A recent study published by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Stout found that a majority of movies released in movie theaters over the last 30 years are not real. According to the paper, published early in January of 2022, the events unfolding before the audience’s eyes never actually happened, and often have no bearing on reality. What audiences watch on the silver screen, researchers say, is merely an artificial enactment of a purely fictitious story.
“The people in the movies are just pretending,” explained lead researcher Karl Hungus. “Nothing that happens in the movie is actually happening to them. Instead, every person you see in movies is being paid to act like the movie’s events are real.”
Other members of the scientific community were quick to point out that many events that happen in movies, like those in Hacksaw Ridge or Hidden Figures, are documented to have actually taken place. However, the researchers claim that even these movies are not real. In fact, they go as far as saying that the characters in these films’ stories are all dead and have been for years.
“Sure, Forrest Gump, the guy from Forrest Gump, may have existed at one point,” conceded Hungus. “But the man you see in the film isn’t the real Gump. It’s just a liar named Tom Hanks.”
It was unclear whom the researcher meant by “Tom Hanks.”
The study went even further, arguing that sometimes the people shown on screen aren’t people at all. Thanos from Avengers: Endgame is one such example. Hungus’ team argues that the charming purple socialite is in fact a model created using “Computer Generated Imagery” software, or CGI for short.
“Of course Thanos isn’t real,” said Hungus. “He’s a purple skinned motherfucker who is eight feet tall. You really thought you could just see him out on the street one day in the real world?” (Hungus declined to comment when our reporter asked whether Barack Obama from the movie Barry was CGI or a real person.)
The recent surge in research into transparency in film was kickstarted by the release of David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet, a “documentary film.” A researcher from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point explained:
“This farce is a textbook example of totally fictional movie practices. Attenborough says the globe is warming or whatever, but it was just -20 degrees last Friday. How can he explain that?”
—A. Mayagoitia
