honestly though I think I have always kind of grown up with an annoyance towards “based on a true story” type movies; it sometimes has felt like there was a kind of snobbishness about them in a way, like, because this movie is based on real life it’s “automatically” better than something fictional, and I have met some movie viewers who were like that, like some how “fiction” is baser and lower and less important or meaningful, in contrast to anything based on a true story. Like, fiction is just “mindless entertainment” but non-fiction is where all the real value is. Plus, based on a true story movies seem to always bank on that “sappy hallmarky” type sentimentality, very often, or be super serious dramas.

And lately I have started to feel convicted in another way against a lot of biopics and the like, because I have started to more and more feel uncomfortable with how comfortable we often are with excusing the creative liberties taken by these movies. Someone mentioned that often true stories are not really movie worthy without reworking, but I would propose that if a writer can’t make a compelling and interesting movie out of a true story without needing to resort to wild inaccuracies, then they aren’t a very good writer. If our news sources took as many “creative liberties” with their stories as non-fiction movies do, we would call it fake news, but for some reason we are totally ok with a biopic making things up and taking “creative liberties”. Plus you can find many biopics and non-fiction movies that clearly have an angle, and try to slant the material to get a particular sometimes biased viewpoint across, that I have more and more felt like a large number of biopics and non-fiction movies are manipulative and can’t really be considered honest, and I no longer always feel comfortable with them