This TV series should only be considered as a work of fiction.” That was the view of the Versace family before The Assassination of Gianni Versace aired. The FX series, showing in the UK on BBC2, is one of a recent run of shows to dramatise recent history. It focuses on the designer’s murder, on the steps of his Miami mansion in 1997, taking it as the starting point for a nine-part drama that admits to some storytelling licence. Meanwhile, The Looming Tower, which began on Amazon Prime last week and is based on Lawrence Wright’s book, has reopened controversy about 9/11, and in the US, critics are discussing whether Paramount Network’s drama Waco has too much love for cult leader David Koresh.
So, should we view these shows only as works of fiction? The debate boils down to whether the point of fact-based dramas is to reveal what really happened, or if it is to tell a wider dramatic truth. That’s tricky, because the answer is almost always: both. This means that, callous or unethical as it might seem, it’s sometimes OK for such programmes to ignore complaints about events being reshaped for artistic purposes.
Source : theguardian
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