What The Controversy Over 'Selma' Can Teach Us About 'Accuracy' In Legal Movies And Television Shows

Do you care about "accuracy" in law-related movies and TV shows? What about implausibility?

At long last, I recently saw the lauded film Selma, which explores Martin Luther King Jr.’s attempt to motivate support for equal voting rights in the face of heated opposition. The film was my second favorite of 2014 after Whiplash, and it is inexplicable that lead actor David Oyelowo, director Ava DuVernay, cinematographer Bradford Young, and writer Paul Webb did not receive Academy Award nominations. Coming out of the theater, the only thing I did not like about seeing Selma was there was a very young child in the audience that was screaming for much of the first third of the film (let me offer two pieces of parenting advice to that child’s parent: 1) you should not be taking parental advice from me, as I don’t even have a child; and 2) don’t bring your child to a film like Selma. You are better off taking him or her to a movie that is fun for the whole family, like Gone Girl!). But I soon found out that Selma has been inundated by controversy regarding its purported lack of historical accuracy. This Selma hubbub got me thinking about how I evaluate “accuracy” in law-related movies and television shows.

On December 22, 2014, Mark K. Updegrove, the director of the L.B.J. Presidential Library and Museum, wrote an article in Politico arguing that Selma mischaracterized Johnson as “obstructionist,” “devoid of any palpable conviction on voting rights,” “[v]ainglorious,” and “power hungry,” when in actuality King and Johnson were “partners in reform.” On December 26, 2014, President Johnson’s former aide Joseph A. Califano Jr. wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, stating that “Selma was LBJ’s idea, he considered the Voting Rights Act his greatest legislative achievement, [and] he viewed King as an essential partner in getting it enacted.”

As an initial matter, I thought that the film’s characterization of President Johnson (played solidly by Tom Wilkinson, who chewed less scenery than usual) was more favorable than Updegrove and Califano gave it credit for. With one exception (a short, ambiguous, somewhat out-of-place scene that I won’t spoil but will be obvious to anyone who saw the film) I did not view President Johnson as obstructionist; rather, I merely saw him as a realist, desiring voting rights reform but believing that it was politically beneficial to delay introduction of the bill and instead focus on anti-poverty reform.

But as I thought about it some more, I realized that in truth, I did not mind the historical inaccuracies because I did not really care about them. I was so swept up in the story and the expert filmmaking that I did not want to have my experience ruined by whether or not the film was historically accurate. What did I care about President Johnson anyway? I had no connection to the 36th President of the United States other than the fact that I wrote a report about him in fifth grade. The thought of diving into any of Robert Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson tomes fills me with anxiety (I get the same feeling when I consider finally reading Infinite Jest, which sits e-unopened and gathering e-dust on my Kindle).

Then I thought back to my inaugural Above the Law column, in which I argued that I did not enjoy the television show Law & Order because, among other things, it was an unrealistic simplification of the practice of law. And I also thought of the countless instances that I have told people that I do not watch the hit USA show Suits for similar reasons.

Was I being unfair? Was I being too easy on Selma for taking liberties with history and too critical of law-related works? To Updegrove and Califano, President Johnson is/was their life. Just like inaccuracies about the legal world are magnified to attorneys like me, inaccuracies about LBJ, no matter how small, loom large to Updegrove and Califano and undermine the credibility of the film.

But on the other hand, I think there is a fundamental difference between accuracy regarding historical facts and accuracy regarding the plausibility of a story. In my opinion, factual inaccuracies in historical fiction are less egregious because they are merely changed in aid of a larger story and usually have no effect on the plausibility of the story at large. These movies do not purport to be documentaries.

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In depictions of law in film, television, and books, those distinctions matter to me. In a work of historical fiction relating to the legal world, I can excuse historical inaccuracies as long as they enhance the story and are plausible. For example, if someone made a movie about a famous Supreme Court case like Brown v. Board of Ed., I would not mind if the filmmakers twisted some of the historical facts and perhaps created more conflict between the justices, which certainly would make sense dramatically and be in the realm of plausibility. By contrast, having aliens come down to Earth to write the famous Supreme Court opinion would not make sense dramatically (and really, if aliens arrive at Earth and immediately head for the Supreme Court library, they need to begin leading a more hedonistic lifestyle).

But I have a harder time grappling with legal stories that do not have anything to do with history but seem dramatically implausible, such as the ridiculous plot machinations in some late-period John Grisham novels. And as I wrote in my inaugural column, part of the reason I don’t enjoy Law & Order — despite the fact that it is very well written, directed, and acted — is that I feel like that it implausibly conveys the impression that all legal cases wrap up in a nice 60-minute bow when they actually grind over a period of months or years. That is the reason I have always been reluctant to watch a show like Suits, whose premise (genius college-drop out somehow gets hired at top New York City firm) seems like it wouldn’t sustain for five minutes in the real world, let alone for multiple seasons. Too often, legal movies and television shows fall into the trap of believing that only the craziest plot machinations can cause drama.

Tone also matters. I can more easily excuse a comedy like Legally Blonde for having first-year law students work on a high-profile murder defense. And of course I have no issue with a courtroom scene in a total farce like Duck Soup, where Groucho begins to prosecute Chico, but then decides to defend him after being tantalizingly lured with the prospect of making 18 dollars. It is much more problematic when a legal drama contains implausibility issues.

Ultimately, the most important thing to me when evaluating a legal movie or television show is whether it is well-written and well-made, and whether or not that movie or show is plausible is an important part of that calculus. Unless I am watching a documentary, I am less concerned about historical accuracy. That being said, I am aware that many people feel differently (and will accuse me of coming up with an artificial distinction in order to defend Selma). So I am going to do a little experiment. Suits came back on the air last night and I am going to (gulp) watch it and attempt to ignore my preconceived bias against it for being implausible. I will report back on Suits in a few weeks. In the meantime, please ignore the historical critics and go see Selma (provided that you are over the age of three).


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Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at harrygraff19@gmail.com. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.