
The Brainwashing of My Dad
Jen Senko's father was, by her account, an easygoing, apolitical Democrat who carpooled, laughed easily, and rarely raised his voice. After years of a long commute spent listening to talk radio, and later a steady diet of Fox News, he became someone else: angry, suspicious of his own family, consumed by right-wing outrage. Senko turns the camera on her own household to trace that change, then widens out to interviews with media historians, former Fox employees, and psychologists who study how repetitive, emotionally charged messaging can reshape belief over time. The film walks through the rise of conservative talk radio in the Reagan era, Roger Ailes's role in building Fox News, and the deliberate strategy behind partisan cable formats, treating her father's transformation as a case study rather than an isolated family story. Home movies and family photos sit alongside archival news clips and on-camera testimony from other families who describe watching the same shift happen to a parent. It ends without reconciliation, only a clearer account of how it happened.