Mendax v Verax Images of Snowden and Assange in Fiction and Documentary Films

This paper deals with depictions of the whistleblower Edward Snowden and publisher/activist Julian Assange in fiction and documentary Films and aims to compare and contrast the images of the two whistleblowers in the media: one the “good patriot”, the other an “egotistical” outsider. Whereas a film like Snowden (2016) tries to locate Snowden in the tradition of American whistleblowing as a righteous critique of power and depict him as a “good” individual, films about WikiLeaks/Assange tend to focus on his problematic personality, as in The Fifth Estate (2013). Is it possible to think Snowden and Assange together, even when they appear radically different: Mendax, the (noble) “liar” and Verax, the truth teller? At the same time, whistleblowing can be read through critique of ideology as put forth by Slavoj Žižek, a critique that is perhaps only possible through the “naive” gaze of the whistleblower and can help us discern the act of whistleblowing as such from the individualistic approach often deployed by the media.