Hated Tropes
(Hated Trope) Erasure of uncomfortable historical moral nuance or complexity to tell an easy story of good guys and bad guys.
Napoleonic Wars (Napoleon): This film seeks to tear down and condemn its titular subject via ludicrous historical distortions and straw man characterization worthy of 19th century British political cartoons. Napoleon is portrayed as always the aggressor while in fact most of the wars were Napoleon curb stomping the European Coalitions that first violated their peace treaties. A competent film would have perhaps gone after one his controversial or condemnable decisions like reinstating slavery in French territories. He’s characterized as a simpleton buffoon rather than the able general and statesman he proved to be on numerous occasions. The ending graphics give out death tolls for the wars rather than any lasting achievement or legacy he helped to produce or supported such as the Napoleon Code of laws that are the bedrock of many legal systems across the world.
The American Revolution (The Patriot): the conflict in the film is portrayed as a simple struggle between freedom and oppression. While it is true the Patriots desired full political representation with their own government, for most states it was envisioned to be white, landowning, or wealthy elites who would truly be represented or who’d rule the new US. Patriots and Loyalists both committed atrocities or abuses frequently although in the film the vast majority of deplorable actions are committed by the British military and American loyalists. Benjamin Martin, a plantation owner who lives in South Carolina, almost inexplicably doesn’t have enslaved people toiling his land (can’t have the hero participate in an abominable institution). The enslaved man who gains emancipation in the end is used to somehow symbolize that the US was somehow the preferable side for black enslaved people. It was British leaders such as Lord Dunmore who pragmatically offered emancipation to enslaved men who’d enlist to supplement British forces. Patriot enslavers abhorred the prospect of arming people they considered little more than cattle.
Hawaiian Wars of Unification (Chief of War): this series is a romanticized and rather simplistic depiction of the events it claims to portray. The exceedingly strict caste and social system known as Kapu is virtually never present or a factor. Men and women eat together frequently in the show; under Kapu, this was forbidden, and the punishment would be death. Those of lesser social rank who crossed the chiefs' shadows would face death IRL. Women were forbidden from eating foods such as pork, bananas, and coconuts. Commoners in the show are shown standing before looking noble chiefs directly in the eye rather than immediately prostrating. Infanticide was common for virtually any reason among many social castes. The show’s rosy and myth filled depiction of Kamehameha is embarrassing. He’s a prophesied unifier in the show that’s in line with IRL hagiographies that were written as propaganda during his reign. He’s shown wishing to merely farm. King Kahekili is made to be the easy to hate antagonist when Kamehameha was equally bloodthirsty, treacherous, ruthless and prone to human sacrifice from the beginning of his conquest. MC's wife has an ‘affair’ with his brother that causes dramatic tension; Hawaii was actually extremely non-monogamous, so much so that what many cultures considered adultery barely raised an eyebrow in Hawaii.
His first "exhibit" was an enslaved woman who he claimed was like 160 years old. He made her work like 10-12 hours a day 6 days a week.
There are some much more fucked up claims about abuse inflicted on this woman by Barnum, but I'm not sure what of that is accurate.
She died pretty quickly into this. I think he exhibited her corpse after too. I don't think he was particularly nice by the standards of his day either.
Later on, at his American Museum, he had a huge fishtank in the basement that he kept beluga whales in. He'd have to replace them on a regular basis because they kept dying. PT Barnum was an opportunistic monster.
He didn't just exhibit her corpse he sold tickets to her autopsy because there were so many doubts to his claims that she was that old. He also claimed that she was George Washington's nanny and kept her alcoholic to coerce her into going along with the lie.
The autopsy revealed that she was only 70 or 80 and Barnum claimed that he was tricked into believing it as well.
Saw someone on Reddit suggest that they should've ended the movie with Barnum turning toward the camera and saying something to the effect of "that's how it really happened" and giving a wink. Something to denote that the movie was Barnum's own propaganda.
The historical characters in that one are so different from their real world versions they seriously could have just made entirely fictional ones. It would make zero difference. What they’d lose in name recognition (and it’s not like Jenny Lind is a towering figure these days- I only knew her because I studied music of the Civil War era in high school) they’d make up for in not being tied to Barnum’s controversial legacy
The Jenny Lind character assassination is genuinely baffling. It’s one thing to portray someone as better than they actually were, but IMO it’s even worse to imply someone who in real life (as far as we can tell) was a pretty great person was actually an evil, scheming adulterer.
She was unfortunately very pro-slavery (surprisingly so, given that her home country didn’t have it), but there’s no indication whatsoever she ever had any schemes to break up Barnum’s marriage. Their split wasn’t even particularly acrimonious. She was uncomfortable with his business practices, but there didn’t seem to be any bad blood between them
Edit: in the process of refreshing my memory on this, I just found that, later, she donated money to Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin) to help free an enslaved family. She may have changed her views over time, or perhaps she did it for other reasons. It’s hard to say
He owned a slave that he put on display as George Washington's nanny. She died a slave. While he has a whole list of crimes to add, and all the scum that comes with being someone who ran freak shows and the like, I feel him enslaving an elderly woman to be a good example of the real man's character.
Surprisingly, the Romance. It's a cornerstone of Chinese literature and one of their most culturally significant books, but it typically boils down to representing Liu Bei as a virtuous and loyal retainer of the Han, while Cao Cao is a cunning and cruel villain.
Yup, it’s considered one of the “Four Great Works” but it’s still a romanticised account at the end. For a proper, more historical record it’s best to read “Records of the Three Kingdoms” (三國志).
I will always be a Cao Cao stan. Bucking hereditary norms and appointing people based on merit is probably why he gets hated so much (a loooot of influencial butthurt nepo babies), and exactly the reason why he was able to kick everyone's ass.
The older historical tradition tended to be more pro-Wei while the folk tradition was more pro-shu and Liu bei. Later accounts like the romance incorporated a lot of these folk stories which is why they’re more pro-shu. As for why they’d be pro-shu, the big reason is probably Cao Cao’s atrocities he committed like the invasion of Jing province.
As for Wei’s meritocracy it’s one of the things that causes their downfall. Because they don’t have any loyalty only competition the generals are constantly infighting and eventually overthrow the Cao dynasty.
The game series Dynasty Warriors, would go on to make things even worse.
Portraying Wei as the heroes of chaos and Shu as unsung heroes turned idealistic idiots by the Fall of Shu
Wasn't Romance one of the only comprehensive accounts of this era for a long time?
I imagine that would make its skewing of history even more substantial, since this is also the same story which begins with a giant serpent falling from the sky and telling the Imperial Court that God is mad at them.
“But you don’t have to take my word for it. In 2018, when TriStar announced “The Woman King,” Lupita Nyong’o had been cast as Nawi. Fresh off the success of “Black Panther,” the Kenyan-Mexican star was apparently so excited about her new role that she visited Benin to make a short documentary on the Agojie. Possibly intended to build hype for “The Woman King,” it also unravels the film’s heroic premise, as Nyong’o’s Beninese guides disillusion her about the Dahomean legacy. Nyong’o begins her journey enthusing about how “dope” it is to be in the land of the Amazons. But after a sobering encounter with Ghezo’s skull-mounted throne, she accepts that “any notion of the Agojie being a beacon of enlightened feminism, like the Dora Milaje in Wakanda, is long gone.” The emotional climax is an interview with the elderly granddaughter of a woman enslaved by the Amazons, who laments that she will never know her family in present-day Nigeria. “What the Agojie did was not good at all,” the old woman insists. “Not good at all!” As the woman sings a Yoruba melody, Nyong’o begins to cry, wondering aloud how she can reconcile celebrating the Agojie with the bereavement of their victims’ descendants”
God that movie was so ass. Lucasfilm was right to reject Snyder.
It's a crude amalgamation of Star Wars, Warhammer 40k, Dune and "I'm building a Team" Heist Movies. Every plot point was yet another predictable trope and half the characters were useless to the story. If she left half of them behind the ending would be the same or better for her. Also all that advertising showing Anthony Hopkins doing a K2SO ripoff character and it literally is the last 5 minutes of the movie.
They sanitised the whole damn country just to make a movie with a strong black woman. Good on Lupita Nyong'o for learning what the Dahomey were actually about and stepping out of the role.
The brits fought a good amount of wars to end slavery after deciding that it was a shitty thing to do.
And they ended some horrific practices in most colonies as well, or tried to at least (since there are still places in africa where Albinos are murdered for their body parts and human sacrifices happen)
The British Empire did away with slavery relatively early in the scheme of European powers, spent a shitload of money ensuring a peaceful abolition, and then were promptly informed by their landholders that with everyone else still doing slavery they were never going to be able to compete with cheap, slave-labor produced goods.
At which point they went "good point, former slave owners, if we can't have any slavery neither can anybody else" and set about completely anhiliating the atlantic slave trade through military force. (It is important to remember that this was often at the expense of the slaves themselves, as they regularly sunk slave ships via cannon fire, with 0 regard for any people who might, say, be chained up inside the ship.)
And then the Industrial Revolution made it so that brute-force slave labour was decisively beaten out by machinery (and a shitload of severely underpaid workers).
This gets trotted out as a reason why the slave trade was suppressed but it just isn't true. The fact is the only people who benefited from slavery were the slave owners. A slave economy has no advantages over a wage-based one. Slaves escape ("drapetomania"), commit sabotage, and stage uprisings. They can't own land, take out loans, accrue capital, make significant purchases, or contribute to the economy in any meaningful way except by increasing their owner's wealth. Any savings from using slave labour were not passed on to the consumer. In any case, the cost to the British economy of suppressing the slave trade was enormous. Compensation paid to slave owners in the Slave Compensation Act of 1837 was the equivalent of 40% of the UK's annual budget. From that point on approximately 25% of the Royal Navy was engaged in slave suppression operations at any one time.
And you're gonna need to give us a source on the Royal Navy regularly blasting slave ships to bits, slaves and all, because that sounds suspiciously like shit. A significant percentage of the crews engaged in the suppression—including some officers, like James Pinson Labulo Davies—were liberated slaves themselves.
Yeah. Like, you could make a show about Bengalis starving under British rule, with children working in factories producing for the east India company. Or the aboriginals in Australia seeing their lands systematically stolen and their people genocided and removed. Or the slaves being shipped off from their African homelands to the new world.
But no, make a film glorifying a slave state fighting against the British in order to actively preserve slavery
In reality the main king was trying to end slavery of his own people, the Dahomey by becoming a military power and conquering other kingdoms.
The King Ghezo had plans to gradually end the slave trade (though not domestic slavery) but not for a while as the Atlantic slave trade had essentially become the only economic industry in west Africa, and was one of the few resources they had for modern weapons.
The British were ending the slave trade fir moral reasons, but in part to assert control over Africa and Ghezo offers to end slavery if they would pay him like they did for Carribbean slavers but they refuse.
It's an interesting but incredibly nuanced story that the film was completely unable to tell because they wanted an empowering anti slavery story which just did not exist.
Supposedly, they were so desperate to keep selling slaves that they offered to intervene in the Napoleonic Wars (so that they could help out Portugal, who was their biggest trading partner).
The Dahomey Amazons were slave catchers and slave traders, they were active and powerful participants in the African slave trade and only stopped when Europeans went to war with them saying "cut this shit out."
The movie white washes this and sets up an anti-imperialism and "girl power" message that completely hides how terrible the Dahomey were in order to make them "heroes." It is a complete and utter revision of real history in order to appeal to some bizarre take on modern culture war nonsense.
The story centres on the Kingdom of Dahomey in modern-day Benin, who were famous for having an army of female warriors called Agojie (referred to as "Amazons" by Europeans).
The issue is that the film portrays Dahomey as being against slavery, when in reality, they were infamous in Europe for their entire economy being based around selling slaves.
It doesn’t entirely do it, but it does have this glaring pan-African message, portraying the Agojie warriors as somehow behind anti-slavery and trying to spur King Ghezo into accepting palm oil as a trade source. It also frames the conflict as being brought about by slavery fueled by Europeans.
It’s… it’s all garbage. I couldn’t watch it after learning the history of Dahomey. I’m not even an expert but watching them whitewash this kingdom notorious for its barbarity was too much. Reading an interview where the director claimed that the people were incorrectly critiquing her film based off biased history sources was painful.
They mention but ignore their own slavery, to tell a story of women soldiers fighting men and white slavers to save their friends. They win, empowered, and end slavery.
True, half their forces were self-acclaimed women soldiers. All other history is backwards. Britain demanded they end slavery, so they became a French protectorate. They attacked an allied city protectorate, twice, so France destroyed and colonized them.
As much as people dont wanna hear it, The Gladiator is this trope. Marcus Arelius had no intention of making Rome a republic again, in fact, his choice of his son as his successor was a break from tradition and seen as the end of the golden era of Roman emperors. His predecessors had chosen their successors as adoptive sons.
People hear republic they think modern democracy when that's really not the case. The Roman republic was closer to an oligarchy than to a modern republic.
And ironically enough, modern democracies are closer to the roman republic than to ancient democracy in Greece, considering not a single country still chooses its parliamentarians by lottery.
To be fair most countries with elected officials do at least technically call themselves republics, since republican representation is generally more feasible on a large scale than total democracy. It’s just that the average person doesn’t know or understand the difference between the two
That’s also a mistake when people think of with Caesar and the conspirators. They think the group murdered the dictator to free Roman republicanism again (thinking of modern, or at least early-modern, republics), but they were angry at Caesar centralising power under one man rather than it being held by a relatively small number of Patrician families in what was effectively an elective oligarchy.
i think you're advancing an equally anachronistic point of view though? "for the Romans, dictatorship and republicanism were basically the same thing, because it was oligarchic either way" Well, it looks like they felt pretty fucking strongly to the contrary
In middle school we learned "And everyone could vote in ancient Rome!" like it was some cool utopia where everyone's voice counted. In high school it was "Well, as long as you were a male citizen."
And then college classes actually explained it. (And this is still a simplified version) You had to physically travel to Rome to vote in person, and voting order was, in short, determined by wealth. If someone got over 50% of the vote, the election ended.
So, yeah, a male citizen who wasn't very wealthy could vote for something like consul, in theory. But the reality was that you needed to have enough money to stop working for however long it took to travel, travel to Rome, and then wait there while all the rich people voted before you. And even if you did have the money to travel and the patience to wait, a candidate could get 50% before you even cast a vote, and you would just be sent home.
Also originally voting wasn't secret you can guess how that went. That changed eventually but it was extremely controversial and loopholes had to be closed frequently. Voting didn't really become secret until like 20 years before Julius Caesar was born. There was a 20 year period before that where voting was "secret" but people could just stand next to you while you voted (better than literally telling publically who you voted for)
Also they had an electoral college made out of how much money you had so rich people's votes literally weighted more.
The gladiator who killed Commodus also just strangled him while he was taking a bath, because the Senate told him to, rather than in an epic duel in front of a live audience which left both of them dead.
Yeah, the dude was a retired gladiator, which I think was the inspiration for Ridley Scott making a movie where a Gladiator feuds with, and eventually kills Commodus
They didn't need to change Caracalla like that, Caracalla was a militaristic and bloodthirsty brute and likely a kinslayer , Geta didn't live long, good archetype for a villain, no need to turn him into a fearful and spoiled aristocrat also if they wanted to take jabs at roman militarism they could have portrayed war with Parthia number 92646261 rather than teleporting the Jugurthine war 3 centuries into the future. So many changes with no need. Now I know how Napoleonic Era fans felt,
Ehh not really Commodus was mostly like a frat boy had became emperor. He wasted money on celebration and frivolaty even more than usual for a roman emperor he was paranoid and violent but I wouldn't say he was mad. He was a narcissist and most of our sources are anti Commodus so most likely hostile but even they don't really accuse him of anything worse than slaughtering tons of animals and re naming most months after himself.
I hope no one thinks gladiator is historically authentic in any shape or form…?
It’s the last of the great stupid Hollywood sword and sandal movies… Russel Crow does great but the movie would have been perfect if it was made 45 years earlier with Kirk Douglas as the leading star.
Oh it's a Ridley Scott movie through and through. That's to say, complete historical bollocks in every way.
But at least this one actually is a really well made and entertaining movie, which are aspects the man seems to have forgotten to put in his more recent bunch of historical fiction movies.
Of course it did. The movie was lionizing him, can’t very well show one of the worst acts of his presidency. (Beyond, y’know, starting the stratification of wealth between the haves and have nots)
Haven’t seen the movie, but I’m gonna guess that if it were lionizing him, then it would either skip over the War on Drugs or rather show it in a positive light. Real talk, the War on Drugs fucked up America (and Central and South America, for that matter) far more than I think a lot of people realize.
The stratification of wealth was already there, and you can see by the statistics CEO pay disparity was already increasing before he came around. He just accelerated the fuck out of it.
To be fair, Reagan didn't *start* the stratification of wealth between the haves and have nots; that dates back to the beginnings of human history. But yeah, his policies made the problem worse for generations to come.
You’re right, of course. To be more specific I should have said “started the EXTREME stratification. There’s always been class conflict, but Reagan definitely took a lot of steps to make it worse.
As a Scotsman, just no. Also in the famous Battle The Battle of Stirling Bridge WHERE THE FUCK WAS THE FUCKING BRIDGE!?!?!? fucking travesty of a film, good bloody fighting scenes though al give it that.
God that Napoleon film was ass. You want that subject matter done correctly, go watch Waterloo. Still holds the record for largest number of extras and actors on screen at once if I remember correctly.
As for one that’s closer to my own state’s history, the old Alamo movie. It has a, less than favorable portrayal of Mexican people and acts like Texas (and the US) was not at all in the more morally questionable side of the Mexican American war.
Richard Attenborough's(I hate theyve removed the auto quote thing stupid reddit)
Known as the brother of David Attenborough and for the younger generations he was Richard Hammond in Jurassic Park. (Am sure folks know this but I just want to contribute haha)
I did listen to a YouTube channel that went into detail about Santa Anna and his role in the Texan War of Independence. Honestly, even though the Texas were slave owners, it’s a little hard for me not to side with them when the other side isn’t taking prisoners.
Oh no Santa Anna was a jerkass through and through I’m not disputing that, but the movie kind of portrays the defenders of the Alamo as this group of completely perfect stand up dudes fighting for their country when like, some of the same people heavily involved in this region of the war would go on to fight for the confederacy.
That would be for the combatants; the non-combatant rebels, such as women and children, were in fact taken prisoner and released by Santa Anna.
He was terribly ruthless and an idiot, but the portrayal of him as a bloodthirsty man who massacred every region he set foot in is not exactly accurate, although it could be said that these decisions were also related to the pressure his subordinates put on him
The obsession with a man who told starving people to go on hunger strike and said all the Jews suffering the holocaust should kill themselves baffles me.
Mongol (2007)
Depicting the early life of Genghis Kahn from childhood to his uniting of the tribes of monholia into an empire under his rule.
He is portrayed as a devoted husband and family man who is kind to his enemies and very strict about preventing women and children from being hurt or assaulted during/after battle.
While he made some strategic choices that were more reasonable than other leaders such as letting his men claim loot based on their performance instead of taking the majority for himself as ruler, offering a chance to surrender to his enemies, recruiting those that fought against him if they were talented, letting those under his empire keep their customs and traditions as long as they paid tribute rather than forcing his empire to be homogenous, he still was ruthless when needed, obviously wiped out millions, got up to so much rape that a significant portion of living people are his descendants
Correct me if I'm wrong about anything I'm not an expert by any means
Correct me if I'm wrong about anything I'm not an expert by any means
You're not wrong. Wikipedia has an entire entry titled "Destruction Under The Mongol Empire," because the Mongols were so horrifically destructive: "As such, the Mongol Empire, which remains the largest contiguous polity ever to have existed, is regarded as having perpetrated some of the deadliest acts of mass killing in human history. More recently, the Mongol Empire's conquests have been classified as genocidal.[5] For example, British historian John Joseph Saunders described Mongol troops as "the most notorious practitioners of genocide".[6]
To picture them with a modern political lens as some kind of benevolent tribe of horsemen, or "not as bad as (name of race/country)," would be to misrepresent how bad they really were.
The Patriot was mentioned, but Mel Gibson's other "main" historical flick, Braveheart (1995), is a notorious offender as well. While it's fair to say it's a lot of people's favourite, it has kind of polluted the general understanding of the Scottish Wars of Independence:
Mel Gibson, in his Anglophobia, somehow managed to make a famously severe King, Edward I somehow even more callous than he was in reality. While Edward was oft overtly severe, and Scotland is yet another place where it came to eventually bite him and his successor in the arse, he wasn't so for shits and giggles. He seemed to have genuinely believed that Scottish nobles pulled the rug under him by negotiating with France or rebelling, and punished them as he would have other vassals. There are so many awful deeds to hang on him without portraying him as a psychopath.
The portrayal of Edward II and the stand-in for Piers Gaveston (who was not part of Edward II's household at the time of the movie) is genuinely awful on several levels. While the nature of the relationship between Edward II/Piers is a bit elusive, and not easy to couch in modern terms (not because same-sex attraction/relations did not exist of course), the movie specifically goes out of its way to link his inefficacy to his (in movie) homosexuality.
Robert de Bruce, similarly to Edward I, gets a really awful portrayal to make William Wallace look better. While Robert de Bruce switched sides several times in the conflict, that was just terribly common at the time. Scottish nobility often had lands on both sides of the border, and it is only after his victory at Bannockburn 15-odd years later and the conclusion of the first War of Independence that Scottish nobles were forced to forfeit those lands. A good chunk of Scottish nobility flipped or followed Edward I because, all-in-all, he was their sovereign, or at least for part of their possessions (the same dynamic plagued English/French relations, with the King of France being the senior of the King of England, in the latter's capacity as Duke of Aquitaine... But not as King of England),
You could write paragraphs about how the flattening of Scottish medieval cultures into some woad-covered, kilt wearing semi-noble barbarians/gentleman farmer trope is just another hint at Gibson's obsessions (some of which we also see in the Patriot). Wallace himself is a bit of an enigmatic figure, but generally he is associated with the lowland, and might have been of foreign descent (although by then fully integrated into Scottish society). Highlanders still followed Goidelic custom and law (although under influence from England, France and the Low Countries), but they were a much more complex society than Gibson is willing to give them credit for (ironically, their portrayal is worryingly close to the Lowlander/English stereotype of Gaeldom as backward tribal societies).
As a Scotsman, it definitely gives too much credit to William Wallace that has permeated Scottish culture as a lot of people here assume that what went down in Braveheart represents, or is at least close to reality. While Wallace was a talented medieval guerilla fighter, he does not seem to have had much aptitude for pitched battles. His naivety seems to have been one of the major causes of the disastrous defeat at Falkirk where he attempted to engage the English on an even footing. Mel Gibson tries to depict this failure as due to a betrayal from the Scottish nobility, when in fact the small contingent of knights were simply driven from the battle in the opening stages by the large number of highly experienced English knights.
The two major Scottish victories in pitched battles came from fighting smarter not harder, at both Stirling Bridge with Wallace in co-command and Bannockburn after his death. Why does Mel Gibson not depict these? I suspect because he somehow views winning through cunning rather than sheer strength of arms as being underhanded and unfair.
Edward Longshanks will forever be remembered as the evil king who threw his gay son boyfriend off a window and slaughtered his own men in the middle of a battle. Thanks, Mel.
One of the admittedly worst things Ed I did was the Expulsion of Jews out of England (only to be let in by another rather unpleasant character, Cromwell), but that happened before the events of the movie.
And also Gibson might think that's based akchually.
I like how the film portrays it as England vs Scotland when it was just Norman lords vs Norman lords. I think Willy himself was of Norman descent, but I might be wrong on that.
The notion that there even was a Scotland at this point in history is questionable, as the people were just serving their local lords and fighting amongst themselves.
It would be centuries before we'd see a somewhat united Scotland and even then it took killing/removing certain groups of people to achieve.
With Wallace, it's really a case of "there is no sources". Some people mentioning landholding records might or might not be his father, but effectively we are not sure where even from in Scotland he was. He seemed to have spelled his name "Walais" which seems related to "Welshman", but whether this mean he was:
Welsh as in from Wales
Actually"Welsh" in the sense his family originated among Brythonic speakers from Cumbria/Lowlands
His family arrived from the continent and locals used "welsh" as shorthand for "foreign" as per its etymology.
So... We don't know.
So the Kingdom of Scotland was very much a thing and seen as distinct (and people would generally understand themselves as being subjects in it), but people would not have been necessarily "Scottish" in the 19th century nationalism sense.
Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scotland about a year after William Wallace’s execution. So no it’s not “centuries” until a united Scotland. I do agree that there isn’t really the conception of Scotland as a nation, but that has more to do with nationalism not existing for another 500ish years than the Scots being incapable of recognizing cultural and linguistic similarities between each other.
While it is fun from time to time to joke at some ridiculous military process like procurment (and this movie is fun satrie movie), this movie isn't documentary and reality is so far remove from what actually happened espeically from 'sensible guy' side.
Pretty sure the Ukraine war has won that reputation it back in spades. And if I’m being honest, as a vet, the only people I ever heard talk trash about the Bradley were know it all wannabes who never served.
iirc the book was written by a dude who wanted to make a shitty A10 style aircraft with no radar or "fancy" equipment as he put it(which I believe included radios and ejector seats) and got mad when every branch looked at his blueprints and politely told him "no thanks".
So he made up a trial program to test "safety" on new equipment and got the army (and only the army) on board. But they realized pretty quickly that he was more interested in blowing up their prototypes into chunks than doing any actual safety or crew survivability tests. So army pulled out shortly after, author called fowl and resigned, wrote book claiming he was telling the "TRUE" story about Pentagon procurement and why they spend so much money.
Doesn’t help that the people who criticize the Bradley are from a group of people who sneer at the thought of putting anything high tech into military weapons
goverment media tv series "Mehmed, the Sultan of Conquer" portrayed the last Roman Emperor Konstantin Palailogos as a betrayer and oathbreaker. And instead of showing him dying while fighting the Ottomans himself, they made up a bizarre GoT trial by combat between him and Mehmed II over who'll keep the city, which he gets low-diffed.
Interestingly, the series "Rise of Empires: Ottoman" presents a bit more truthful to history. Constantine is presented as a noble leader who (as is popularly believed) charged into the fray as Constantinople fell and died with his men.
It's mostly done to glaze Mehmed and the Turks, since hyping up the enemy leaders makes them more badass for beating them. But it still more or less fits the common narrative of the city's final days.
Pocahontas- Taking away the settlers pretty much taking advantage of the Powhatan tribe's hospitality and what they did to Pocahontas (which, it's a Disney film, so I wouldn't expect them to show that, but still).
Also John Ratcliffe, the nominally main antagonist, would be tortured to death by the Powhatans by having his skin slowly scraped off with mussel shells and thrown into a fire before his very eyes.
Asking for nuance from a film aimed at children is a bit much. I do agree that Disney never should've tried to set a film in a real historical setting for that reason, though. Technically, that's also true of Anastasia (from 20th Century Studios), though at least they went so far off course into magical shenanigans that it was supremely clear nothing about the movie was meant to even look remotely realistic.
I remember making th case in a high school report that Napoleon is one of those figures that’s far too complex to label a hero or villain solely because of how subjective people’s views can be and because of how simultaneously progressive and monstrous the man’s actions and legacy are
He provided the bedrock for many legal systems in Europe we still use and yet he reinstated slavery throughout the colonies. I fucking hated those “hero or villain” assignments in school history because they’d never be about the obvious monsters like Leopold of Belgium. At best it’s hitler and any refusal to entertain the core question would be taken poorly (I had this with a Ned Kelly assignment where the teacher was not a fan of the guy and actively interrupted my presentation a few times)
Its really interesting I read all the sharp series and most of lemiz. While there is grime on the English they are always depicted as the good guys held down by the built in corruption of military leadership of the English. I would live a historical depiction of that era that was less biased
I like that as opposed to the Patriot, Assassin’s Creed 3 did show that the Americans were also responsible for deplorable actions and not just universally good.
The protagonist, Connor, is a native who is in large part fighting on the side of the Americans to protect his tribe, but then Discovers George Washington has actually ordered to kill his tribe because they are aiding the British. At the end of the game when we see the British leaving the port of New York, Connor sees that slaves are still being sold on the local market. And in a very famous argument between Connor and his father Haytham (who is a Templar and one of the main antagonists of the game), Haytham discredits Connors argument that the people chose Washington to lead the revolution against the British. Arguing that instead the people in the Continental Congress their decision to declare independence was mostly a personal decision that benefits them. And the people had no say in that.
Most potrayals of J. Bruce Ismay depict him as the main person responsible for the Titanic disaster and forcing Captain Smith to go faster through an ice field. Ismay and the rest of the White Star executives knew they could never compete with Cunard's faster ships, and they wanted to focus on luxury and comfort and at the time it was common practice for captains to increase speed through an ice field to get out of there faster.
Out of all the adaptations of Titanic, only SOS Titanic (1979) and a 2012 ITV Miniseries portray Ismay as an innocent party.
To be fair, it’s also based off of a comic book, so anyone going in expecting historical accuracy (especially from Frank Miller) is kidding themselves.
It's a movie by Zach Snyder, based on a comic book by Frank Miller, based on Miller's hazy memories of seeing the film 300 Spartans, which is in turn based on real accounts from an era that has so little surviving verifiable information the general rule of thumb for historians is thrown out the window.
Eh - this one gets a pass. It's a comic book adaptation. Maybe if it didn't have the scenes with like the 12 foot tall, 800 pound guy with swords for hands you could say it was trying to portray history...but uh...yeah.
Number 2 is because Benjamin Martin is based on, I think maybe even originally was, Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. But Marion was a slave owner and kind of a shitty person so they changed it so the audience would actually like the character
Gods and Generals. It basically brushed over a lot of uncomfortable American Civil War history (while also seeming to paint Confederates in a positive light, if I recall) while also praying to ride on the coattails of the far superior Gettysburg.
This movie is a gross chimera of two events: the Boshin War and Satsuma Rebellion. The scenario is heavily americanized, who portrays some random white americans with guilt over the massacres of native americans helping poor weak and underequipped samurai who only want to defend their way of life.
In reality the end of the samurai was a series of rebellions of a priviledged class that fought over things like the right to literally rape or murder peasants at a whim; warrior class which adopted firearms in the 15th century (btw, the original weapon of the samuri was the bow and arrow, not the katana). The advisors rebellious japanese were also not the Americans , who were pushing unequal treaties on Japan, but French military advisors.
I love that movie but holy historical innacurracy.
There was also a bit of drama too because Netflix hired 2 Romanian historians
One of them was pretty quiet about the whole thing and said that they didn't had that much imput, 98% of what they were saying was ignored and the producer were only interested in bombastic stuff and making Mehmed looking good without caring of history.
But the second one was defending the project tooth and nails, parading it as the most historical accurate piece ever made about Vlad the Impaler.
After he saw the video above he was pissed had a little back and forth with the Corpus Draculianum project, CD sent him an invitation to do a podcast and debate which he publicly accepted but reach out in privat to apologize for what he said and also he won't come to the podcast, claiming that he doesn't mind altering facts because he comes from a family of ottomans that was marginalized a long time ago in Romania.
And they deleted the spanish aid against the british from the movie despite being an important part of the conflict's outcome, probably because portraying the spanish empire as anything but the personification of evil is illegal in hollywood apparently, fuck the black legend
Its because as Americans we put much more weight on the help from The French since they sent their navy and Lafayette was close with Washington and Jefferson so they shoved a random French guy into the movie.
I'd imagine people in Florida are probably more familiar with The Spanish contributions to the war.
Next was Dutch aid, specifically money. They made a number of crucial loans that kept things running, and Sint Eustatius was the clearing house for arms, gunpowder, and other supplies that kept the revolution on the battlefield.
Spain on the other hand did little. It was mostly bullied by France into entering the war, and they were largely in it to try to recover Gibraltar. Not only did they fail at that, but that failure gave Britain badly-needed bargaining clout at the peace table. Spain’s role in the revolution was negligible from the colonies’ perspective.
That’s not the black legend, it’s just Bourbon incompetence.
There's also the fact that if Britain did torch a church full of civilians, that would've been an incredible piece of pro-independence propaganda. A war crime like that would be talked about to this day.
And that's not even getting into how dumb an idea that prisoner exchange actually is. You guarantee the other side will deal with you fairly again.
Mahabharat, every TV show has turned the characters into more black and white than they were, much of nuances and grey shades don't even exist in those shows
1) shakuni: potrayed as mastermind of all evil acts duryodhan does and shows the former constantly manipulating the latter while he was a collaborator (still evil but not as much as potrayed), in reality, he actually tried convincing duryodhan multiple times to let go of his enmity and jealousy against the pandav brothers.
2) karna: shown so much more tragic than he was, yes he had a background of being abandoned at birth, had to face classism/casteism, but his acts like calling draupadi a whore and calling for her to be stripped naked in a throne room full of men are almost ignored.
It's a historically set drama rather than a real tale from history but I have heard a lot of good things said about Master & Commander: The Far Side of The World and its portrayal of Napoleonic age naval combat and culture.
The exclusion of Kapu was a huge missed opportunity as Kamehameha would end many of its strictest rules, beginning the process of its eventual abolition by his son.
Irl: history textbooks in the southern states. There was some controversy maybe about a decade ago when a publisher tried to input african slaves were immigrants.
the real Dyatlov got acute radiation sickness searching through wreckage to find that man. They invented a nonexistent corridor near to reactor 4 in the show to explain away why he had ARS, because the real reason he had it didn't make him look like a mustache twirling villain.
Also, while being treated for ARS, he wrote a letter to Leonid Toptunov's parents assuring them that it was not their son's fault the reactor exploded.
I am sure someone at some point has made a movie about Mother Teresa that fully white washed her reputation. She was a terrible person who believed that the more suffering a person experienced the closer they got to god.
Napoleon is bizarre. Phoenix is so bizarrely miscast… beyond being way too old, which does fundamentally shift the character. But at no point is at all inspiring or particularly smart… which again doesn’t really make sense because this is a guy who has to inspire entire armies. There must of been something there!
Ridley Scott is such a piece of shit for making that dogshit ass history drama by vibes only Napoleon movie the way he did. He even openly scoffed at any detractors asking about historic realism. I hated how accepted it was on the internet to cheer him on, and for sure it's not like anyone is gonna go to bat for Napoleon of all people. But damnit it's history, don't misrepresent it. The director showed himself to be a massive hack, and honestly I think his good movies are very much in spite of him rather than because of him. It can't be that everyone out there in studio land is out to get him, and he has excessive studio meddling in all his movies. When everyone's an asshole to you, then it could well be that you're actually the asshole.
Edit: I get that there's historic fiction, and Gladiator and arguably Kingdom of Heaven is very much that. But a movie called Napoleon about Napoleon, don't tell me that's historic fiction. If so, come up with something cooler than that. Or make a better movie. And don't get so bitchy when people ask about the historic accuracy. Like why bother approaching a historic movie about something so highly specific like Napoleon or Abraham Lincoln or something and then misrepresent history?
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u/Random_Eevee1 Aug 23 '26
The Greatest Showman - P.T. Barnum
In his early career, he was not a nice person by today’s standards. He did change, but it took a noticeable amount of time.