I haven't seen the documentary, but I have a background in media and art. There are a couple of ways I could understand this.
The first is the general public's lack of understanding of documentaries as an art form. Documentaries are essentially narratives presented as unfiltered reality ("facts"). Most folks don't truly understand this, or they lose sight of it through suspension of disbelief. That is, they don't know or forget about the film crew, editing, framing, and other artistic choices that form what they see. The illusion becomes invisible; they see only "facts" rather than a constructed narrative designed to guide their interpretation.
Second, filmmakers often use deception as an artistic device in documentaries. Mockumentaries are a pretty clear example of subverting the conventions of documentary filmmaking. It's a bit meta for most folks, so I could see how someone without much media literacy might totally miss this. But it's definitely a very interesting artistic choice given the subject matter.
The achiles heel of the documentaries as a form of propaganda & psyops (aka "narratives presented as reality") is that they have a profound dependence on aural cues for manipulating the audiance. It is difficult to be subtle regarding that intent when sound is involved.
So pay attention to the sound track and adjust your "suspension of disbelief" accordingly.
I am lucky that I am very sensitive to emotionally manipulative music in contexts where I don't want to be emotionally manipulated by music.
In general, it would help anyone to know more about the craft of how filmmakers get people to feel emotions.
Tantacrul (software project manager, UX guy, muso and YouTuber)’s “Music on Reality TV is Insanely Manipulative” https://youtube.com/watch?v=G77ev9pks4I is pretty good.
Heck yeah! Thanks. It's bad-tasting medicine, but Tantacrul makes me laugh, so I don't mind thinking about what this manipulation can do to me. Hopefully, I'll also pick up some resistance.
Fielder has said that setting the tone with music in documentaries is among the most important things he does. I also find that unsettling.
My favorute example of a "documentary" whose sound stage reveals it as a psyop very obviously is the 2007 "Zeitgeist: The Movie".
This isn't confined to "documentaries" - everything we accept as unfiltered 'facts' must be from 'a certain point of view'. Consider the Canon illustration from the article. Those present a man from different lighting, angles and perspectives. No matter how much a photographer might want to convey objective truth, a picture will always be from some perspective and lighting.
The same can be said for the news we watch. Or the history we read. Or the stories we tell each other. In 2026, we have swung too far toward the fanciful end of the spectrum of storytelling. We're now beset on all sides by BS generators (both human and artificial) and it's more important than ever to carefully handle truth in our stories.
But make no mistake - the teller of a story is absolutely crafting a reality for you. It's on you to decide whether you trust the narrator, or not.
> No matter how much a photographer might want to convey objective truth, a picture will always be from some perspective and lighting.
A workaround is to always shoot everyone the same. If a journalist or interviewer grows a reputation, they can show everyone "on level ground" by keeping the pose, lighting, etc... constant.
It's one reason that long-form YouTube interviewers like Lex Friedman are so popular with a more discerning crowd.
"But he's so bland, monotonous, and boring!" cry the haters.
"Yes! That's the point!"
> A workaround is to always shoot everyone the same. If a journalist or interviewer grows a reputation, they can show everyone "on level ground" by keeping the pose, lighting, etc... constant.
I don't think this works.
And I think it might be actually easier to exploit. The fraudster knows what you're going to do in advance, and can target their own presentation to maximally take advantage.
If the way you show someone conveys X about them, especially when due to outside cultural cues - here's the millionaire framing, here's the convict one... - and you just use the same X for every subject, then you're just suggesting a particular framing over and over. You're avoiding a layer of "my active framing is telling a particular story" but only with a passive—but still deliberate—framing of "my framing is telling a particular story" that you hold constant across every story.
In some ways this is similar to what Holmes exploited originally! Lots of industry media was willing to uncritically frame and present her with their "visionary tech founder" styles, and she leaned even further in to that with the Jobs-isms.
Would not a truer "fair" framing would've been to dig into the claims and let the evidence determine the visual language, to avoid the visual language of "Steve Jobs!!" bias the reader/viewer into giving Holmes' claims more credence?
Where would Ancient Aliens fall into this lack of understanding?