Dear Disinformation
In September of 2021, the Dear Evan Hansen movie adaptation was one of many highly anticipated movie-musical releases of the year. However, most people (the press included) didn’t receive it well. Many of the criticisms had to do with the age of Ben Platt, who originated the role on Broadway, and was reprising it for the film. Platt originated the role at age 23, but was reprising it at 27, a decade older than the character. Not a surprise for Hollywood movies, but not executed as well as it might have been.
The day after the film premiered at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), Twitter user Wyatt Duncan, tweeted a screenshot of a Hollywood Reporter article addressing what the film would be doing to combat the critics of Platt’s age and appearance. Duncan’s Twitter bio has a clear disclaimer that “everything [he posts] is satirical and shouldn’t be taken seriously.” The tweet was intended to be satirical disinformation, but due to the ongoing conversation on Twitter about the film, it quickly became what could be considered a minor fake news incident.
At the time I’m writing this, the tweet has 6,578 retweets, 5,250 quote retweets, 92.7K likes, and 757 replies. While searching for the original tweet, however, I came across many tweets where people were referencing the “news” weeks afterwards.
Many people believed the joke, but others were quick to call it out. Some users began asking for the link, since they couldn’t find a Hollywood Reporter article about the film from the writer in the screenshot. The screenshot listed the publication date and time as September 10th, 2021, at 9:51am, with the article being written by Ryan Parker. The article with that timestamp, date, and author is actually about Star Trek, not Dear Evan Hansen.
Other users began pointing out that the “de-aged” image in the screenshot was simply a press release photo from the film with the Snapchat “Baby” filter. Even Snapchat pointed it out in a reply to the tweet!
While the rumor spread and many tweets about the de-aging technology the film used (both related and unrelated to Duncan’s tweet) were posted, the film didn’t actually use any de-aging methods. A Screen Rant article from the end of September 2021 referenced the de-aging technology used in Captain Marvel, saying that the Dear Evan Hansen production team opted not to use it.
This tweet’s original purpose was not at all what it became, but it did spark a conversation about why and how Ben Platt was cast, and how Hollywood casts adults to play teenagers. I wasn’t invested enough to pay close attention to any of the news, so I am not sure if anyone from the film actually made any sort of statement on the rumors (besides Platt’s response to critics saying he looked too old for the role). This situation is interesting to me since it’s one that wasn’t detrimental in any major way, as opposed to other “fake news incidents.” It’s meant to be satirical, and for the most part, was spread as truth only because Twitter users have a tendency to retweet things without seeing who the account owner was (which is how most misinformation and disinformation spreads on the app). To me, it made me realize that if a joke can spread this quickly as truth online, more detrimental fake news can be spread just as quickly and farther.
Sources:
https://variety.com/2021/film/news/ben-platt-responds-dear-evan-hansen-trailer-criticism-1234976568/
https://screenrant.com/dear-evan-hansen-casting-controversy-ben-platt/
