by Saul Carter

Created on: February 18, 2010   Last Updated: February 19, 2010

Within the question's parameters, the answer should obviously be "no" because a movie is a form of free speech, so to regulate it wouldn't be legal.

However, the reason I selected "yes" as my response is for one main reason.  The question states "candidate", indicating that this person has not yet achieved this position. So, since there are campaigning laws as to how a campaign is run, this would require a flier or a film be under campaign law scrutiny.

Obviously, the next question should logically be, "What if the film were made independently of the candidate?" In other words, an unauthorized "biography" without the candidate's blessing or even knowledge. In this case, campaign laws couldn't touch it. But the critics would - one way or another.

The question here also implies that it is a Hollywood movie, not something made by Discovery Channel. Here's where it gets sticky. Hollywood movies are generally fiction and make-believe. Even the stories that are based on fact typically are inundated with half-truths, confabulations and out and out lies. 

Since Hollywood doesn't make documentaries (really), this candidate's image will absolutely be altered by the film - for better or worse. Should this be regulated? No. Should it be taken with a grain of salt? Yes.

The main problem that I have with something like this, regardless of my taste for the candidate, is that I would assert that Hollywood would get it wrong - probably VERY wrong. It wouldn't be the wrongness of it that would annoy me, though; it would be those who accept it as fact. 

Not that it matters that another has a different opinion of a movie, but at what point is the movie either a) slander or b) propaganda?

Campaigning has become tricky and ugly. Most candidates spend their time telling voters why they ought not vote for the other candidate rather than telling voters what makes them so special. Smear campaigns are tactless and typically very hypocritical. 

Why would someone want to make an expensive Hollywood movie about this? I thought that movie-making was art, not getting down in the mud with the politicians.

Where I would never lobby for campaign laws encroaching on the private sector, I would only hope that any studio undertaking such a project would be fair and balanced.  But since I see more and more actors, directors and producers touting their politics both in their work and in the media, I highly doubt they could pull off such a project without bias or prejudice.

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