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To be honest, I never understood all the fuss about James Frey.

Two years ago, the Ohio-born writer published “A Million Little Pieces,” a daring, starkly real autobiography about his time in rehab for alcoholism. The book was backed by that titan of culture-making, Oprah Winfrey, and became a runaway hit, a phenomenon that imploded horrifically when it was revealed that Frey had fabricated a portion of his story.

Frey really was an alcoholic, and most of his novel was true, but he’d exaggerated certain elements — mainly, the main character’s legal history and alleged outstanding arrest warrants. In other words, Frey had made himself out to be a slightly more troubled figure than he really was, in order to make his recovery seem more dramatic and inspirational.

The backlash that followed the Frey story was huge — basically, the literary equivalent of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. And from the moment I heard about Frey’s book, my heart went out to the guy. Because you see, this is America at its most hypocritical.

I am referring, of course, to our obsession with “nonfiction” movies. Since “The Great Train Robbery” was first released in 1903, movies have often been adapted from real-life events. The term “based on a true story” is a banner flown proudly in movie trailers and advertising campaigns, tempting potential viewers to come and see the real thing, re-enacted onscreen.

When it comes to these dramatic interpretations of reality, we seem to have given filmmakers free reign to cartwheel across a spectrum of almost-true to barely true to almost nothing to do with what happened. Many viewers have, of course, learned to be discerning about these so-called nonfiction movies, but most haven’t.

Every high school in the country still studies movies like “Nixon,” “Schindler’s List” and “The Untouchables.” And these movies aren’t presented as fictionalized; they’re presented as the substitute for fact.

When HBO’s “John Adams” miniseries debuts next week, for example, how many people will watch and accept it as the reality of Adams’ life?

Another one of these films just came out recently, in fact: “The Bank Job,” based on the 1970 “walkie-talkie robbery” of the safety deposit boxes at Lloyd’s Bank in London. In the film version, the thieves, led by Terry Leather (Jason Statham) were actually out to find a number of blackmail photos of a royal family member caught in a compromising situation.

The film suggests a deep conspiracy involving a well-known brothel, a militant African American drug runner, MI-5, the London underground porn industry and several corrupt police officers It’s actually a pretty good movie, but the best, most interesting thing about it is the flag it waves proudly, the one that says “based on a true story.” The thing is, most of the conspiracy in “The Bank Job” is speculation.

See, we accept movies like these, movies that are full of inaccuracies without blinking. And while some of us will go home from the theater and look up the relative truth to the film’s portrayal, most will simply accept the story and move on. We embrace the movie as fact, despite a nagging back-of-the-mind suspicion that it might not be the whole truth.

And yet, if James Frey fictionalizes what he estimated to be less than 5 percent of his story, the literary world calls for his head on a pike. It seems like a double standard, and it is, but in America we like to pretend that books have a respectability that movies do not. We demand a responsibility from books that no one bothers to apply to films, and Frey got the brunt end of that attitude.

But here’s the thing: Unless you’re talking about a textbook (and frankly, sometimes even then), “based on a true story,” in any format, is never the way it really happened. Never. Any story or film created in this style — conversational, entertaining and fast-paced — is always clouded by someone’s subjective viewpoint. When you compress time, describe and cast characters, view everything in hindsight, and tell only one person’s point of view, you will always be shading reality.

I’m not suggesting that Frey was right to dramatize his story. But to crucify him for fabricating elements of his history is disregarding the fact that most of narrative nonfiction is clouded by some aspect or another.

That’s why it’s called entertainment. That never seems to bother movie audiences, who continue to receive films like “The Bank Job” without blinking an eye. So I have to wonder: Why are we holding James Frey to a higher standard than, say, Steven Spielberg for making “Schindler’s List?”

An interesting postscript to this story is that since the 2006 scandal James Frey has reportedly been working on another “nonfiction” project, about the Hell’s Angels gang — but this one is a screenplay. I have a feeling he’s going to run into a lot less trouble.

A Wisconsin native, Melissa Olson has a film degree from the University of Southern California. She now works in Madison for the television program “Discover Wisconsin.” E-mail comments to her at mfo.usc@gmail.com.