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Film examining media’s role in political polarization to be screened at Upstate Films

by Frances Marion Platt
October 20, 2016
in Stage & Screen
0
Film examining media’s role in political polarization to be screened at Upstate Films

The Brainwashing of My Dad will be screened at 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26 at Upstate Films, located at 6415 Montgomery Street (Route 9) in Rhinebeck. A question-and-answer session with the filmmaker will follow.

The Brainwashing of My Dad will be screened at 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26 at Upstate Films, located at 6415 Montgomery Street (Route 9) in Rhinebeck. A question-and-answer session with the filmmaker will follow.
The Brainwashing of My Dad will be screened at 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26 at Upstate Films, located at 6415 Montgomery Street (Route 9) in Rhinebeck. A question-and-answer session with the filmmaker will follow.

You’d have to be living in a cave not to have noticed that public opinion in America has become incredibly polarized in recent decades. The “middle of the road” seems to have vanished. The cataclysm that has swallowed it up can partially be blamed on the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 by a Federal Communications Commission dominated by Reagan appointees. That policy, which had formerly prevented the renewal of broadcast licenses to “news” stations that refused to represent more than one side of controversial public issues, was, by a bizarre twist of legal logic, proclaimed an infringement of the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. In effect, that decision led to the suppression of diversity of information to American TV-watchers and radio listeners – and to a generation of voters who are unfamiliar with global issues and easily swayed by heated rhetoric and disinformation.

On Wednesday, Upstate Films in Rhinebeck will screen The Brainwashing of My Dad, a documentary by Jen Senko, in which the filmmaker explores the historical roots of the media trends that transformed her own father from a non-political, lifelong Democrat into a right-wing fanatic after listening to talk radio. Through interviews with linguists Noam Chomsky and George Lakoff, media luminaries Steve Rendell and Eric Boehlert and activist groups STOP RUSH and HearYourselfThink, among others, Senko unravels how media manipulations over the past 30 years have led to fewer voices, less diversity of opinion, intentional misinformation and greater division in our country. As she investigates the Powell Memo, which urged business leaders to influence institutions of public opinion in the ’70s, the dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine under Reagan and Roger Ailes’ recent plans for GOP media via stations such as Fox News, Senko points to questions about who owns the airwaves, what rights we have as listeners/watchers and what responsibility our government has to keep the airwaves truly fair, accurate and accountable.

The Brainwashing of My Dad will be screened at 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26 at Upstate Films, located at 6415 Montgomery Street (Route 9) in Rhinebeck. A question-and-answer session with the filmmaker will follow. To view a trailer for the film, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8PIZrCA3tA. For more information about the event, visit https://upstatefilms.org/coming-soon/the-brainwashing-of-my-dad.

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- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher

Frances Marion Platt

Frances Marion Platt has been a feature writer (and copyeditor) for Ulster Publishing since 1994, under both her own name and the nom de plume Zhemyna Jurate. Her reporting beats include Gardiner and Rosendale, the arts and a bit of local history. In 2011 she took up Syd M’s mantle as film reviewer for Alm@nac Weekly, and she hopes to return to doing more of that as HV1 recovers from the shock of COVID-19. A Queens native, Platt moved to New Paltz in 1971 to earn a BA in English and minor in Linguistics at SUNY. Her first writing/editing gig was with the Ulster County Artist magazine. In the 1980s she was assistant editor of The Independent Film and Video Monthly for five years, attended Heartwood Owner/Builder School, designed and built a timberframe house in Gardiner. Her son Evan Pallor was born in 1995. Alternating with her journalism career, she spent many years doing development work – mainly grantwriting – for a variety of not-for-profit organizations, including six years at Scenic Hudson. She currently lives in Kingston.

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