Su-Jung Lee
Media Artist

One night after a viewing of Sex in the City, I said out loud "so, what have I learned?"
My friend reminded me that TV is not where you look for life lessons or relationship advice or I guess an honest look at government agencies. I think any endeavor in the entertainment industry can be thought of as an honest moneymaking endeavor. But the honesty stops there. They are not in the business of selling truth. They are just selling the sellable. The audience wants to see things in a believable manner, but never should expect the authentic from an industry only concerned with the market value. Usually this means sensationalized versions of the real, dramatized representations of the real. But the look of real has changed. Its no longer Cops on the streets of LA busting crime with a camera crew. NYPD mimicked the live-action feel and showed the audience that straight-up fiction can look less contrived. Now, with a decade of real TV, has the audience gone back to conspiracy theory and learned to look closer at the fictionalized versions for hints of truth? We are all hungry to know what really happens, but the reality is we will never know. The CIA script advisors only ensure a more romanticized version of themselves and the entertainment industry is ready to oblige. Accuracy is not available in this medium. The illusion of accuracy offered by the script advisors is a selling point. I’m sure the entertainment industry didn’t have to twist anyone’s arm to have real-life CIA script advisors to monitor over how they would be represented. It promotes their image and profile. If these agents would be doing anything worth while, they would not be sitting policing scripts. It’s just another slimy back scratching scenario in Hollywood and D.C.