only gets worse with time because the further we go on, the more footage we have of these characters that actors are portraying. Back in the day, you're depicting a fictional character, a historical figure. Okay, we don't know that much about them and we can't really hear their voice, so it doesn't really matter what you do. But with stories about Elizabeth Holmes where her whole trial is like documented, Amanda Seyfried can study her movements, but so can the audience. And I think that's a very interesting point to point out because this is no longer like I went hunting for footage. Like they, that's public. Elizabeth Holmes tapes is like very public. So this adds a whole new level and a whole new interest within the movies being released now. Because no one cares to see a biopic on Mary Queen of Scots, no offense. They would like to see Princess Diana being played and someone perfectly matching her delicate speech pattern because that's difficult. And whether intended to or not, this becomes an interactive media. This is the audience having a full hand within your performance. It's not, this is my interpretation of the character. This is a real person and we all have access to them because they were in the spotlight. So the obsession with biopics not only lies within this need for a true story, it also lies within the obsession of praising difficulty. And I think that's a very big part that not a lot of us figure out until award season comes along and every single best actor is cause they're playing a real person. And something interesting is that the rise in performances of real life people actually started after Robin De Niro's huge win at the 1981 Oscars for his performance in Raging Bull as Jake Lomota. This is what's kind of deemed as the start and the biggest win for a biopic. It kind of changed award season and it kind of changed movies forever. And after 1981, biopics were basically taking every single big category of the Oscars, including best picture, best actor and best actress. All of these films since 1981 have been leading in wins from biographical films. So with all of that being said, what I'm gathering is that biopics deliver the audience what they want and it makes profit for the creators. I'm not seeing anything harmful about this and I don't think you are either. So let's dive into the next section. For lack of better words, the harm comes in a much more subtle way. In the act of telling someone's life story to serve a certain narrative of the time it was released. This can stir tons of controversy no matter who you're depicting, but especially with criminals. True crime has been at an all-time high in popularity, which in my opinion, I think is for the worst, but I digress. And studios are taking note of that rise in popularity and we are getting new true crime biopics every month. And it's scary how fast they're pumping them out. It really is. Now some insight for writing anything that is based off of a convicted felon or true crime case is the son of Sam Law. In simple terms, the son of Sam Law is just to prevent criminals from gaining any profit from selling the rights to their stories to publishers, writers, any of the sort. I will leave a link to all this I'm reading from in the description box down below. It is from theMTSU.edu. And it goes into the first amendment and this goes into executive law section 632A, commonly known as the son of Sam Law. It was enacted in 1977 after serial killer David Berkowitz, also known as son of Sam, sold his exclusive story rights. This whole article was posted in 2009 written by Sandra Thomas and she's the director of the library at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. And with that being said, there are eight states that do not enact the son of Sam Law. So if you're a criminal, make sure you're like in one of those states if you like wanna like write a fan fiction about yourself. So in my opinion, this is where we dive into a blurred line morally. I'm not moral king, high ground. I am a 20 year old girl. I'm just doing a little essay. I don't want to tell you what your moral should be. But in short, with a small sum of cash, the right state and a convicted felon story at your hands or just the story becoming public domain, you can turn them into anybody you want. A perfect example of this is inventing Anna and Adelve sold her story to a publisher and then had inventing Anna made on Netflix. In talking about the harms of true crime biopics, we now enter with Dahmer. Dahmer was a limited series released on Netflix in the year of 2022 in September. It starred Evan Peters and was produced by Ryan Murphy. It was quickly a very popular show. In all honesty, I never watched it. And there was a big reason for that. This was a manufactured success. Every single like Dahmer story, like no matter how many times we have heard Jeffrey Dahmer story, the people will watch something and they knew by casting Evan Peters that was a shoo-in to get people to watch it. Cause even though my friend Dahmer had just come out, Ross Lynch really wasn't that popular enough to gain such attention. People really knew him from Disney stuff and this was a big switch. But Evan Peters is known for playing villains and for playing very scary characters with his work on American Horror Story. So in my opinion, I think it was like very manufactured success and I wasn't surprised that everyone still watched it. The victim's family said, how many more movies do we need? Being as there's so much footage of Jeffrey Dahmer, there are tapes from when he was in prison being interviewed. There are many movies, many books. I don't know how many more times we have to hear this story. And this begs the question for all biopics. But specifically for true crime biopics, are we using these films to tell stories and to tell real stories? Or are we using these shocking horrific events to show how scary an actor can perform? But it is something very scary to see such horrific crimes be looked at upon as opportunities for awards and profit. So when it comes to telling these stories, aside from drawing our own line morally, one of the biggest questions ever asked about biopics is, is it accurate? Did it actually happen like that? Is this true? Did Freddie Mercury really leave Queen that soon to do a solo career? Did Mark Zuckerberg actually steal from the Winklevoss twins? Was Tonya Harding actually innocent? And did Marilyn Monroe even sleep with John F. Kennedy? In short, they're not accurate, but we all knew that. Giving your story to a mastermind screenwriter and expecting them not to embellish your story, even if it is completely outrageously true, is just to be naive. I mean, you're not giving your work to Aaron Sorkin and expecting him to just let it be that, right? Screenwriters know one thing and that's to make the words come to life. And that can be at basically any cost. The social network is one of Aaron Sorkin's best screenplays to this day, but almost half of the story isn't even real. It creates a motive and arc to Zuckerberg's wrongdoings, portraying a girl who rejected him as the sole factor in creating Facebook when the truth is much more detailed than that. I'm gonna leave a screenwriters article in the description box down below, going over the changes that the social network made to the actual events that happened. Blonde branded itself as a biopic, showing the real Marilyn and no matter how much the makers of the film deny that, it's clear that the marketing of this movie was to be an honest biopic based off of a fictional book of her life and giving her the most tragic story they could conjure up. And even most recently with The Fableman's, a story about Steven Spielberg's upbringing made by Steven Spielberg himself is not true. Now, many of the things happened within the film, but there were so many additions to the story that never happened, Steven Spielberg even admitting that himself. He revealed that he didn't even have a girlfriend, but that was one of the parts of the movie that made Sam's arc so much more compelling and emotional to the audience. And I wanted to share that example because not all changes to real life is this evil negative thing, but that is a very specific instance where that was Steven Spielberg and that was also his story that he was telling himself and he decided to add a positive thing to change the story. Whereas in other cases with the other examples, all of them were to shine a horrible light on the people that they were depicting. Now this is all a blurred line of ethics and a moral code, but in my opinion, the audience mistake is believing that these false narratives are only present within drama biopics. In terms of a viewer based on a true story is most believable on biopics of bad people, AKA murderers or criminals, AKA murderers or people of horrific crimes, people doubt the accuracy a surprisingly low amount in comparison to a legal drama biopic such as the social network. And it makes sense because who would want to doubt the accuracy of real life crimes that have happened and real life victim stories? In my opinion, I think we give too much credit to the writers if we believe such that they would never depict victims in a bad narrative, that they would never change the story of true crime to fit a better story. And I do that too. In this whole video, I say a lot of the times the audience, but I am the audience. I am not innocent from this. I fall for the same things that any other audience member would fall for because I am an audience member. No biopic is 100% accurate because real life doesn't move in three part acts. And not everyone gets a redemption arc even if the writers try their best to do so. Now here we are with the harm displayed and the obsession displayed. So what's the conclusion at the end of this? What are we saying? What are we even saying at the end of this? The appeal of this genre is the truth factor. When branded as such, we are more likely to buy it, AKA the made with real fruit effect, as I call it. Do biopics actually accomplish their goal in telling honest, accurate, real stories? Majority of the time, no. 100% of the time, the story is fabricated in smaller, major ways. And a lot of the time, it's not a small way. Now my biggest takeaway from this video and the biggest takeaway that I want you guys to take from this video is why critical watching is so important. This goes for all media. Critical consumption of media is always important, regardless of the media. When you're watching this video, critically watching it is important. There is no mindless watching things. Everything should be critically watched with, in a small or major way. But to make sure you take a step back to analyze what you're watching when digesting biopics is even more important due to truth-based media being a primary factor in our everyday beliefs. Whether you like to admit it or not, we all fall for everyday propaganda. Biopics is a very easy way to trick our minds and to change the narrative of certain times. Biopics depicting historical events can change the way we see them. Changing the narrative of historical events is not only prevalent within biopics or film or art, by the way, it's also very prevalent within actual historical books that are supposed to be 100% truthful and honest, whatever. That's why I say critical watching is always important within every media, regardless. Everyone thinks they can escape this mindset. Viewers, academy members, everyone thinks that they can avoid falling for based on a true story, glory. Cause that's what it is. Based on a true story is the most enticing title ever. It is like a black hole that we are falling down into. Wow, everything is just so much better if it's based on a true story. For Christ's sake, the Blair Witch Project was a major hit just for the sole fact of people not being able to tell whether it was actually real footage or not. Biopics tell the stories of real people. And depending on who's making it, you can change the way an entire generation views a single event. And if you're not careful enough, you could be falling for the wrong hero of the story. It's no longer about a fictional idea of what could happen. It's changing the narrative of someone's entire life within one script, while making the audience believe every second of it. Filmmakers know this and profit off of the need to know truth-based stories. And the further we go on feeding the monster that is audience cravings and creator's profit, the further we get from telling truth-based stories, which is the whole reason why we started making biopics to begin with. There are tons of amazing biopics. And this video is not to deem them as evil. This is not me to say stop watching biopics. This is not a PSA to stop watching biopics. Biopics for a long time were some of my favorite movies ever. I used to say to everyone, my favorite genre is biopics. I don't know why I would say that. That's literally the most boring thing I could possibly ever say, actually. This video is not to insinuate that the act of creating them or watching them is evil or wrong or morally wrong. I know I said the word moral line a lot, but that goes into a little bit more of true crime biopic specifically. This is only to think about the simultaneous harm and obsession that the genre feeds. And it's also about how understanding the impacts of a film telling someone's true story is much larger than you probably believe it to be. Biographical films are wonderful. Some of the best movies I've watched have been biographical films. One of my favorite movies ever is the social network. I love biographical films. But at the end of this whole discussion, it's up to you as a viewer to decide what narrative you choose to believe. Media is powerful. All media we consume is powerful, small or big. Media is a powerful thing, but our media consumption is just as powerful if we let it be. The harm and obsession of biopics goes hand in hand. One cannot survive without the other. You can't tell half fiction and half truth without that being harmful, but you also can't market something as based on a true story and not have people fall at its feet with obsession. Cause that's just too enticing. But my final question for you, is this even a problem to you? Is this so-called harm and obsession that I am describing even a problem to you? And if so, why? If not, why? This video is not for me to tell you that this is wrong and someone should stop it. It's supposed to be an open discussion about this phenomenon that we're kind of living in. Art strikes controversial topics within conversations and pushes you to think. Where your line rest is completely up to you, but in my opinion, the most important thing is that you just draw it to have your own opinion, to have your own line that you draw for yourself when consuming media is the most important part to me. I hope this video will strike a conversation for you guys with your own friend group or maybe even online. Thank you guys for watching this video. It was very different from videos I normally make and I spent a lot of time writing this video and researching. This is probably the most fun I've had making a video in so long. And at the end of the day, I am not trying to force you to have an opinion or to force that this statement of harm and obsession within biopics is correct. It's just an essay. It's just a thought. And I hope you continue to have thoughts with me because I would love to discuss more and more with you guys. Thank you for joining me as I talk about the harm and obsession within biopics. I will see you guys next time. Bye.