As heard on November 5th, 2018 on The Audacity of Trivia, a weekly podcast featuring Chris Smith and Jon Ross. For more, visit audacityoftrivia.com
Eighty years ago last week Americans tuned in their radios
to the Mercury Theatre on the Air and heard what we may call today fake news:
bulletins about an alien invasion interrupt musical interludes, unknown objects
crash through New Jersey farmstead rooftops, and a panic ensues, climaxing in a
cloud of poisonous gas encircling NYC. The War Of the Worlds was foundational fictional
fearmongering, a narrative inspired by the media and those who use it, to
illicit response from an audience.
Orson Welles probably knew what many modern
critics like to point out today about War of the Worlds: that people believed
what their radio told them, and the realism of the narrative was supported best
by the lack of commercial interruptions, as if the situation had become dire
enough that CBS was willing to forgo ad revenue. Secondarily, it was the minor
details that convinced radio listeners aliens had indeed landed on our shores
and were beginning an attack on our civilization.
People trusted the box that told them things in their home. People
still trust the boxes that tell them things.
Over this past week, as if in
commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Orson Welles’
groundbreaking broadcast, President Trump has made loose and allegedly false accusations
about those traveling in a caravan through Mexico, seeking to reach and cross
the US border. The intention of purporting this narrative can’t be far from
what Welles had in mind: to see to what extent the American people may not only
assimilate and live out a belief, but to do so with a voice that assumes and
garners respect from its audience, simply by its pretending to be alive. The
card of no-commercial-interruptions, as if a situation of national panic were
taking place, has long been played by some major media networks, and will
surely be played tonight during the President’s rally in Florida.
But the locus of control is changing, Rosebud. I can as
easily launch a fake alien invasion from my desktop as Welles could from behind
a microphone in 1938. The War of the Worlds President Trump waged last week was
a shameless attempt at rallying what is left of the Republican base prior to
the midterm elections. Unlike Orson Welles, who used fake aliens, Trump used real
people with real problems. Today, in this midterm election which has become no
less than a war of worlds, human dignity appears to be the loser.
