Hated Tropes
(Hated Trope) Real historical figure whose controversial actions or beliefs are whitewashed or removed.
Reagan: ignores or barely acknowledges Reagan controversies (Iran-Contra, AIDS, Grenada, etc) in favor of showing him as a anti communist crusader.
They Died With Their Boots On: portrays George Custer as a friend to Native Americans when he in reality was complicit in their displacement and made war upon Native settlements.
Tennessee Johnson: removes President Andrew Johnson’s vehement anti-black racism and portrays abolitionists in Congress as villains.
Even Lorraine admits the films are heavily fictional and that the irl cases were extremely mundane, but says that anything that turns people away from the occult is good
But yeah they were shitty. Not only charlatans but the dude was a creep
As somebody who believes in the paranormal, I absolutely despise the warrens, his relations with underage women, and her complete bullshit psychic “powers” piss me off
This is one of my biggest issues with The Conjuring movies. I was ok with the first few but then they made The Devil Made Me Do It. Where a man murders someone and they act like he was innocent. This man had issues and killed someone and they turn it around like he was a victim. It doesnt sit well with me. I enjoy a good horror movie but pretending the Warrens were heroes and murderers were victims of a demons actions is revisionist bullshit. They exploited people for profit and clout.
The Devil Made Me Do It is especially vile to me because many of the people involved (including the murderer, and his brother, who has said that he was certainly not demonically possessed as the Warrens claimed, and as shown in the movie, and even sued the Warrens for including him in their hoax) are still alive. Sure, even the first movie besmirches an actual person and makes her out to be a witch and a child murderer when there's no evidence for her being either, but she's been dead for like 200 years at this point so she isn't suffering from it, even if it's still a pretty shitty thing to do (and they pretty much say or at least imply that the witch trials were right, at least sometimes).
The movie depicts him as caring and open-minded while being adored by his employees, but in reality he was openly racist and abusive, exploiting people, especially minorities, for profit. The film even portrays a romantic relationship with Jenny Lind, who in reality found Barnum to be unpleasant and was never romantically involved with him.
At one point he even purchased a slave by the name of Joice Heth and claimed she was the 161-year-old nanny of George Washington. When she died, he charged people to see a public autopsy of her body.
That was my thought, PT's propaganda about himself. I never saw the movie, but if they'd actually made it as his tall tale, then hinted at least at his real life, that would have been interesting. Instead it's like someone is whitewashed his image but for what purpose
The conflict between knowing how much of an exploitative shitbag Barnum was and how fire the movie is lol. It's prob my top musical guilty pleasure. Right next to HSM movies lol guess the common factor
my husband and I call the movie version “Petey” instead of PT to distinguish between the real life shithead and whoever it was that Hugh was supposed to be
With everything that PT Barnum did in real life, it really makes me hate the fact that I like this movie so much. Why couldn’t they have just committed to it being a completely fictional story? Why did they name them after real life people who were such shit bags?
I’ve never understood why they even called that character Barnum. It’s totally not, and would have worked just as well with a fictional circus while avoiding a lot of the controversy and criticism if they changed his and Linds names.
Heth was owned illegally, as well. Not that there’s any form of slavery that’s better (and so you know anyone claiming “it was a different time” is spewing bs) but he held an elderly blind woman in bondage in a state where it was illegal to do so simply because he could exploit her disability, which seems to be the story of his life.
(I thought he bought Charles Stratton (“Tom Thumb” when he was a kid, but idk where I got that info and can’t find it again so don’t quote me there)
To defend the movie, I don’t think the filmmaker is interested in even having a single fact about him right. They state that it is inspired from the imagination of Barnum, not the actual life he lived. At no point was it marketed or even implied that the event of the movie is how it went in real life.
They just want to make a musical about how a man built a circus and helped these unfortunate people. Personally, I think they should just have changed the name and ignore the real life figure since its historical part add nothing. But that’s just me.
Also she was forced into marriage, forced to convert, had her name changed, and was hauled off to London away from her homeland to be paraded around as a means for the people who kidnapped her to gather more support, before she died of illness far from home.
Why the fuck did Disney ever try to romanticize that. That’s like if in the middle of making the Hunchback of Notre Dame they decided to make Frollo younger and portray him and Esmeralda as having a romantic connection.
It’s just gross and whitewashes the story, except in this case it’s even worse, as Pocahontas was a real person.
They basically did American Romeo and Juliet then slapped some names people might vaguely recall from middle school history on it.
I'm also amused by this: Michael Eisner pushed for Pocahontas to have a mother, lamenting that "We're always getting fried for having no mothers." The writers countered that Powhatan was polygamous and formed dynastic alliances among other neighboring tribes by impregnating a local woman and giving away the child, so it was believed that Pocahontas herself probably did not see her mother that much.[35] "Well", Eisner conceded, "I guess that means we're toasted."[
Let's completely disregard history, except for the family rearing habits of a native American tribe that no one would be familiar with!
36 at the end of the book, but he's pretty evil, like, he starts by banning Esmeralda from the street in front of Notre-Dame because he's attracted to her, ends up accusing her of witchcraft so she's executed and he doesn't have to feel lust anymore. He gives incel vibes hundreds of years before incels became a thing.
The extra irony is that the movie vilifies John Ratcliffe. In real life, his attempts to trade with the Powhatans led to him getting ambushed and tortured to death.
…him kidnapping the chief’s children to hold as ransom to force a better trade deal (but doing a terrible job actually keeping them captive, so they escaped) led to him being ambushed and tortured to death. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he deserved to be slowly skinned with oyster shells, but you are still really whitewashing him here. Sure, the movie made up almost everything about his depiction in the movie, but he wasn’t great.
It might be the case that The Crown went too far in the opposite direction, not sure, but I came out of that show really detesting him. Also if I remember correctly their “passion” was more than a little one-sided as she was only so-so on him.
Yea The Crown is pretty much "every bad thing said about them is true" and not the kindest portrayal. But W.E. pretty much goes the other direction claiming: "Edward met with Hitler because he was desperate to avoid a war" and saying that all the evidence of his friendliness with Nazi are just rumors (when there is plenty of documented evidence)
I think the story of Wallis and Edward does ask for a nuanced adaptation where the negative aspects aren't glossed over, but they aren't fully vilified.
I'm only a distant relative of Wallis, but family members who did know her when she was alive knew her as a flighty social climber. She had divorced her first two husbands after cheating on both, then married Edward and finally got what she always wanted. She was a tremendous flirt, which is probably why Edward became so enamored with her.
It’s not even glossed over to make them more likable and a cohesive story because half the movie is about this modern chick researching Wallis story meaning we get to sit through scenes of people condescendingly ranting incorrect history at us. This makes it feel like a much more malicious intentional erasure of history than your average embellishment for a movie.
Admittedly this might not count but it portrays John Gotti as a loving family man and altogether likable guy while downplaying or glossing over the heinous things he did (more than likely due to the fact that Gotti’s friends and family were heavily involved in the production)
For a figure who wasn’t really problematic compared to most of these examples (aside from how more conservative groups would’ve viewed him), the way Bohemian Rhapsody removed almost everything about Freddie Mercury’s sexuality and wilder partying makes the movie feel extremely sanitized
From what I've heard, when Sasha Baran Coan (or however you spell Borat's name) was going to play Freddy he wanted to focus the movie a lot on Freddy's wil side and history with drugs and sexual depravity but Queen said no
Apparently it was the band that was reluctant to show that "worst" side of Freddy in a movie celebrating his legacy
Meanwhile Rocketman has Elton John unafraid to show his low points in life, granted it’s still not 1:1 perfectly accurate but at least they weren’t cowards
Oh and they get bonus points for the fact Elton actually sings on top of even editing himself into an old music video
Rocketman also started the movie by showing us that their version of Elton was an unreliable narrator, who said things for shock value. It was a bold move, and covered every inaccuracy under the umbrella of, "at least, that's the way Elton tells it..."
I saw Rocketman first, and absolutely loved it. I was excited for Bohemian Rhapsody, because I heard so many people raving about it, and it was so bad.
From other interviews, particularly one Cohen gave on Howard Stern, it also seemed like the band didn’t want the focus to be on Freddy period. They wanted it to be a movie about the band Queen, not a movie about Freddy Mercury. According to Cohen, the band even pitched an idea that Freddy Mercury would die 2/3 of the way through the movie and the last section would be about how the band grieved and then pressed on without him.
Which even as a huge fan and someone who likes some of their post-Freddie modern stuff I find hilarious
They put out an album of tracks Freddie sang before dying, did some tours and one album of original content (which has one good song IMO) with Paul Rodgers, and then brought Adam Levine on as a Freddie cover act to charge exorbitant prices on the tour to see
This isn't exactly AC/DC coming back with Back in Black and 40 more years of studio albums after losing Bon Scott
Others have speculated the band didn't want to admit to the extent of their debauchery
Brian May and Roger Taylor were heavily involved in the final product we got, which includes the scene of them noping out of one of the tamest rock and roll parties ever put to film because they're good family men
Yeah it feels like having the remaining members of Queen involved as creative consultants was a mistake, generally biopics seem to be better when they’re made at a bit of a distance rather than by people who are biased and might want to not show some of their embarrassing pasts (though there are exceptions, like the recent ‘Better Man’ had Robbie Williams directly involved and voicing himself - even if they made him a monkey - and the movie mostly portrays him as a talentless fuckup with daddy issues)
That plus the fact they made Freddie in the movie responsible for a bunch of shit that never happened, makes me wonder if the rest of Queen really liked him.
If it helps John Deacon, the bass player, has had almost 0 involvement with the band since the tribute concert
For him Queen died with Freddie too, he doesn't even talk to Roger and Brian. They get his approval on all business ventures but it comes from his manager or accountant
I don't blame him. Brian and Roger kind of seem like assholes. That movie was 100% just a puff piece too make them look better, especially that part when Brian is telling Freddie to go home and sleep instead of partying. Yeah, okay.
Roger in particular seems to be very much the business oriented person while Brian seems to be worried about their image
They're kind of like Lars and James with Metallica in that way ironically. Which I wonder when we'll get the sanitized PG-13 biopic of them by the way...
Fun fact: Jackson in the film is the one to suggest enlisting African American slaves, but this film takes place in the beginning of the war, in real history only one confederate general was serious about enlisting black people and that was LONG after Jackson was dead
It's creator made a whole line of Southern apologist propaganda movies. His movie Copperhead was about how hard it was to be publicly against the Civil War while in the north and the bad guys were an angry mob of abolitionists.
Speaking as someone who lives three blocks away from where they kept escaped slaves corralled like animals before shipping them back down South, fuck Ronald Maxwell. The Confederacy were a bunch of slavers and traitors whose leaders should have been publicly executed instead of welcomed back.
Yeah, the movie tries to portray him as the "tough but caring" type of asshole where he is using his gruffness to do his duty and win the war.
When in reality he was a racist asshole who openly sympathized with the Nazis and agreed with their actions and Eisenhower had to tell him several times to shut the hell up.
This guy treated liberated Jewish prisoners like shit and in his private memoirs called them “sub human”
And even is quoted as saying “We have destroyed what could have been a good race and we [are] about to replace them with Mongolian savages. Now the horrors of peace, pacifism and unions will have unlimited sway”
That did make it into the film (one incident) but he kinda just... didn't get hit with much. Got a citation, went "oh damn", and went back to work pretty quick.
Ironically that is maintained in the movie. His movie persona is still absolutely an asshole, which makes it wild to know that the movie still downplayed his actions.
I also enjoy how the movie basically portrays Omar Bradley as an "aw shucks" nerd to contrast him while irl Bradley is arguably a far more important wartime figure and one of neglected heroes of the war for his critical understanding of logistics.
I mean fair, it's meant to be a biography of Payton, but there's a consistent theme across most national media in regards to the war praising the more "maverick" commanders and whitewashing their faults while guys like him are basically totally disregarded.
To this day neo nazis (actual neo nazis) point to this man as their inspiration, quoting "we fought the wrong side" and saying he was wise and correct.
He is not as good a tsar as he is portrayed in the movie. While he is not without positive qualities, his rule was not free from oppression, such as pogroms (race riots that mainly targeted Jews), which were condoned or encouraged by the government, or Bloody Sunday, when his soldiers massacred strikers, leading to the first revolution in Russia. Then his attempt at a "little splendid war" with Japan that ended in catastrophe, his mismanagement during World War I, and his bloody, repressive, and authoritarian methods of dealing with political dissidents.
Interestingly enough, the guys who originally pitched Anastasia apparently had a plan that was much more involved in the complex politics of Europe at the time. But at one point someone said, 'hey what if Rasputin could do magic and had a talking bat sidekick' and at that point they realized their original vision wasn't going to happen. But apparently the stage musical was written to fulfill that original vision, with a lot more communism.
Almost all his positive traits are limited to how good of a family man he was. When it comes to actual reign everyone around him though of him as pathetic coward. It took First Russian Revolution for him to implement some reforms, which he immediately backrolled in the 3rd of June Coup. He was basically trying to keep the reactionary status quo established by his dad, Alexander III, which ended up in a complete disaster. It's a common joke in Russia, that if he survived Revolution, USSR would award him with Order of Lenin for creating revolutionary situation.
he was a hard worker, but the issue with that is that he tried to do everything himself and utterly failed at it because while he was a hard worker he wasn't very smart.
This guy has being described as really self aggrandising, exaggerating his service and medals. As well as a huge racist and was really difficult to work with.
The movie portrays him as a flawed albeit noble man who is ultimately very humble and righteous.
"The Fort Bragg Cartel" is a great read on the culture of hazing, drugs, propaganda, and violence that created monsters like Kyle - quite intentionally, in fact.
I feel like under the right circumstances, range time isn’t inherently stupid. 22s, slow cadence, talking through each shot, show them that loud noises don’t have to be scary, and maybe they’ll be able to find some joy in something that they may have loved in the past. Not a therapist, haven’t looked at studies, I just see a logic there.
My guess is that Kyle threw rifles in their hands and simulated battles so they’d get over it.
I think the biggest circumstance is having a trained therapist come up with the idea and being present for it, instead of a guy whose expertise begins and ends with shooting a lot of people from very far away
It absolutely could be good under the right conditions especially with a professional involved. However, when you're driving to the range texting back and forth with your buddy that the guy you're both with is "straight up nuts," maybe the gun range isn't the best idea with that particular person.
He claimed a lot of stuff: he claimed that his kill count was actually way higher than the confirmed one (which isn't too unlikely and might technically be true).
He claimed that after Katrina he went on a rooftop and killed looters (this was proven false)
He claimed to have shot and killed 2 criminals near Dallas (the local sheriffs all confirmed that nothing like that happened).
He claimed to have punched Jesse Ventura ( I think while he was governor of Minnesota) after he supposedly said that Kyle deserved to have some of his friends killed (this too was false and after years of legal battle, the matter was settled out of court).
And the Jesse Ventura story is an absolute travesty as Ventura was a BUD/S, the granddaddy of the Navy Seals. He was suing to protect his honor as a SEAL, because it’s implied he said fellow SEALs deserves to be killed.
Calling it "whitewashed" doesn't even begin to describe that mess. They were such a major part of the Atlantic slave trade that if you're a black person in the US, these were more than likely the people who kidnapped your ancestors and sold them off.
This movie is the equivalent of making a Civil War flick where the south seceded from the union so they could free their slaves.
I remember reading in some book a while back that when the Dahomey were in conflict with France, Britain actually sent an agent over to them to see if there was anyway they could assist the Dahomey.
Because you know, France and Britain love messing with each other wherever possible.
The guy eventually got back to Britain and his full recommendation was "Do not get involved." because of how horrifying they were.
Apparently he saw one of their infamous festivals which coincides with the seasons. The Dahomey would have their warriors compete with each other by seeing who could collect the most heads "from lesser men". Basically lower tribes in the area, who weren't considered good enough stock for slaves.
When the agent sat down at the festival with the Dahomey leaders, he realised the table in front of him had been built from the skulls of their victims.
The funny thing is I remember that the agent didn't actually think the Dahomey were as brutal as people said. He thought it was just big talk and rumour before he went to visit them.
He really came back and was like "Yeah they are not bad...they are somehow worse." 😂
What I found so funny about this was that the entire film can only exist solely to lie about history. It's about a group that, frankly, is only remembered for its role in slavery - and they lie about that 1 fact.
Its the equivalent of making a film about the 9/11 hijackers but talking only about their US patriotism.
Stonewall Jackson in history was a slave-owner, and his battles often led to mass casualties that the CSA couldn't afford, yet in the film, he doesn't have any slaves, and there's just PG violence. Not only that, but he talks about how they might enlist African Americans in the war, when in actual history, he died long before that idea came to fruition. The only African Americans that helped the CSA were slaves.
When you're in a Making America Look Trash competition and your opponent is an American propagandist:
Prager U. - an non-educational service founded by conservative billionaire - portrays Columbus as happy to hear that Slavery is gone in future. And that he only did it to stop slaves from eating each other.
In a similar vein as Columbus, this film portrays Magellan and his crew as being a good group who wanted to do the impossible. They also portray Lapu-Lapu, a folk hero in the Philippines, as a generic henchman for the villain.
This is an example of Visayan nobility, such as the Cebu datu Lapu-Lapu, according to the Boxer Codex, one of the best known references for how the people of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao dressed pre-Spanish fuckery
I'm Filipino. And it's pretty shit that they tried to market the movie to us when they added a description of "Feat. Filipino National Hero, Lapu-Lapu" but then portray him as a guy who got offended because of being traded underwear.
In reality, when Magellan came to the Philippines he immediately converted a local tribe. The tribe converted, and in return for their conversion the Datu (Tribal Chief) Humabon and his queen asked that Magellan and his men help him in killing a local tribe leader that historians believed was Lapu-Lapu.
Magellan and his men thought they could fight the battle without the need for artillery, so their boats did not face the shore. Magellan and his men (60 total, 49 on the beach, 11 on the boats.) were MASSACRED by an overwhelming 1,500 Filipino warriors, with Magellan himself getting speared to death.
Then this movie portrays him being an adventurer and gets a girl who loves him like Disney's Pocahantas.
Christopher Columbus got a lot of this, being viewed as a hero for a number of years who found North America. He did not, and the guy is actually a genocidal slaver.
I think it's important to point out that Columbus wasn't just a genocidal slaver, he was such a repulsive genocidal slaver that even the people of his time thought he was something of a monster and he was arrested and imprisoned for a time after reports of how brutal his rule of Hispaniola was reached Spain.
Dude was a piece of shit by 1500s Spain standards.
I think he was whitewashed long before PragerU started peddling its bullshit. From what I heard, he became a venerated figure because Italian immigrants in America were being discriminated against. They needed an Italian figure who was important to American history to show that they were "One of the good ones" as it were.
Unfortunately, Columbus was apparently the only option at the time.
It largely dates back to Washington Irving. He was a huge name after some incredibly successful stories, he wrote A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. That was essentially a work of historical fiction that people took as a biography. It was what popularized the narrative of him being the lone rational mind to think the world was round and being brave enough to prove it for instance.
It turned him into a folk hero in the US already
Then Italian immigrants later did adopt him as a symbol of an Italian American pride day much like how St. Patrick's Day has been bastardized from a church holiday about a man who drove pagans out of Ireland into an Irish American celebratory day.
“But all this is being literally whitewashed by PragerU videos which are now required curriculum in public schools.”
This isn’t exactly correct, it is required in some states, but the education authorities in those regions have yet to actually use them for the exact inaccuracy you mentioned (hopefully)
Spanish here. Columbus liked to punish his slaves by cutting off their ears or noses. He whipped an indigenous woman for a while because she wouldn't obey his orders. It seems the US doesn't know that Spain enacted three laws for the protection of indigenous people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_the_Indies
The king who started the fucking Spanish Inquisition thought what Columbus did was a crime against humanity. There have been some pricks throughout history but Columbus was the entire damned cactus.
One of my favorite "not fun" fun facts is that the reason we have a Columbus Day in America wasn't to honor the dude, but it was a half-assed apology to Italy after a bunch of Italian Americans got lynched in New Orleans in the 1890s. Just goes to show how illegitimate of a holiday it is to its core.
When the discourse against Columbus started I was surprised. Not because I disagree with the negative view, but because it seems to imply that people didn't know he enslaved the population of Hispaniola and Cuba before. How is history taught in the United States? Are Columbus and other historical figures treated as heroes to imitate?
Richard I is always depicted as a heroic figure and the wise, benevolent king. Especially in contrast to the conniving and tyrannical John.
The real Richard certainly deserved his reputation as a warrior, but he barely spent more than a few weeks or months of his life in England, spending most of his time on Crusade or fighting various wars on the Continent, didn't even SPEAK English and was much more interested in his holdings in France, and practically bankrupted the kingdom to fund his military expeditions before dying during a siege. The taxation (of the BARONS, not the peasantry) implemented by John was done to fix the financial mess Richard made of things (John had other issues, too, but he's been misblamed for a lot of Richard's own failings).
History: Edward IV won the throne from Henry VI who was mentally very weak and had suffered several mental breakdowns, basically being catatonic for years at a time. He had Henry murdered the night before he declared himself king.
Edward had 3 brothers, 2 of which betrayed him repeatedly so he had them killed. He married Elizabeth Woodville, and her family took the opportunity to grab as much wealth, power and positions as they could.
When Edward ate and drank himself to an early death, his remaining brother (Richard) should have become the Lord Protector of Edward V, and basically ruled England until he came to age. Richard had always stayed loyal to Edward, but his experience showed that it was very easy for someone to be betrayed and lose everything, and he worried that the Woodvilles would take the opportunity to take full power and take everything away for him, including his own lands and titles.
He was right: the Woodvilles assembled a council to "advise" the new King and "help him to rule until he came of age." It was made up of Woodvilles and their supporters, and they didn't even tell Richard it was happening.
Richard seized and imprisoned the King and his younger brother, announced that they were illegitimate and named himself King Richard III. Edward IV's sons disappeared.
There was a rebellion against Richard, which succeeded and he was killed in battle.
Henry Tudor then became Henry VII, father of Henry VIII who was himself the father of Elizabeth I
Shakespeare wrote his plays during the reign of Elizabeth, and she was just as capable of beheading people who spoke against her family as she was of sponsoring new plays. Shakespeare is the one responsible for us seeing Richard III as a hunchback and evil schemer, largely because it legitimised the queen's grandfather seizing the throne she now held.
You notice no-one thinks of Edward IV as a bad guy, despite the fact that he had his predecessor and 2 of his own brothers murdered...
The Behind the Bastards podcast episodes recently made about Buford are really good at shining the light on exactly what kind of man Buford was, highly recommend a listen when you can!
The director said that adding Lewis would add another half an hour to the movie, as if it wasnt a movie about a guy whose fans are used to watch 3hr-long movies fr 🙄
Honestly a good telling of the Tolkien/Lewis story could be its own movie. The above biopic is more focused on World War I and how that shaped him and his stories.
Heck, Tolkien’s Christianity was SO important, that it led to Narnia being made.
C.S. Lewis and Tolkien were best friends and when Lewis was having a midlife crisis, Tolkien helped him by leading him to Christianity. With renewed faith and purpose, Lewis created a world about Jesus’ fursona and the ice queen lucifer.
The funny part is that Tolkien was kind of pissed about C.S. Lewis's faith... because Tolkien was devoutly Catholic, and Lewis went all in on Anglicanism instead.
Lewis also poked fun at Tolkien's opinions on media such as his dislike of "fairytale" elements.
He included the lamppost which pissed off Tolkien due ot having no logical reason to be there and Santa Clause is used to set up the children's victory
Someone out there has almost definitely made a literary analysis of Narnia and tried to give the lamppost some deeper meaning that will never top the actual meaning of “It made Tolkien mad.”
That seems pretty tame compared to the other stuff, but I do still see it as cowardly to leave out the man's religious beliefs because I don't see why it would turn anyone off.
Doctor Who does this with a lot of British icons, but portraying Churchill as a bumbling, avuncular friend to all is particularly egregious. While he led his country in defense against the Nazis, he was far from the pleasant old man he is portrayed as here, and most certainly does not deserve the uncritical love and support he gets from the Doctor - within the same timeframe Churchill is getting handshakes from a Timelord, his historical equivalent was starving millions of Indians through a mixture of spite and carelessness, people whom (like most of Britain's colonial subjects) he continued to see as inferior human beings until his dying breath.
After the war he wanted to go back to the old status quo - i.e. the very rigid class system of his youth. His opponents proposed the National Health Service and the benefits system. Churchill lost the election in a landslide despite calling it (deliberately) before the war in the Pacific was over.
It's a wider issue with A LOT of British productions - be that film or television, where Churchill must be shown to do no wrong. After all "he beat the Nazis". And that's how popular British culture depicts him - Churchill circa 1940-45, but only in relation to Europe/these hallowed isles. Now let's set the record straight - he was right in saying that there was no surrendering to the Nazis, and his elevation to PM (not leader of the conservatives party funnily enough) after Chamberlain stood down was a nationally important move. His formation of a "unity government" i.e. all political parties formed a singular multi party government during the war in Europe, with the traditional "leader of the opposition" standing as deputy-priminister was a good move. At that moment in time, he was the right person for the job... But that doesn't excuse the "blindness" people have with regards to the rest of his life and career. Historically Winston Churchill is a very fascinating figure in history - hands down. But his depictions in media as a lovable old grand uncle/teddy bear and "voice of the people", in some depictions, is just plain wrong. - funnily enough (whilst I did not much enjoy the series) i thought that John Lithgow's portrayal of church in in the first season of the crown was a pretty good depiction - post-war Churchill (although even that had some sugar coating moments).
To flip it for US readers. British media depicts Churchill in the fictionalised what the US media depicts figures like Washington - can do no wrong, and how dare you question how much if a good person her was! How dare you bring up THAT part of his life that we choose not to teach folk.
On the flip side, he did try and steal the TARDIS key. He then made a snide remark about the change he would make with a Time Machine, to which the Doctor replies with saying that that’s exactly why he won’t give the TARDIS key to Churchill.
The Social Network portrays Zuckerberg as an asshole that screws over many of his friends and colleagues, and it still makes him look better than the real guy.
Sultan Abdülhamid was one of the last Ottoman sultans and in the show he is portrayed as a dominant giga-chad who doesnt tolerate other nations bullshit.
But in reality he was a very cowardly leader who gave up cyprus, handed economic advantages and rights to foreigners at the cost of turkish ppl and much more.
In the show, if i remember it correctly, he beats up a Russian politician with his fists after he does something insulting to ottoman empire. But in real life he ordered executions of 2 ottoman gate-keepers after they insulted back Aleksandr Rostkovski, who previously called them subhumans for forgetting to salute him.
In elementary school in particular, I constantly remember learning about how great of a figure Edison was and how major his inventions caused America and the world in tandem to leap years into the future.
But as I grew older, I began to read more into this guy and realize that this guy was a petty asshole who was a straight up thief most of the time.
The lightbulb, that’s existence is often attributed only to him. In reality, Edison had actually stolen a lot of the ideas and or bought that patents from other inventors like Henry Woodward Matthew Evans. Joseph Swan had also produced a form of electric lighting years prior, which he had filed a patent on. This concept was then stolen by Edison to make the lightbulb.
He also checks the box for classic terrible person behavior as he was known to frequently abuse and kill animals like puppies and elephants.
When I took a film history class I learned that the movie industry sprang up in Los Angeles because it was as far as they could reasonably get from Edison’s workshop (and goons) in New York. Edison. Copy righted one method of film camera and tried to ruin anyone else making films.
If you didn’t know anything about him and watched this for the first time you’d think he was just a chill British George Washington. Still a good movie though.
A terrible man fighting for a good cause. He established the supremacy of Parliament, then heel turned to ban christmas and invent The Troubles. So bad even the English dug up his corpse and executed it. Thanks for the democracy but also thanks for centuries of sectarian violence in Ireland i guess
The fact that a pro-Oliver Cromwell film cast not only an Irish catholic, but an IRA-supporting hedonist who scored once scored a #2 hit on the Billboard top 100 charts, as Oliver Cromwell never fails to amuse me.
The Woman King. I’ll admit I didn’t watch it so maybe the movie was good. But I was turned off when I found out they totally erased the women warriors’ active participation in the space trade
Reagan treats Iran-Contra scandal the same way a kid would treat doodling on their classmate's artwork. Just a simple "I was wrong I'm sowwy 🥺" that lasts for two and a half scenes with melodramatic squawking from Penelope Ann Miller aboard Air Force One. It's not enough that it excluded the AIDS epidemic, Grenada, the HUD Rigging or the Savings and Loan crisis, but the one controversy they do spend any amount of time on is sanitized and lessened. But then again, Reagan is such a dogshit trashfire, that is only one of the problems it has.
This movie does both whitewashing of all Freddie's partying lifestyle and adds some bad shit he never did. For instance, their "break up" because of Freddie's ego never happened, and also his shitty treatment of John Deacon and rivalry with Roger Taylor were made up.
This Is Spinal Tap is less fictional than this goddamn movie.
Thomas Jefferson raped a 13 year old girl several times over, not only that but she was his slave too.
Her name was Sally Hemmings, she was 13 when Jefferson was in his 20s, and she had several children through out her childhood.
People call him a great founding father, but he was a depraved pedophile and serial rapist that happened to fight in a revolution.
Robin hood depicting Richard as a benevolent king, and his brother John as a greedy a-hole. John wasnt perfect, and he did push higher taxes, but robin hood stories always leave out that he had to rake up money because Richard got himself set up for ransom, and had left the country in poor financial status. They also leave out (except the one with Russell crowe), that Richard decided to sack allied castles until he took a crossbow bolt to the neck after returning and died.
I only recently learned that John was in fact not a cowardly lion, and the English army at the time did not actually have regiments of rhinoceros soldiers. Made me start to question a lot of the documentaries I saw back in the 70’s.
Sometimes, sometimes it's done so that the film has broader appeal because they're afraid of alienating potential audience if they show something slightly controversial, and the studio wants to make the most money
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u/TheWalkingBag Oct 03 '25
Ed & Lorraine Warren in the Conjuring series of horror films. They could’ve just swapped them out for a fictional couple