"The Brainwashing of My Dad" is a story about both the transformation of my father after his discovery of right-wing media, and the history and tricks of the trade behind that media. I look at how the media changed over the last 30-40 years through the lens of my father. It's no accident that it became as right leaning as it did. It's also no accident that simultaneously the country became so divided.

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Interview with documentary filmmaker, Jen Senko, about The Brainwashing of My Dad

My guest today is documentary filmmaker, Jen Senko.

JB: Welcome to OpEdNews, Jen. You recently finished The Brainwashing of My Dad. Tell us a bit about it.

JS: The Brainwashing of My Dad is a story about both the transformation of my father after his discovery of right-wing media, and the history and tricks of the trade behind that media. I look at how the media changed over the last 30-40 years through the lens of my father. It's no accident that it became as right leaning as it did. It's also no accident that simultaneously the country became so divided.

JB: More, please. Let's start at the beginning. How did your dad get hooked in the first place?

JS: My parents moved and my dad suddenly had a long solo commute to work. Where he used to ride to work in a carpool with a bunch of guys, he suddenly had this long commute by himself. For company, he turned on Talk Radio. At that time Bob Grant was the king of Talk Radio. Bob Grant was openly racist, sexist and homophobic. When my dad retired he continued with Talk Radio at home - he found Rush Limbaugh. He had what I called his "Limbaugh lunches" everyday - and you were not allowed to talk to him during this time! Then he met a friend at the "Y" and HE turned my dad on to Fox "News". So my dad would have both on in the kitchen. He'd mute Fox when Rush wasn't advertising and he'd sit there for the full three hours, eating his lunch, drinking a beer and listening to Limbaugh.

JB: What did all this quality time with Right-Wing media do to your dad? Was he still the warm, fuzzy guy you all knew and loved previously?

JS: Well, that was the thing" my dad had been a very open-minded, loving-all-people kind of Democrat and he changed into a ranting, radicalized, far Right Republican. Not like the Republicans I knew when I was growing up but a new kind that I was starting to experience more often: angry, argumentative, hating Democrats, poor people and minorities. When email came along he started emailing everyone he knew, evangelizing every right-wing view there was. Most of the emails were lies or exaggerations but all were very anti-Democratic. My mother would email him back sources to negate these charges but he just got more angry. My brothers and I finally had to block him because his emails just caused arguments and got us upset. His emails were never of a personal nature. Even relatives started blocking him. I felt like my dad was like a pod person - like in the movie "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers". His body was there but the man we knew was gone.

JB: What a nightmare! Not only did your dad change but that must have thrown off the whole family dynamic. How did you all handle it?

JS: Well, aside from blocking his emails, we tried to steer clear of any political conversation. It was difficult because everything became political. If you said "Gee, it's cold out" you might get a response like, "See, there is none of this phony baloney global warming." It did cause us all to dig deeper into what we believed ourselves. I think we all started reading more. I suppose we were arming ourselves with knowledge. It was sad because we all kind of closed down a bit. As a family we used to be able to talk about everything and that no longer was.

JB: At what point did you turn outward to see if yours was the only family on the planet suffering from this condition?

JS: I guess that was after I decided to make a film about it. I had had a Kickstarter campaign and backers starting contacting me to tell me they were experiencing the same thing with a loved one. They were always distraught and were relieved they weren't alone. They just wanted to tell their story, so I decided to see if they wanted to be interviewed on camera. We made an announcement to our Kickstarter backers that we were looking for people who had similar experiences to interview. Word got out and people just contacted us. Everyone wants to tell their story to someone who's sympathetic or understands what they are going through.

JB: So, you decided to do your film before you heard that others were experiencing the same thing? In that case, did the input you got change the way you envisioned the film or what you ultimately included in it?

JS: It didn't really change the way I envisioned the arc of the film. It did, however, give me different ideas of what to add visually. For example, we have what we call the 'talking heads montage'. That is a compilation of all of the people we interviewed coming together and talking, with snippets of their stories being heard. It's impactful and gives the viewer an idea of the scope of this phenomenon.

JB: Who else did you talk to in order to make this film? Give our readers a sense of the scope of your research. Or was this mostly a touchy-feely "this is what happened to our family; isn't it awful" kind of film?

JS: Since I wanted to get deep into the how, why and when this powerful right-wing media got started and took hold, I spoke with many experts whose books I read or to whom I was urged by others to interview. One of them was Jeff Cohen who co-founded the media watch group FAIR, is currently the Director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College and was formerly an actual commentator on Fox Cable News. He had so much knowledge and helped me throughout the movie; fact-checking, bouncing ideas off of and introducing me to others I could interview. My big 'get' was Noam Chomsky who was so generous with his time with us that he was eight minutes late for his next appointment, and Edward S. Herman who made us tea on a cold cold day. It was an honor to interview Dr. Kathleen Taylor the neuroscientist of Oxford, England. There was also Rick Perlstein, Eric Boehlert, Gabriel Sherman, Claire Conner and more. And, thanks to co-producer, Matthew Modine, I even interviewed the pollster and master word-smith, Frank Luntz who was gracious and invited us into his New York home to talk.

JB: You covered a lot of territory and it sounds like the process was exciting and invigorating. After all that, what did you learn, Jen?

JS: The process was indeed exciting and invigorating. Aside from confirming what I already felt was happening, I did learn that there was a "vast right-wing conspiracy". It was brilliant and comprehensive, and someday we will look back on this period and perhaps call it "the time of the great bamboozle". I learned a lot from Claire Conner's book, "Wrapped in the Flag". I didn't know that much about the Birch Society and how their support of Goldwater didn't help his popularity and contributed to his losing the election of 1964. But I suppose the biggest thing I came to believe is that people have been brainwashed. When I first titled the film, THE BRAINWASHING OF MY DAD it was a little bit tongue in cheek, but after speaking with neuroscientist Kathleen Taylor about the two different types of brainwashing, where I believe brainwashing by stealth takes place as opposed to by force. This thought is also supported by all of the letters we get everyday from people lamenting the radical change their loved one has gone through and how it's divided them into sides. We the people should all be on the same side. That would be great, wouldn't it?

JB: Sure. What a radical, and scary, concept. I'd like to know more about this variety of brainwashing and how it works.

JS: As Dr. Taylor explains, there are two forms of brainwashing. One is by 'coercive force' where people are browbeaten into believing something. This is our classic image of brainwashing. Most of us remember photos from the Vietnamese "brainwashing camps" of someone being physically or psychologically tortured. Obviously this method wouldn't apply in these circumstances. Dr. Taylor also explains brainwashing by 'stealth' where it is not that someone is forced to believe something, but that they are presented with no alternative in terms of information. Five factors help to create this belief change: isolation, control, uncertainty, repetition and use of strong emotion are contributing factors.

JB: That makes sense but it's a little vague. Can you give us a few examples of just how the Right promotes its message so proficiently?

JS: Aside from these techniques and various tactics like using anger and emotion to manipulate their audience - which you can read more about on our website - there is the pervasiveness and cyclical nature to this media. As David Brock explains in the movie, the media is like an ecosystem. One media affects all other media. For instance, if Fox does well, then the other TV stations try to compete by becoming more like Fox. And, what I mean by cyclical is the way it's worked is that the Right used to get talking points from the RNC. (Now they probably give the RNC talking points!) Those talking points would go out to Fox, then get repeated on Talk Radio by radio hosts who are very well funded by right-wing think tanks. Next, the numerous online media outlets (also well funded) like Breitbart, Drudge, newsbusters.org and many others, print the same talking points, making it easy for people to confirm the propaganda as "facts." So that is two ways the Right promotes its message so proficiently. At core, the Right Wing message machine is a well funded circular propaganda operation.

JB: So, Hillary was actually correct back in the '90s, alleging the "vast Right-wing conspiracy". Your film had its world premiere recently. How did it go?

JS: Yes, I think she got a lot of ridicule for saying what she said, but she was correct.

The world film festival premiere at the prestigious Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose was out of this world for us. We had three shows and a full house each time. Our executive producer, Ryan Smith was with me for the first two Q&As. He was a great partner. Now we are going to have our theatrical premiere in NY at Cinema Village and LA at the Laemmle Theater Music Hall this coming Friday (March 18). It will screen for a week in each theater. It's exciting and all happening so fast.

JB: Simultaneous theatrical premieres on both coasts! Sounds great. And very exciting. How can people find out more about your film and where they can see it?

JS: People can visit our website at www.TheBrainwashingofMyDad.com . There, they can sign up to receive updates where they will get the latest information. They can also find THE BRAINWASHING OF MY DAD on Facebook where we make announcements as well. Our twitter is @BrainwashingDad.

JB: What haven't we covered yet that you'd like to discuss before we wrap this up, Jen?

JS: Just that I'd like to quote Bob McChesney, the media scholar who cofounded Free Press. He says to all activists whatever their issue: "Whatever your first issue of concern, media had better be your second, because without change in the media, progress in your primary area is far less likely."

JB: I agree with him there.

JS: Other than that, I think I've covered nearly everything!

JB: Well, it's been a pleasure speaking with you, Jen. Good luck at the premieres and beyond!

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From Jen: If you go on our website www.TheBrainwashingofMyDad.com you will see a whole list of tactics used. One that is especially insidious is accusing the other side of what you yourself are guilty of.

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.