Documentaries have, without dispute, seen a recent rise in their political nature. Noting this in her article from last monthí¢â‚¬â„¢s issue, Fictions, Capital film editor Leanne Welham asked, what effect does this have on those who view them? Do social critiques really have a place in the cinema, a traditional space of entertainment?

Ití¢â‚¬â„¢s no shock that growing social issues have galvanized more than a few filmmakers to action, documentary and otherwise, but how effective a tool is this? Trapped in a paradigm where cinema equivocates entertainment, Leanne made the valid point thathat movie-goers were far too liable to view the issues presented simply as entertainment, and not with the critical gaze needed to fully digest and understand - let alone act on the messages filmmakers had attempted to convey.

I generally agree: people are apathetic by nature, and this becomes elevated to extreme levels when they are plunked down in front of the ever-mesmerizing flicker of a screen. I even wished I wrote a similar article. But, another ever-present quality of the human race, is the ability to surprise, and with the ideas of Leanneí¢â‚¬â„¢s article in the back of my head, surprise it did. For unless I am optimistically fucked in the head, evidence keeps showing up suggesting otherwise the opposite of my assumption on the issue: maybe people are paying attention to the big screen.

Al Goreí¢â‚¬â„¢s An Inconvenient Truth, which you can love, hate, think is irrelevant, dangerous or of utmost importance, offers the best, as well as the most recent examples of social issues raised in popular documentaries resonating with their audience.

January 23 of this year, within a year of An Inconvenientí¢â‚¬â„¢s release, the traditionally oil friendly, climate-change-theory-phobic George Bush announced the his countryí¢â‚¬â„¢s importanct pledge to reduce carbon emissions and dependence on fossil fuels, aiming for a 20% drop in gasoline emissions by 2017 ( amongst other related positive goals). Similarly, just this past week, the 27 member European Union legislated compulsory targets to mandate a 20% drop in all emissions, as well as mandatory development of alternative and renewable energy sources. Great Britain, for its part, is allegedly drafting a climate change bill to drop emissions by 60 % in 2050. Canada, it should be conceded, seems relatively confused and unclear on what action it should take í¢â‚¬“ perhaps we didní¢â‚¬â„¢t watch the film.

Obviously, to say these achievements are all owed to Goreí¢â‚¬â„¢s movie would be shortsighted, to say the least. Climate change has been on the agenda for years, and appeared as cover stories on everything from National Geographic to The New York Times. However, public pressure always spurns political actions, and with Goreí¢â‚¬â„¢s film reaching and informing so many people ($46 million box office gross, 3rd most successful documentary to date), its hard to totally ignore that the impact it may have had in expediating governments to action.

Perhaps more convincing that this film has spurned public action comes from Virgin millionaire Richard Branson. Early February saw Branson posing with Gore for his recently announced í¢â‚¬Å“Virgin Earth Challengeí¢â‚¬ , wherein he has put on offer $ 25 million for the person or group with the most logical, pragmatic and safe plan for sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere í¢â‚¬“ a relatively unlikely action without the film being made.

For their part as well, films like í¢â‚¬Å“Super Size Meí¢â‚¬  and í¢â‚¬Å“Farenheit 9/11í¢â‚¬  seem to be not without their affects on viewers. More so than ever, fast food restaurants across the world have been looking to í¢â‚¬Ëœhealthifyí¢â‚¬â„¢ their menus. Post í¢â‚¬Å“Super Sizeí¢â‚¬ , McDonalds recorded its first quarter ever of loss, responding with a calories conscious menu that now features more prominently at locations then the traditional Big Mac, fries and a Coke. Donut franchise Krispy Kreme just announced a new í¢â‚¬Å“healthyí¢â‚¬  whole wheat donut in attempts to rebound from devastating financial years in 2005 í¢â‚¬“ 6 (the two years following í¢â‚¬Å“Super Size Meí¢â‚¬ ), where stocks plummeted from near-on $ 50 to a low of $ 4.

Likewise í¢â‚¬Å“Farenheit 9/11í¢â‚¬  í¢â‚¬“ Americaí¢â‚¬â„¢s second largest grossing documentary - seems to have coincided with the start of noticeable plunges in popularity with US policies (especially those involving foreign involvement), though Leanne is certainly correct in pointing out that it did not achieve Mooreí¢â‚¬â„¢s presumed goal of influencing the result of the then upcoming US elections.

Of course it would be a fundamentally flawed argument to argue direct causality between these films and the scattered actions mentioned in this article. In many ways, these films were created as reactions to already burgeoning public sentiment, and hardly unique in their viewpoint or their message. However, each of these films enjoyed an ability to speak to the public at large, through the massive stage offered by the US film industry, thus giving immense popularity and exposure to ideas that prior to had relatively little ability to be disseminated.

And while the tradition of moviegoing may encourage many viewers to gloss over the importance of messages conveyed in popular political documentaries, it seems, upon recent international stories regarding topics of some of these films, that somehow, somewhere, against all odds, these documentaries may have struck a chord with people motivated by the subject matter conveyed.

Myles Estey