There’s no question that propaganda films can sometimes also be entertaining.
Even if the premise is extreme to the point of amusement, there may be good kitsch value in, say, “Reefer Madness,” about the sins of marijuana, or “I Married a Communist” about the Red Menace. Film historians will remind you that D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” was its own outrageous propaganda intent, to promote the Ku Klux Klan.
The new drama “Protocol 7” is touted as “a whistleblower story” that, like “Contagion,” begins with worrisome news reports about a growing scourge – of Mumps!
The scene shifts to the high offices of big pharma, concerned only about how a jump in cases would affect sales of its vaccine, which could be seen as faltering in its effectiveness. The heartless CEO (Eric Roberts, enjoying his one dimensional role) orders better test results, enough to satisfy the FDA and stockholders. Underlings are left to alter test results to reflect the 98 percent effectiveness the company claims.
A mother already angry with vaccinations takes them to court, with the help of a man who has lost his license for railing against vaccinations
What’s notable is that “Protocol 7” is the dramatic directoral debut of Andrew Wakefield, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Terry Rossio, and makes himself a key character the drama — “a renegade doctor exiled from the medical profession.”
Wakefield lost his medical license in the UK with a fraudulent report that may have given birth of the modern anti-vax movement. His discredited report that the vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella — commonly called MMR — has a link to autism. It doesn’t. Despite proof to the contrary, Wakefield continues to flog this low conspiracy theory that has been tied to a decline in vaccinations, and resulting spike in measles and subsequent death.
Wakefield, according to a New York Times profile, has “become one of the most reviled doctors of his generation … for irresponsibly starting a panic with tragic repercussions: vaccination rates so low that childhood diseases once all but eradicated here — whooping cough and measles among them — have re-emerged, endangering young lives.”
A renegade doctor indeed. And now a big time movie director!
Actually, he’s had another film, the 2016 documentary “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” a screed removed from the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. The director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health said if it had “been submitted as science fiction, it would merit attention for its story line, character development and dialogue. But as a documentary, it misrepresents what science knows about autism, undermines, public confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and attacks the integrity of legitimate scientists and public health officials.”
“Protocol 7” is touted as “A whistleblower story.” But a story nonetheless.
It’s easy to believe Big Pharma may occasionally fudge results to maintain government contracts. And Wakefield notes that “the documents, records and communications used in this film include those from Merck’s MMR laboratory.”
But a whole lot else is thrown in as well. The mother who takes on the firm in court, “an amalgam of many mothers who have inspired me over the years,” Wakefield says, is pictured as having an autistic child. When someone is asked, “You don’t have an autistic child?” The reply is simply “You don’t yet,” the implication being that required school vaccinations lead directly to it (Again, it doesn’t, many studies have shown).
Nevertheless, sinister music plays as needles are seen as evil vessels of poison virtually injecting evil into the littlest ones.
Rachel Whittle, who plays the intrepid lawyer, is convincing in her role; Matthew Marsden is every bit as smarmy as the exiled Brit Wakefield must be. And despite trying to wring drama out of what is, for the most part, a lot of medical mumbo jumbo given in endless testimony, it may not even been good propaganda.
Film can be a persuasive medium to convey fear about all manner of things, from vampires to corporations. But this misleading horror movie packs more than that.
The National Institutes of Health last year estimated that at least 232,000 deaths could have been prevented during the Covid-19 pandemic, had they been vaccinated.
So, more than a mediocre film, in helping spread the anti-vax lie, “Protocol 7” is probably also a dangerous one, too.