Legal & Ethical Issues in Documentary

Legal & Ethical Issues in Documentary

Slander

Slander is oral defamation, is a malicious act of spreading untrue statements about someone or something else, in a way that is intended to cause harm or that does create harm. A person spreads an untrue story about someone or something else to others. He or she might repeat the story multiple times or address a group of people and communicate the story to them all at once. Generally, the more people who hear the libelous statements, the more damage it might be likely to cause their subjects.

Within a documentary to be labeled as 'slanderous', there has to be a spoken defamation of someone and then the reaction to that is libel-ability.   

Libel

Libel is a written or recorded defamation, so this would be something published which is a false statement that is damaging to a persons reputation. Within a documentary libel is the reaction to slander, because slander is the spoken false statement and libel is the reaction to that statement.    

Slanderous Cases

Michael Moore with his documentary called Fahrenheit 9/11 on the 9/11 terror attacks. Just a few years later, “Fahrenheit 9/11” would not have seemed nearly as explosive. But it was timed just right, getting rushed into theaters at the height of the Iraq War, smack bam in the middle of President Bush's administration, it was very successful. But this could be seen as slanderous because within the documentary the director Michael Moore  states that President Bush has connections with Bin Laden's family, even though Michael Moore had no factual evidence to prove this. This possible slanderous comment/thought to make or project and Michael Moore is very lucky he didnt get convicted with slander for this. 

Living with Michael Jackson' which was presented by Martin Bashir, it is unethical because Michael Jackson had agreed to an eight-month long interviewing process with Martin Bashir, hoping to enlighten his fans about many misconceptions in his life. When Michael Jackson saw the finished product of "Living With Michael Jackson" on the air, he realized that Martin Bashir had betrayed his trust in order to produce a obscene thriller that just made more puzzling questions for Michael Jackson instead of him answering his questions for the public. The real dispute hung around a young 13-year old boy who Bashir interviewed without his mothers acknowledgement and within this interview Bashir asked irrelevant questions that made Michael Jackson look perverted, for example: Bashir asked, if Gavin Arvizo (13-year old boy) had ever slept in Michael Jackson's bedroom. Bashir got an answer from Arvizo that he manipulated so that it would portray Michael Jackson in a dangerous and perverted way. Because of this documentary it has been face-threatening and done a lot of damage to him, his family and his career, this is unethical and slanderous.

A documentary that has been seen as slanderous is named 'The Burden of Virginity' this was based around the idea of difficulties for newly married women in Uzbekistan. The director Umida Akhmedova was actually convicted of slander with 'Offence through mass media', towards the Uzbekistan people. After admitting to this she was allowed to walk free however narrowly avoiding a 3 year imprisonment sentence because they allowed her to be released under an amnesty in honour of the 18th anniversary of Uzbek independence.

'The Third Jihad' written and directed by Erik Werth, and directed by Wayne Kopping is 'potentially slanderous' because the directors wanted to portray some information and evidence on how Islam have problems with the West, and the Muslims living within America got upset at this, and Werth and Kopping were very lucky narrowly escaping conviction of being tagged as 'slanderous'.

'Super Size me' presented, directed and written all by Morgan Spurlock, this is a slanderous documentary because it focuses solely on the Mc Donald's brand of fast food, and he says lots of negative and bad things about this food after  going through an extreme diet of just their food which was just done for an affect to show the worst case scenario, the reason why its slanderous is because it's giving Mc Donald's a bad name and it is de-facing the brand.

Ethics in Documentary

Ethics are a very important and serious thing when it comes to documenting, ethnics is an arrangement of morals within different cultures, and within a documentary they have to respect these different cultures and morals, or the documentary would be classed as unethically correct.

For example, the Jimmy Saville case of him being an alleged Pedophile, this is unethical because the makers of the documentary didn't take into consideration that his family and his victims would be dramatically affected by it, because Jimmy Saville is dead now and all the attention and focus goes onto his family and victims. This is unethical, the producers of the documentary done it all for an affect and didn't look forward foreseeing the potential damage it could cause thats why its is unethical.

Louise Theroux's documenter who typically documents a community or a group of people who are far outside of normal life in some way shape or form, and he interviews them in a manner of being naive and innocent about them; these groups have been racists, religious fanatics, maximum security prisoners, drug addicts and so on. Focusing on his documentary called 'A place for Paedophiles', it is unethical because there is no need for the documentary and he is singling out different people with convicted mental problems, these people can still have family and victims and this would have a bad and disturbing affect on them.

Another Louise Theroux documentary, 'Twilight for the Porn Stars', This is also a very unethical documentary because of its intimate nature. Louise Theroux Interviews a number of different Actors within the porn industry and it is unethical because there would be people family and friends that don't want to know and see there loved one talking about there doings within this private and sensitive industry.

Another unethical documentary is 'Living with Michael Jackson' which was presented by Martin Bashir, it is unethical because Michael Jackson had agreed to an eight-month long interviewing process with Martin Bashir, hoping to enlighten his fans about many misconceptions in his life. When Michael Jackson saw the finished product of "Living With Michael Jackson" on the air, he realized that Martin Bashir had betrayed his trust in order to produce a obscene thriller that just made more puzzling questions for Michael Jackson instead of him answering his questions for the public. The real dispute hung around a young 13-year old boy who Bashir interviewed without his mothers acknowledgement and within this interview Bashir asked irrelevant questions that made Michael Jackson look perverted, for example: Bashir asked, if Gavin Arvizo (13-year old boy) had ever slept in Michael Jackson's bedroom. Bashir got an answer from Arvizo that he manipulated so that it would portray Michael Jackson in a dangerous and perverted way. Because of this documentary it has been face-threatening and done a lot of damage to him, his family and his career, this is unethical and slanderous.

'The Most Hated Family in America', another documetary made by Louise Theroux, it is about a family at the core of Westboro baptist church which actively protest against homosexuality. The group go to US Marines funerals and display signs that say things like, 'God hates fags', which is obviously politically incorrect and just wrong. This documentary is unethical because it shows christianity in an extreme and negative light, this is only a small group that do this and it is portrayed like all christians are like this. The way Louise Theroux makes documentary's  is sometimes unethical because the choosen topic to document on, and the way he presents this topic, he will have his own opinions so this will reflect within his interviewing and maybe just the whole outlook of the finished documentary.