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The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Exploiting the obvious

8 comments on Exploiting the obvious

Exploiting the obvious
: NBC has announced that it plans to make a movie about the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch — whether or not she cooperates and gets paid. CBS is also considering a TV movie.

There are two things wrong with this:

First, of course, if you make the movie without her and don’t pay her that is unconscionable exploitation. It is wrong. It is also terrible PR. The audience that loves her for what she represents — hope, victory, and patriotism — will hate the network that screws her.

Second, the movie is bound to be awful. Name the last TV movie that was worth a damn….. I’ll wait… Time’s up… The form of the TV movie, which once produced good work, is all but dead. I used to watch TV movies for a living and I saw the genre die (and miniseries before them) simply because there is now too much competition from cable. TV movies are back to where they started: They are the shlocky leftovers.

So this movie will be bad just because of what it is. But it will be bad for another important reason: It will do nothing but upchuck the news we’ve already seen — and seen with greater frequency than we ever used to see such news. We all know this story. Any of us could write the script. My neighbor could play Jessica without a script. The movie will add nothing new, no perspective, no heart. You might as well just play a tape from FoxNews; that will have just as much drama.

Eventually, Pfc. Lynch’s story will be told and very well might make a good movie. But not yet, and not under these circumstances.

8 responses to “Exploiting the obvious”

  1. Charles Compton Avatar
    Charles Compton

    You’re right about the made-for-TV movies, Mr. Jarvis. The last one I remember seeing was about the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The actual events were quite clear in my mind, as I was a working reporter at the time. The movie, which tried to present itself as a documentary, functioned on such an elementary level (big oil bad, environmentalists good) that I could hardly sit through it.
    Even today, the movie and its spawning genre remain my personal definition of “kitsch.”

  2. marc weisblott Avatar
    marc weisblott

    I’m fairly sure the last stand of the teevee movie started when the networks formerly known as the big three ran competing Amy Fisher flicks. I also recall particularly horrendous Roseanne & Tom Arnold, O.J. Simpson and Dennis Rodman biopics … The 90210 gang also seemed to be picking up a few extra bucks every other week on NBC … then the network tried going highbrow.
    Then again, I was surprised with how good Auto Focus and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind were in conveying different behind-the-scenes aspects of the teevee business in movie form. But that’s a whole different genre.

  3. Pithpott Avatar
    Pithpott

    Maybe they should give the rights to one of the impending Iraqi TV networks. It’d bound to be rivetting fiction.

  4. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    I beg to differ: Farah Fawcett starred in the excellent tv movie about that trashy woman who killed her kids, Small Something or Other. And HBO does a fine job (Barbarians at the Gate). It was fun watching Pirates of Silacon (sp) Valley, too.
    You know a really bad tv-movie (ok, mini-series)? Hollywood Wives. Very bad 80s make up and hair, and a wailin’ Pat Benatar themesong: “Hollywood Wives! They have to kill! To survive! On Rodeo Driiiiive!”

  5. gg Avatar
    gg

    I’m no anticapitalist, but this kind of blatant profiteering makes my stomach churn.

  6. Kate C. Avatar
    Kate C.

    But Small Sacrifices was a book first. Most of the good MOWs did start as books. I know, I used to track down these stories and secure the rights for a living. You need a book or at the very least, a decent newspaper or magazine piece for the NOW to be compelling and have a real story arc.
    But surely the Betty Broderick MOWs are the very best ones ever made. Thank you, Lifetime.

  7. Bob Hawkins Avatar
    Bob Hawkins

    “Evil Roy Slade”. Before VCRs, but it was in color. “That man’s offering you good money to turn on me! Now turn on me! Didn’t I teach you anything?”
    There was a report on WRKO-AM in Boston that the NBC movie is to star Sarah Michelle Gellar as Pfc Lynch.

  8. Pyecraft Avatar
    Pyecraft

    There was a 70’s TV movie, a sort of poor man’s
    “Towering Inferno” in which Lorne Greene was the unlikely hero.
    Near the film’s climax, while clawing for the fingertips of a fading, falling and falsley undistraught damsel-in-distress, the former Ponderosa boss unexplicably began an absurd bellowing, repeatedly roaring,
    “TAKE OFF YOUR PANTYHOSE!”
    I’ve never met a living soul who ever saw this TV movie, and the embarrassment of being totally incapable of forgetting the immortal line, has caused me to never watch another.