Bias

Today we watched parts of two films in class. One was impartial to both sides of the copyright debate showing people who were for and people who were against, while the other film was completely partial to one side.

Talking about this reminded me about a documentary I recently watched called The Divided States of America. This was a documentary on PBS about the huge divide between Republicans and Democrats and how this came to be. Since politics is such a controversial subject, especially after this past election, PBS tried to keep this documentary as impartial and unbiased as possible. However, they still managed to make a bias towards the left through the cinematography. Throughout the documentary there are many speakers from both sides talking about Obama’s presidency to show that they were bipartisan but what the republicans were talking about and what the democrats were talking about was completely different. The democrats were interviewed primarily when Obama was being attacked for his race, and would talk about how strong he was. When the republicans were interviewed they would talk about how selfish Obama was for not taking their side. They sounded petty, and unprofessional.

The documentary went forward and tried to explain how the election of 2008 was the beginning of our divide. The narrator basically blames Obama for the beginning of the divide saying “Obama came to Washington with the idea of hope and change, and in fact, he finishes his presidency with the country even more divided.” This statement shows how the documentary tried not to be partial to the left side.

Earlier in the film, the documentary talks about when Obama’s race was first brought up in the election. The only reason they showed videos of republican citizens was to show how racist they were. The only characteristic the viewer was shown about republicans was that they were arrogant and racist. They showed clips of riots where the people were calling Obama racial slurs and it the documentary even showed an old woman calling Obama an Arab to senator John McCain. Republicans were only shown in this negative light, while the democrats are thought of a positive uplifting people. During Obamas inauguration, a man turned to this little girl, pointed at Obama, and said, “That could be you one day.” The choices of clips they use to express both sides shows a bias towards the left side, even though your initial thought is the PBS is impartial.

            They also tried to sway your judgment towards the left using the music. Right after Obama’s inauguration, a clip of Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama dancing was paired to happy uplifting music. Immediately afterward, the music turned suspenseful and dramatic as the narrator talked about a secret meeting the republicans had to conspire against Obama. The juxtaposition of these two events is supposed to make the viewer feel happy for Obama, but immediately have opposite feelings towards the republicans.

            PBS’s wanted to inform the viewer about the divide in the United States and should have kept it completely impartial. Instead, to make it more influential, they decided to use specific cinematography to support the left more than the right.