(REVIEW) Serial killers who claimed they had demonic motivations, the rise of Jerry Falwell Sr.’s Moral Majority, false accusations of ritualistic abuse in daycares and the belief that messages from the devil were embedded in rock music are all markers of the satanic panic of the 1980s. 

These social and cultural events were largely unrelated, but sensationalized media coverage wove them into a terrifying narrative that created mass hysteria. This era showed very clearly how media has a strong power to influence perception and belief systems. 

That power is explored in New York’s Museum of the Moving Image exhibition “Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen,” which runs until May 15, 2022. 

The exhibition chronicles the rise and various uses of “deepfakes,” content that appears realistic but has been altered by artificial intelligence to fabricate events. 

The exhibition’s main work is “In Event of Moon Disaster,” which features a deepfake of Richard Nixon delivering the real speech written in case that Apollo 11 soldiers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were stranded on the moon. Adjacent is a short documentary which explains the making of Nixon’s deepfake and offers a clear demonstration.

A hallway of some of pop culture’s favorite deepfakes — the fake Tom Cruise interview and the Will Smith and Cardi B mashup, among others — offers tips on how to differentiate real videos from deepfakes.

Another part of the exhibit uses multimedia from the history of radio and television to show the ease with which altered propaganda or entertainment can influence an audience. Notable among these is a clip from an episode of “The Geraldo Rivera Specials” called “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground.” The documentary, which explored all the parts of the satanic panic, from killers to rock and roll, was at the time the highest-rated documentary on television.

To accompany the exhibition, the museum hosted a special screening of the 2018 short film “Demonic” from Australian filmmaker Pia Borg.

“At first, I was drawn to the subject of the satanic ritual abuse panic as I was interested in understanding false memory syndrome,” Borg told ReligionUnplugged.com. “As my research deepened, I became fascinated by the other cultural and social forces at play that led to this mass hysteria. At the same time, the world around me began repeating this fascination with Satanism some 40 years later.”

“Demonic” uses archival footage, CGI imagery and re-creation to look at the satanic panic through “Michelle Remembers,” a memoir from Michelle Smith who claimed that — with the help of a psychiatrist — she’d remembered a childhood of abuse from members of the Church of Satan. 

The movie recreates guided therapy sessions Smith went through during which she “remembered” ritualistic abuse. The conversation, shared primarily through a clicking tape recorder, is haunting — primarily because it’s clear how it was used to create and spread such harmful misinformation.

In that way, “Demonic” also works as a great psychological horror movie. It’s no longer the content of these conversations that frightens, but rather the reality that it’s stunningly easy to get people to believe any falsehood. 

Though it was nearly immediately debunked, “Michelle Remembers” was viewed as unequivocal truth to many Americans. The pop psychology and fear for children coincided with an investigation into the McMartin preschool, where hundreds of children gave testimonies of abuse after misleading and suggestive questioning. 

“I find it compelling to observe that the panic was in part fueled by a media-driven backlash against working women and liberalized abortion laws in the 1980s,” Borg said. “Many of the Satanic rituals were said to involve the sacrifice of fetuses, and the most common site for accusations was the daycare center, revealing social anxieties about working mothers trusting their children to institutional care.”

In trial excerpts from the documentary, children mention seeing “the goat man” and witnessing bloody ritual sacrifices. 

The documentary quotes this telling narrative expert: “‘You’re telling the story everybody who talks to you about this case wants you to tell, right?’ the lawyer asked. ‘Yes,’ said the boy.” 

The documentary itself deals explicitly with truth and the difficulty of not knowing who and what to trust. Using CGI to illustrate it blurs the line between truth and falsehood further.  

“I wanted the form of the film to reflect the power of an image to manipulate,” Borg said. “I cast an actress for her uncanny resemblance to her real-life persona, and I built physical sets to mimic the CGI animation, leaving the viewer questioning what is real.” 

Most deepfakes seen on social media are fun and harmless, but the most common deepfakes are used to superimpose the faces of celebrities or individuals in pornographic videos without their consent. As deepfakes become more popular and easier to create, many worry that their purposes will only become more malicious. 

A viral video of Nancy Pelosi slurring her words and seeming drunk was found to be edited, but Pelosi still received relentless backlash from those who believed the video to be real. It’s a worrying page in the book of disinformation impacting politics and polarization — heightened by online spaces. 

If there’s one thing to be learned from the examples of the past, it’s that the most important thing to pursue when creating and consuming media is truth. Otherwise, the likelihood of being swept away by misinformation-fueled frenzy is much too high.  

“Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen” is on view at the Museum of the Moving Image until May 15, 2022.

Jillian Cheney is a contributing culture writer for Religion Unplugged. She also writes on American Protestantism and evangelical Christianity and was Religion Unplugged’s 2020-21 Poynter-Koch fellow. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.