At 3:34 PM -0700 4/23/06, Lavolta Press wrote:
Because the problem isn't that films are inaccurate -- the problem
is when audiences believe what they see in films.
On the other hand, the benefit is that films, novels, and other
forms of fiction have gotten many people interested in historical
subjects who might well not have given them a second thought.
Except for getting a passing grade in required American History and
History of Civilization courses--and then forgetting almost all the
material immediately after finals.
Let's face it, history is neither particularly valued nor
particularly job-getting in our society. My bet is that most college
history professors seeing enthusiastic enrollment increase after a
major film for that era is released, waft a mental "Thanks!" to the
producers.
The reality, also, is that there's absolutely nothing you can do to
make the film industry work your way--unless you're a mogul in it.
You're just another viewer. If you don't like the film, get rid of
the DVD and view another one you like better.
You're missing the point of my comments:
"The problem isn't that films are inaccurate" means that the problem
isn't that films are inaccurate. Thus, since the problem isn't that
films are inaccurate, the solution isn't for film makers not to make
inaccurate films. (Which is just as well, since they _can't_ make
films that are accurate -- all films, by their nature, are inaccurate
to one degree or another. It is inevitable.)
The problem, as I said, "is when audiences believe what they see in
films". The solution to that is to try to get more people to
understand the nature of films -- such as that they are inevitably
inaccurate -- and thus the appropriate and inappropriate uses of
films, and to stop using them inappropriately, specifically, to stop
using them as if they were reliable sources of historical information.
Now, admittedly, it would help a lot with this if movie makers would
stop lying to their audiences by making false claims about the
accuracy of their films. Personally, I'm not holding my breath on
this, as unscrupulous movie makers show no signs of giving up lying
about this or any other matter. (There are other movie makers who
seem to do just fine without such lying, but my guess is the
unscrupulous kind will always be with us...) So while I do urge movie
makers to be more honest, my real target for change is movie
watchers, not movie makers.
As for college history professors, their reactions to seeing
enthusiastic enrollment increases after a major film varies greatly,
depending not only on their individual personalities, but also the
specific topic they are teaching and the degree of damage the
particular film has done, and especially whether the students
attracted believed what they saw or not. Many professors would rather
have only 20 students truly interested in learning real history than
200 students insisting they already know all the answers because they
saw the movie and getting mad when the professor shatters those
fondly held movie myths that "inspired" them to study history.
For as I said in a previous post -- teaching is a lot more fun than
unteaching, and movies that bring students to the classroom usually
also bring a lot of need for unteaching. Sometimes the balance is
tolerable, sometimes it isn't. I know TFWNSNBU has resulted in me
wasting a lot of time trying to unteach things that were never an
issue before the film -- and in Scottish history we already had more
than our fair share of things that need to be untaught just from the
general culture. It is very easy for all the unteaching of what
didn't happen to completely crowd out any positive teaching of what
did.
But if more movie goers didn't use movies as if they were reliable
sources of history...
Sharon
--
Sharon Krossa, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Resources for Scottish history, names, clothing, language & more:
Medieval Scotland - http://MedievalScotland.org/
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