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Article by Lidia Ferenkaivo (Published 10.12.2023)
Biopics have always been around. Already as early as in the 1900s films like “Joan of Arc” and “The Story of the Kelly Gang” were being released and loved by the public. We have always been interested in the nitty gritty details of famous people. Whether it is jealousy, love or merely curiosity, the need for knowledge about them has been present for as far back as the film industry goes. Even further. Take a look at the bible. You could say that’s like a biography of well-known idolised people. God had a pretty cool life that people looked up to, right? As time progressed biographies became more and more common, with the first ever biography being published in 1791. Since then hundreds have been written, directed and filmed. And millions of dollars have been brought in through this industry. Recently, the well-recieved film “Oppenheimer” made over 950 million dollars. That’s quite a lot of money so it’s no wonder that older artists want to film movies about their lives or the lives of their broken-up bands. They want the money, the extra fame, the spurt of relevance it would give them in society.
Image from I, Tonya (2018)
That is not the issue. If a film is made with consent from all parties and there are no hard feelings then everyone is happy. The artists, the producers, the public, everyone. The problem arises when a biopic is made about someone who is still alive and they have not given consent to the movie. It is released without second thought about the fact that this is a true traumatic event in someone's life and now the whole world can be entertained by their lives, the highs and the lows. And there are no laws prohibiting this.
As mentioned earlier, the film “I, Tonya”, starring Margot Robbie, recently came out. It received multiple awards and yet there is still something off-putting about it. Tonya Harding, who is still alive now, was an olympic figure skater who was involved with the violent assault of her competitor, Nancy Kerrigan. At the time, in the early 90s, the public was outraged with this scandal. They shamed and then laughed at her when she failed at her performance at the Olympics. She was shunned by society. But then, when her biopic came out in 2017, they were forced to reevaluate their previous actions. Margot Robbie played Tonya as a traumatised young woman who was merely reacting to her surroundings in the best way she could. The movie cast her in a sympathetic light. People who had mocked her were coming to regret their behaviour. Seeing the same scene they had watched on live TV 20 years ago but from Tonya Harding's perspective in a Hollywood movie definitely gave them food for thought. But Nancy Kerrgian had to sit and watch the whole incident unfold in front of her eyes again.
Another example is the film “House of Gucci", from 2021 starring Lady Gaga. The producers did not speak to the Gucci family before production and they had no say in how they were portrayed in the film. Millions of people formed opinions on a family that they had never spoken to before merely because of a commercial Hollywood blockbuster. Lady Gaga herself, who played Patrizia Reggiani, said she did not want to meet Reggiani because she didn't want to “collude with something that I don't believe in.
She (Reggaini) did have her husband murdered." Speaking to the woman who you play in a multi-million motion picture is not condoning her murder, but merely showing some respect to the woman who you are trying to impersonate. After the movie's came out the Gucci family released a statement saying that they were upset with how the movie portrayed them and that it tarnished their family name and the respectability of their brand. Whether you agree with this or not is another question, but it is undeniable to say that there is something invasive about taking someone's personal life story and twisting it into a piece of entertainment. Especially if the included members are still alive and can go and watch a movie that is based on their own lives. How surreal is that?
Last year Millie Bobby Brown said in an interview that she would love to play Britney Spears in a biopic about her life. Spears said to that: “I’m not even dead yet!”
Society has always been obsessed with seeing tragedy and pain as entertainment. Humans have been entertained with the morbid and painful since the dawn of time. It distracts them. Entertains them. In the 1600s people would bring their families to watch public executions. They would sit down, making sure they got a good view, have a picnic and watch the gruesome murder happen in front of their eyes. One could say it’s like going on a roller coaster, you do it for the rush of adrenaline, the short high you
get, the gut-wrenching fear and then the wave of relief afterwards when you know that you yourself are safe and unharmed.
Watching a person who supposedly has it all, the money, the fame, the talent and still struggle through life and not be so perfect after all makes the viewer feel better about themselves. But to what degree is this form of entertainment acceptable? At what point does it turn into an evil commercial business?
Sources:
The Ridiculous Spectacle of Public Hangings in Old England by C.W.S
GMA
Mina Le’s has Hollywood gone too far with these biopics?
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