Fiction Is as Fiction Does: The 'Waco' Movie Controversy Rolls On

One essential point –- fiction -- keeps getting missed as criticisms and free publicity continue for the screenplay for Entertainment 7’s Waco movie project.

No matter how “accurate” anyone thinks it should be, a screenplay –- any screenplay -- is a fabrication, a “play” for presentation on a “screen.” And any movie made from the screenplay will be even more of a fictional representation, once the director, actors, crew and post-production specialists have added their own contributions to the finished product.

The ex-FBI agent who lashed out at the screenplay on the front page of the June 24 Austin American-Statesman certainly is free to criticize the “accuracy” of how he thinks people, places and events are depicted in the script. However, anyone who witnesses or takes part in an event will have his or her own memories, interpretations and opinions of what happened -- or did not happen. Even if a million video cameras had recorded every moment of the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff from all sides and angles, there is absolutely no way to create a screenplay that could get the standoff “right” in every person's view.

A screenplay compresses people, places, things, images and circumstances into a stylized structure with three acts. A screenplay tells a story, and that story always is fiction, even when it is based on “real” events.

Even unscripted “reality” TV shows are unreal. They are just one more form of fiction (bad fiction).

Speaking of “real,” the real result of Texas' controversial "Ogden provision" (ironically named, since Utah is the only other state with a similar, thin-skinned restriction) is that State Sen. Steve Ogden of Bryan, Texas, can take credit for creating new moving-image industry jobs…in Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico and elsewhere. Those states, and almost any others including Utah, likely will have no qualms about hosting -- and profiting from -- movie, TV or game projects that portray “Texas or Texans in a negative fashion.”

Sen. Ogden got the "negative fashion" provision added to state law in 2007, the Austin American-Statesman says, "after controversy erupted around the Texas-filmed 2006 sports drama "'Glory Road,' which tells the story of 1966 Texas Western Miners, and, according to school supporters, exaggerated racism at East Texas State University."

It has been noted in the Statesman and elsewhere that classic “Texas” movies such as Giant and The Last Picture Show and TV shows such as Dallas probably could not qualify for current production incentives, because they sometimes depict Texas and Texans “in a negative fashion.” Yet those productions continue to bring tourism dollars to Texas and expand the state’s aura around the world many years after they disappeared from theaters and networks.

The Ogden provision puts the Texas Film Commissioner in the unenviable position of trying to verify the “accuracy” of fiction, a writing form in which anything goes, and to use that "accuracy" as one of the criteria for judging “negative fashion.” Some call this censorship or a state legislative attempt to override free speech provisions in the U.S. Constitution. Others just call it "dumb" and "bad business." Texas has had dubious reputations since at least 1835, yet it has managed to do quite well for itself, thank you very much.

Any movie version of the Branch Davidian standoff would be fiction. The standoff could even be staged in a parallel universe on the planet Yargon in the year 3456. But if the script portrayed “Texas or Texans in a negative fashion,” the project still might not qualify for state production incentives.

At the very least, the continuing controversy over Waco may cause many movie producers to consider spending their money and shooting their “Texas” movies anywhere but Texas, so they won't run afoul of state restrictions and state lawmakers.

As long as the 2007 “negative fashion” restrictions stay in place, perhaps the state’s famous “Don’t Mess with Texas…” slogan should be expanded. It could now include “…or We’ll Diss Your Screenplay and Keep Making Our Moving-Image Workers Cross State Lines to Find Jobs.”

-- Si Dunn