In Defense of Conservative Dads
Reviewing "The Brainwashing of My Dad" by Jen Senko.
“The Brainwashing of My Dad” (2015) is a documentary directed by small-budget filmmaker Jen Senko.1 The film chronicles the journey of Senko’s father from Liberal to Conservative and hers to understand what she sees as the propagandistic right-wing media apparatus.
Jen Senko published a book by the same name in 2021.
The Film
“The Brainwashing of my Dad” opens with an abridged quote from “Propaganda” (1928) by Edward Bernays, reading:
In almost every act of our lives…We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.
The film establishes its premise by explaining that Jen Senko’s dad, Frank P. Senko, started as a “non-political” Kennedy Democrat, but dramatically changed after he began listening to Conservative talk radio on his long commute after the family moved.
Jen Senko describes her father as angry and obsessive after his political shift.
She recounts a story from when she came to visit from New York and was picked up by her dad at the bus station.
In the car on the way home they drove past a Hooters restaurant and Frank seized the opportunity to take a swipe at “feminazis” upset with the chain’s practice of employing scantily clad waitresses.
Jen Senko claims that when she defended the feminists, saying they had a point, her father raged at her and threatened to kick her out of the car so she would have to hitchhike the rest of the way.
She also tells us that Frank was so preoccupied with consuming right-wing content that when a buddy introduced him to portable radios, he began listening not just in the car, but also in bed every night.
Jen Senko says that despite Frank wearing earbuds his radio listening disturbed her mother, but instead of cutting out the radio he choose to sleep alone in another bedroom.
After spending its first ten minutes introducing Jen Senko’s family and her inspiration for this documentary, the film gives us the first taste of what will become a reoccurring feature throughout, namely short interviews with authors who have written about right-wing alternative media.
The number of books either explicitly mentioned or appearing in a byline is large and includes: “Wrapped in the Flag” (2013) by Claire Connor; “Blinded by the Right” (2003), “The Republican Noise Machine” (2004) and “The Fox Effect” (2012) by David Brock; “Nixonland” (2008) by Rick Perlstein; “The Loudest Voice in the Room” (2014) by Gabriel Sherman; “Manufacturing Consent” (1988) by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky; “Don’t Think of an Elephant” (2004) by George Lakoff; “The Way Things Aren’t” (1995) by Steven Rendall, Jim Naureckas and Jeff Cohen; “State of Confusion” (2008) by Bryant Welch and “Echo Chamber” (2008) by Kathleen H. Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella.
The next arc of the film centers around Roger Ailes, a PR-advisor for Richard Nixon who later became CEO of Fox News.
Ailes is credited with inventing a publicity strategy based on appeals to emotion and the art of the “sound bite”, snappy one-liners sticking in the mind of the audience. He is quoted as saying “America is dumb” and calling TV a medium where the viewer has their thinking done for them.
The documentary explores how blue-collar employees went from being the working class, aligned with the Left, to angry White men, aligned with the Right. It explains this as due to Republicans shifting the discourse from economic interests to religious and patriotic values.
The film doesn’t mention the role played by Liberals in abandoning the White working class, it’s all portrayed as a scheme concocted by Conservatives.
In a segment titled “Balance vs. Truth”, David Brock is brought on to criticize the notion journalism should be neutral and balanced for giving equal time to vastly unequal ideas, but soon after the film laments Reagan’s repeal of the “Fairness Doctrine”, a law requiring the news represent competing viewpoints, saying the move enabled more dishonesty from Conservative media.
Returning to her dad, Jen Senko appears to tell a story about the time Frank Senko mailed her a sticker from the controversial animal rights organization PETA that he had defaced with a black marker, which shocked her because Frank had always been such an animal lover.2
While sending the results to your daughter is creepy, PETA is a common object of scorn and ridicule. I could imagine that if a temperamental person received a PETA pamphlet or saw a PETA sticker their reaction would be to spoil them and brag about it.
Also, having “loves animals” as a personality trait doesn’t imply support for PETA.
Entering the final third of the film, Jen Senko interviews Dr. Kathleen Taylor, whom she introduces as a neuroscientist and expert on brainwashing.
Taylor states that there are two forms of brainwashing. The first is what she calls “brainwashing by force”, which is when someone is held captive and tortured until they express certain beliefs. The second is “brainwashing by stealth”, which is when a person is influenced by confirmation bias or something.
Dr. Kathleen E. Taylor is described on Wikipedia as a British neuroscientist. The article also details her career as a popular science author and references her book “Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control” (2004) published by Oxford University Press.34
However, brainwashing is not a scientific term and the concept is contested. Not having read her book or blog it’s hard to judge the quality of her work, but it is a candidate for a future essay.
While the film gives a summary of propaganda techniques allegedly used by right-wing media, a quotation is shown on screen:
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda.
According to an academic paper by Quentin J. Schultze and Randall L. Bytwerk the above is a widely used misquote not spoken by Goebbels, the quote is similar to other spurious quotations attributed to Abraham Lincoln or Albert Einstein.
Schultze and Bytwerk writes that the quotation is mostly found online and always unsourced, i.e. without reference to a specific speech or text by Goebbels, in addition they have reviewed a large selection of Goebbels’ works themselves without finding the quote.5
The paper further states that the quote is also sometimes falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler or used interchangeably with something he wrote in “Mein Kampf”.
In that book Hitler wrote that people “more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one” and this gave rise to the “Big Lie” as a rumored propaganda tool, however Hitler was describing what he believed the Jews and others he deemed enemies of Germany were doing, or in the words of Schultze and Bytwerk: “Hitler, in short, is accusing his enemies of the tactic, not recommending its use.”6
The denouement of “The Brainwashing of my Dad” chronicles Jen Senko’s parents moving to a retirement village.
Jen Senko tells us her father’s radio broke during the move and that he has neither repaired nor replaced it since, so hence he no longer listens to right-wing talk radio.
She also tells us that when her parents got a new TV, her mom programmed the remotes and her dad was too lazy to learn how they work so now he just watches what his wife watches.
While Frank was in the hospital, Jen Senko was asked by her mother to delete her father’s hoard of old emails from political newsletters he subscribed to to free up space on their computer, but she explains that when the emails just kept coming her mom unsubscribed her husband from what she saw as the more extreme content.
Later, her mom had the idea of subscribing him to a bunch of left-wing newsletters as well, which Frank started reading once he got home from the hospital.
The film then goes on to explain how all these changes in his media consumption also lead to changes in Frank’s political views and it all turns into a sort of “redemption arc” for him.
The rest of the film consists of photos and videos of happy family moments made possible by the fact Frank isn’t a “fanatic” anymore, intercut with interviews of both relatives and Frank himself about how he has changed.
When asked about his new politics, Frank describes himself as “halfway between Republican and Democrat”.
He is then told about the documentary about him that his daughter has been working on.
The film ends on a memorial dedicated to Frank Senko (1922-2016).
The Commentary
Is it childish to end a review of a political documentary you disagreed with by giving it a star rating?
Anyway, I can’t give it more than two and a half stars.
The film is an interesting watch and asks important questions, but suffers from omissions and contradictions.
What falls apart the most is the premise that Jen Senko’s dad was brainwashed into holding right-wing beliefs.
The story put forth in the film is that Frank Senko became Conservative entirely by accident and despite all his previous values and personality, because he got separated from his old carpool and started driving alone to work after the family moved.
He was a fun dad, kind to the poor, even a Democrat, but then he listened to right-wing radio and the hosts turned him into a hateful bigot. Him taking their words at face value like a child with no life experience.
It’s impossible for me to know Jen Senko’s life story or family situation, but I don’t buy it. Sorry.
For one, was there nothing to tune in to in the car on a morning commute other than right-wing talk shows in the 60’s? No music or non-political content? No left-wing radio? Nothing?
Senko had a Kickstarter campaign to obtain funding for her documentary and in the process she solicited testimonies from others who also “lost” someone or saw them change after consuming right-wing news and these are featured in the film, usually in the form of a Skype call.
Some detail disgraceful or outright abusive behavior from a belligerent relative, but others are unclear on what they did wrong, only giving vague descriptions like “he is impossible to talk to now”.
A few even manage to appear like the narrator is the one who is in the wrong.
For example “Barbara”, a woman from California, appears twice. The first time she is relaying a heated conversation with her brother, but his lines are too on the nose, calling into question if they have been embellished.
Later, she is brought on to tell a story about her granddaughter to illustrate how young people are sometimes misled by right-wing lies too.
Barbara says her granddaughter, possibly soon after starting her first job, once commented that “I don’t really like my taxes paying for lazy people who do nothing”, to which she responds by asking if she knows why the local library is no longer open on Fridays and saying it’s due to a lack of taxation.
The film is incredibly hyperbolic with its frequent juxtaposition between right-wing political content and propaganda by authoritarian regimes and cult indoctrination. It even uses a clip from a black-and-white adaptation of “The Manchurian Candidate” at one point.
In the worldview of the film, there are no innocent free market or small government Conservatives, because corporate investors invented “culture war” issues and hate in order to trick working class men into voting for their policies.
Dipping its toes into Barry Goldwater, The John Birch Society, Rush Limbaugh talk radio, Grover Norquist, the presidencies of Nixon and Reagan, ‘90s and ‘00s Fox News and the Tea Party the documentary covers a wide range of right-wing movements, if in a superficial and antagonistic way.
The film is also a trove of previous works of its kind. Senko has managed to interview a long list of authors who have written alarmist books about right-wing media and explained them as a conspiracy against their audience.
It was fascinating to see the notion of misinformation and tropes like “dividing the country” or “corrupts democracy” applied to alternative media, especially Fox News, prior to the election of Donald Trump and ensuing fears about Russian disinformation.
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Another interpretation is that Frank sent his daughter an unrelated letter using a vanity envelope or stamp carrying PETA’s logo and simply crossed out said logo beforehand. I don’t fully comprehend this story, it’s brief and vague on important details.
Wikipedia contributors. (2024, April 1). Kathleen Taylor (biologist). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:05, May 17, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kathleen_Taylor_(biologist)&oldid=1216780396
Taylor, K. E. Brainwashing. neurotaylor. https://neurotaylor.com/brainwashing/
Schultze, Q. J., & Bytwerk, R. L. (2012). PLAUSIBLE QUOTATIONS AND REVERSE CREDIBILITY IN ONLINE VERNACULAR COMMUNITIES. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 69(2), 216–234. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42579187
Ibid.