Manipulate

It’s very odd when people say a movie or TV show or book “manipulates” the viewer. I’ve got some news for you, but you know Captain Picard wasn’t really warping through space and shooting phasers, yes, and that Edmond Dantès was not a real person and was not the Count of Monte Cristo, right?

Perhaps they mean that the viewer or reader is manipulated poorly? In that case, it would seem easier just to say that the work is executed clumsily. Some of it is I think that in good fiction, the events feel more natural and they unfold more as we imagine life unfolds (and unravels).

I saw someone also recently angry that a movie used music to “manipulate” the viewer. This is basically every movie since ever, so this complaint also didn’t make a lot of sense to me.