But who picks the President? The TV box or the Ballot Box?

Veteran Hollywood Actor Martin Sheen hosts The Made for TV Election Redux

2008-09-24 15:04:49 - Documentary shows how TV writes the scripts, directs the action and casts the candidates in the most significant US elections in the last 40 years--1980 and 2008:

Documentary Reveals TV's Hand in Creating USA Election Dramas

NEW HAVEN (September 24, 2008) - A critically acclaimed analysis of election coverage by the commercial television networks, "The Made-for-TV Election Redux" became available today on DVD and will be exhibited in movie theaters beginning October 9th.

Written and produced by William Brandon Shanley and Gerald J. Keane, the timely release of "The Made-for-TV Election" in a pre-2008 election version captures the significance of TV's role in the last 30 years as the current political season heats up.

Hosted by veteran Hollywood actor Martin Sheen, the documentary presents examples from both the 2008 primaries and the 1980 election when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter to show how TV networks using horserace polls, stereotypes, gaffes, and flip flops to turn politics into TV theater to boost ratings, and in so doing, create an uneven playing field and dumb-down the national conversation.

'Whether you support McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden" says Shanley, 'our film has value because it exposes the role of commercial TV as the Wizard of Oz behind the screen, creating fire and spectacle with one hand as it rings up enormous profits with the other.'

Throughout the two hour presentation, the Sheen uses a variety of show business metaphors and analogies coupled with news clips, interviews and on the road color to discern TV distortion in 21 episodes from the two history-making elections: The Media's Maverick; The Dream Ticket; The Obama Phenomenon; The October Surprise; Hillary's Emotional Moment; America Held Hostage; Chappaquiddick Revisited.

'As impresario of the national political theater, networks force the candidates to become actors in a dramatic TV series to serve their own needs and values, their advertisers' and the media trusts who own them,' says co-producer Gerald Keane. 'Voters get a steady diet of tabloid hot button news chat about Reverend Wright and American flag pins while the deep systemic problems that require deep investigation are ignored by the people's surrogates.'

The Made-for-TV Election" shows how these made-for-TV narratives are the stories we tell ourselves that govern our life and times,' says Shanley. 'From the myth of the conservative tide that spawned today's Wall Street meltdown, to the War in Iraq, to the election of George W. Bush, these are the real world effects of a political process that has been hijacked by commercial interests in this theme park called ‘America'

Will we see a made-for-TV result on November 4? Shanley and Keane think so.

Stay tuned.