Squawking Points
Even before it aired on TV last night, the spin-doctors had begun a campaign to demonize ABC’s Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America. HHS released a multi-page rebuttal of the film, entitled a viewer’s guide, and editorials decried the showing of this film as a rating’s stunt for sweeps week.
This morning, just to help American’s make up their minds as to how they should feel about the film, more news articles have appeared, typified by these opening comments by M. ALEXANDER OTTO: The News Tribune:
FACTS IN BIRD FLU FILM JUST DON’T FLY
Right in time for sweeps month, ABC television decided Tuesday night to throw gasoline on the bird flu panic with the movie “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America.”
If you tuned in, you saw piles of bodies hauled away by dump trucks; seething, infected masses held back by razor wire; and other scenes of the end of the world as we know it.
And this at a time when The News Tribune is getting calls from people wondering if it’s still safe to feed the birds. (It is.)
Horrors!
Given all of the railing over the film, I frankly expected a much grimmer and over-the-top movie. Instead, I found the movie to be a reasonably accurate depiction of a moderately bad pandemic. Was dramatic license taken? Sure. It’s a movie. But nothing egregious. And I’d have made a few changes in the script myself, but nothing that would have garnered any applause from the media.
The Government’s pandemic website, Pandemicflu.gov has their viewer’s guide to this movie on the front page. In it, you will be assured a pandemic has not arrived. And that many of the depictions of the bad things that happened in the movie might not happen in a real pandemic. But in the next breath, they admit, they could.
There are many people who didn’t want you to see the movie last night. Government leaders who don’t want to appear to have dropped the ball (we’ve known a pandemic might be coming for years). Investment firms who want you to buy stocks and be happy. And retailers who want you to finance that new car or big screen TV, instead of filling your pantry with food.
But of course, all of these folks have an agenda.
Under the guise of not wanting to `panic’ people, they continue to try to hide the grim realities of what a pandemic would be like. They’d rather the average American be blindsided if a pandemic arrives, than to worry a bit and actually prepare.
As to whether the movie was any good? Well, I’ve seen worse dramatic attempts. Not great movie making, to be sure. But the message provided, to those who would listen, was lifesaving. Simply put, anyone who isn’t prepared when a pandemic arrives is going to be up a creek without a paddle.
If you saw the movie, take it seriously. It wasn’t over the top. In fact, in some ways it downplayed many of the problems a pandemic might bring. Very little was said about the economic impact. Nothing was said about possible international adventurism under the cover of a pandemic. And they downplayed some of the collateral effects of a supply chain failure. For the most part, people had water, sewer, and electricity. But in the movie producer’s defense, they only had two hours.
For those who watched American Idol, or one of the other stellar offerings on our multitude of cable channels, I guess you can count yourself fortunate. You can enjoy blissful ignorance for awhile longer. You can go forth, untroubled, and a unafraid.
For the time being, anyway.
