Birth of a Modern Myth
By Malindi pender
THE BIRTH OF A MODERN MYTHAt the FIGRA documentary film festival held in March in Touquet, there was no end to the variety of subject matter—from ecological disasters to American bounty hunters. This film genre, which documents the life and life forms of our world, was celebrated in all its forms. In a time where the Internet is used increasingly for personal research and fact-finding missions, we find ourselves hard-pressed to filter our findings, often rife with disinformation. The documentary is thus a jewel in the Information Age, a presenting and preserving of truths, of life as it is. THE FAUX DOCUMENTARYSo it is of special concern when the documentary genre is misused. One film at the festival investigated just that: Stéphane Malterre’s “11-Septembre: Enquete sur la theorie du complot.” (9/11- Investigation of the conspiracy theory.) In this documentary Malterre examines an American-made faux documentary called “Loose Change,” which charges the Bush administration with orchestrating the attacks of September 11, 2001. The BBC, The History Channel, National Geographic and the magazine Popular Mechanics have also thoroughly investigated and debunked the claims made in the film.WHO IS THIS KID?The maker of the film, Dylan Avery, is a young man from Oneonta, in upstate New York. He is currently 26 years old. The story is that he was denied admission twice to film school, whereupon he set out to make a fictional thriller about 9/11. Amazingly, while making the film, he realized that it was true… Dylan and his friends claim that their motivation is to seek the truth and to encourage healthy skepticism. After the first version of Loose Change met with success in 2005, they have made updating and releasing new versions of the film their full-time jobs -- and they can. Having attracted a distributor with its previous underground successes, the 4th and most recent version, “Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup” was released September 2009 and had a budget of $1 million U.S. dollars (the budget for the first version was $2,000). It was distributed by Microcinema International, based in California, where Dylan now lives. A far cry from Oneonta, population 14,000.DUBIOUS SOURCESThe massive online success of “Loose Change” is alarming. It has been translated into hundreds of languages. Its premise, that the 9/11 was an inside job, has resonated with audiences worldwide, regardless of that facts that a) no serious journalists are associated with or support the theory, b) the conspiracy argument has been debunked by various credible media outlets and science journals, and c) sources used in the film are more than questionable. For example, the film cites articles in the American Free Press, an anti-Semitic newspaper that has been classified in the United States as an “active hate group.” It also uses many news clips, broadcast and print, from the first few days after the attacks, during which very little was known and news coverage was rife with speculation. The “documentary” has no actual investigation. In order to make a convincing documentary format, the film is a veritable stew of journalistic offenses: Quote-mining, cherry-picking, and other transgressions that would get any reporter fired or blacklisted. (The Web-site ScrewLooseChange.com is dedicated to exposing these errors and more.) The modus operandi is to create doubt and insinuate guilt; to ask questions, but not to actually look for the answers. In a televised debate with Popular Mechanics editors and authors of the book, “Debunking 9/11 Myths,” (David Dunbar and Brad Reagan), Dylan and his colleague start by accusing Dunbar and Reagan of being themselves part of the conspiracy, and accuse them throughout the debate of being “liars.” Dylan and his colleague’s behavior and argumentation during this debate is so butt-clenching and pathetic it is hard to watch. They become increasingly hostile as their credibility is shredded before them.And yet despite ALL this, and more – faulty investigation, dubious sources, a black-hole of credibility, as well as copyright infringements -- the film continues to find a receptive audience. How on earth can we explain this phenomenon?A GIANT UBER-MEME?A “meme” is a unit of cultural ideas, spread through imitable phenomena. It could be propagated by writing, by speech, by ritual -- or by Internet. The word was coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, and refers to something that is imitated or repeated.A meme’s survival, whether it’s a fashion trend, a catch-phrase or any idea, depends on many criteria: the level of proliferation, the ease by which it can be imitated or repeated. The Internet is the biggest propagator and diffuser of memes in human history. A meme can spread like a virus, experiencing various mutations. It’s a kind of “thought contagion,” when an idea is repeated and repeated. Through such repetition ideas gain credibility in people’s minds.BIRTH OF A MODERN MYTHIn order for the meme to proliferate, it has to have some attractive quality. It must resonate with existing notions and beliefs. In this case, the widespread mistrust of the US government and in particular the CIA, for example, or a long-standing and widespread belief in Jewish power conspiracies, which likes to hold up the US-Israel relations as evidence.Some memes mutate, lose so much integrity that they either find new life in their mutated forms or die out. The 9/11 conspiracy theory has become a giant uber-meme. Loose Change is, in effect, the crystallization of the ideas spawned by various loosely organized conspiracy-theory groups. The fact that the film can be viewed on-line and passed on without being modified – which any story would inevitably be subject to in an oral tradition – means that the myth maintains perfect integrity and due to such exponential repetition, this one has grown to mythic proportions. IS LIFE A GOOD THRILLER WITH A CIA SUBPLOT?Have we all seen too many movies to be able to separate reality from fiction? Are we so hungry for a good story that we’ll set aside intellectual rigor?The fact is that those who deem themselves “not naïve enough” to buy the official version of the events of 9/11 are even more naïve by accepting the “truth” presented by a young filmmaker who may be well-intentioned but whose credibility is unknown.The younger, the more tech savvy is axiomatic of our time. Using editing software to make a convincing faux documentary without ever leaving home is getting easier and easier. It used to be safe to assume that a compelling documentary was the result of a huge commitment of time, energy and resources, and therefore was executed in adherence with certain standards. No longer…
