Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story

I thought Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story was a good conclusion to our semester in documentary film. It was a little bit lighter than the Holocaust section (though still thoroughly horrifying), but it also seemed to tie together all of the different concepts that we learned about over the last few months. Similar to the Big Bird movie, Boogie Man took a relatively unknown man (who was actually quite prominent in the political world) and delved in to the details of his upbringing, his career, and his demise.
I think something that many films have had in common throughout the semester, such as Going Clear, Boogie Man, and Merchants of Doubt, is that some of the most powerful and influential people in the world fly completely under the radar of the general public. I think it is really eye-opening how Atwater could accumulate so much power, and influence among Washington elites, through such questionable methods. Money was more of a factor in Merchants of Doubt, as it is clear that politicians and major corporations dictate the direction of the climate change battle, but the element of power was largely the same in Boogie Man.
Atwater was basically a conman who worked himself in to the most powerful circles in the United States, and it is reminiscent of Going Clear in the sense that Scientology strikes me as a con as well. I thought the most telling part of the whole Boogie Man documentary was the last sentence when the man revealed that Atwater had never opened his Bible. Much like L. Ron Hubbard, Atwater was literally conning people right till the grave.