British Historians Attack Hollywood Distortions...

British Historians Attack Hollywood Distortions... British historians attack Hollywood 'distortions'

LONDON (Reuters) - Hollywood film studios are guilty of a "grotesque distortion of history" which is destroying Britain's national identity, a newspaper Sunday quoted British historians as saying.

The chief executive of English Heritage, the government body responsible for the historic environment, told the Independent Sunday film-makers' "sloppy" and "formulaic" approach to history had left a generation of children confused.

"One of my principal concerns is that the majority of children now leave school with the sketchiest of chronology about English history," Simon Thurley said, adding that they turned to films for knowledge.

Antony Beevor, Britain's best-selling author of popular history, told the newspaper the Americanization of British history was a particular problem.

"You can't turn every hero in the world into an American," he said.

The historians singled out "Saving Private Ryan," based on the Normandy World War Two landings, "U-571" about submariners, and "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" as prime offenders.

In "Saving Private Ryan" all mention of British or Allied troops was omitted, while the British submariners at the heart of the real action were replaced by Americans in the film "U-571." "Robin Hood" was accused of distorting Britain's medieval past.

Beevor described the trend as "shameless and totally irresponsible -- a grotesque distortion of history."

Classical historian Bettany Hughes said it was not just British history that had been misrepresented.

"Hollywood has committed some terrible crimes against history," she said, describing the current Hollywood epic "Troy" as a "travesty of mismatched cultural references."

"Dead heroes in Greco-Roman dress were cremated with coins on their eyes -- before money had been invented," she said.

Reuters/VNU


08/02/04 01:56 ET

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I'm glad these people are there to let the world know that Hollywood is full o' shit. Some people actually take Hollywood's nonsense as being the gospel truth, and although they're probably too stupid for their opinions to even matter, they do represent a staggeringly large body of people.

galfordo said:

I'm glad these people are there to let the world know that Hollywood is full o' shit. Some people actually take Hollywood's nonsense as being the gospel truth, and although they're probably too stupid for their opinions to even matter, they do represent a staggeringly large body of people.

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You sound like someone who got burned. Bad 8th grade civics test score?

I can't understand people's shock at discovering fiction in movies. It's kind of the point. Next, we're going to have people telling us the ghostly light that eminates from the Ark of the Covenant is supposed to be red, not blue. There's a reason they have a seperate category for documentaries at the Oscars, and why it takes up such a small portion of the show. Make believe.

galfordo said:

I'm glad these people are there to let the world know that Hollywood is full o' shit. Some people actually take Hollywood's nonsense as being the gospel truth, and although they're probably too stupid for their opinions to even matter, they do represent a staggeringly large body of people.

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True dat. However, this is a growing epidemic indeed. Most people today won't dig into anything, and even for a movie like the remake of The Manchurian Canidate people were upset because the movie didn't spoon feed them.



It's good to know there are still some people "in the know" indeed. *This was the one of the reasons I flatly refused to see U571 when it came out, and only later saw it when my Dad rented it. I was like: "You know the Brits did this not the Yanks right Dad?" He just wanted to watch the film, but I'm all for accuracy myself, then right at the end of that film in the credits you'll see mention of HMS such and such {as in "Her Majesty's Ship", something we don't label our vessals as} but what can you do. Hollywood generally fucks up anything it touches.

MERCENARY X99

Well not many countries have an official "advertising" agency whose only job is to promote patriotism (no, the US government does not call it propaganda... it would make it sound too... bad).

That agency is responsible for the commercials we saw after 9/11 ("I am American") and it was also lobbying Hollywood into making another Rambo (although this one did not go through) or making films promoting US patriotism and pride.

SouthtownKid said:

You sound like someone who got burned. Bad 8th grade civics test score?

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Huh? Care to translate that into an argument that makes sense?

SouthtownKid said:

I can't understand people's shock at discovering fiction in movies. It's kind of the point. Next, we're going to have people telling us the ghostly light that eminates from the Ark of the Covenant is supposed to be red, not blue. There's a reason they have a seperate category for documentaries at the Oscars, and why it takes up such a small portion of the show. Make believe.

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The extent that Hollywood goes to distort historical events is not always obvious to everyone. Hollywood should be criticized for their constant barrage of bullshit, and I'm glad that some out there are willing to do it.

Another element that fucks up historically significant movies: LOVE AND ROMANCE.

Look at Titanic and Pearl Harbor. They're supposed to focus on the events that led to the historic occurence. Not intermittent vague sex scenes.

Are they afraid of turning off female viewers if they were to do what I just mentioned?

Youkai said:

Another element that fucks up historically significant movies: LOVE AND ROMANCE.

Look at Titanic and Pearl Harbor. They're supposed to focus on the events that led to the historic occurence. Not intermittent vague sex scenes.

Are they afraid of turning off female viewers if they were to do what I just mentioned?

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If adding Billy Zane to a movie is wrong, I dont want to be right.

galfordo said:

The extent that Hollywood goes to distort historical events is not always obvious to everyone. Hollywood should be criticized for their constant barrage of bullshit, and I'm glad that some out there are willing to do it.

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It's like the violence in video games argument. if you are raising children dumb enough to believe what they see in movies as fact, there's really nothing to say. They won't know their history, then they'll stab a girl in the neck with a box cutter, and go lie down in traffic like in the movie 'the Program'. Not much you can do for them. Let them go.

A filmaker's primary responsibility is to the film. Not that I think that most of the changes mentioned in the article are for the sake of good filmaking mind you, but the problem that needs to be addressed is the perception of film as history, not the films themselves.
Its natural for historians to get pissed off about historical inaccuracy just as some of the board members might have a problem if in a scene people were playing street fighter and saying "Oooh!Look out for his knife attack!". It's irritating as fuck to those who know better, but unimportant because in this fictional world, Ryu can use knives if he wants. In this fictional world, Moses was a WASP.

History is written by the winners.

SouthtownKid said:

It's like the violence in video games argument. if you are raising children dumb enough to believe what they see in movies as fact, there's really nothing to say. They won't know their history, then they'll stab a girl in the neck with a box cutter, and go lie down in traffic like in the movie 'the Program'. Not much you can do for them. Let them go.

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I'm inclined to agree, from a philosophical standpoint, but in reality it's just not simple. These dumb kids aren't so well-behaved that they stick to wreaking havoc upon their own kind. The girl that gets "stabbed in the neck with a box cutter" won't necessarily be one of these dumb kids that needs to go anyway. So what do you do? Censorship? Nah, I'm not for that either. Shit, I don't know, the world is a mess.

I'm not that fussed honestly being English, I like a decent (or crap) movie any day, no matter the "history" behind it.

I'm more irked about how America thinks it won the war, or had anything to do with it apart from a lot of casualties.

Baseley09 said:

I'm more irked about how America thinks it won the war, or had anything to do with it apart from a lot of casualties.

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So all America did was go on the battefield and die, huh? Thanks for the refresher course, I had forgotten about that part ....

Like it or not, our country was instrumental in helping to win the war. We didn't win it by ourselves, that's for certain, but we did our fair share.

Isn't it just the nature of man to think he or she is the center of the universe?
And therefore, it just kinda naturally goes along when someone thinks of their nation as being at the center of history.

Anyone who takes a movie as the gospel of history isn't worth talking to anyway.

This is what happens when people are too lazy to research things for themsevles.
It's one thing to know the history behind something and then see a movie which twists information to romanticize of give glory to a particular person or persons.
But most people(especially under say 30),don't know anything about any subject under the sun that they haven't seen on a screen.(Television,computer or movie).
For instance,I read the Iliad before seeing Troy to get the "real" facts before seeing the movie version.
But very few people will do this,the only version of Troy they will ever get is the movie,and they will think that is the way it all happened.

SamuraiShogun said:

This is what happens when people are too lazy to research things for themsevles.
It's one thing to know the history behind something and then see a movie which twists information to romanticize of give glory to a particular person or persons.
But most people(especially under say 30),don't know anything about any subject under the sun that they haven't seen on a screen.(Television,computer or movie).
For instance,I read the Iliad before seeing Troy to get the "real" facts before seeing the movie version.
But very few people will do this,the only version of Troy they will ever get is the movie,and they will think that is the way it all happened.

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I guess you put "real" in quotes, so it's not too bad, but the Iliad wasn't exactly "facts" either. It was fiction, itself. How can you get facts on a fictional story? Scholars don't even all agree what time period the story actually took place in, the location of the city, or even that any of it happened in the first place.

As for distorting Britain's medieval past, how about every King Arthur movie ever made, by us or by them? I guess blaming everyone else for their problems is another thing they picked up from us.

SouthtownKid said:

I guess you put "real" in quotes, so it's not too bad, but the Iliad wasn't exactly "facts" either. It was fiction, itself. How can you get facts on a fictional story? Scholars don't even all agree what time period the story actually took place in, the location of the city, or even that any of it happened in the first place.

As for distorting Britain's medieval past, how about every King Arthur movie ever made, by us or by them? I guess blaming everyone else for their problems is another thing they picked up from us.

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What was meant by "real" was authentic or original.
The Iliad is the only source of information we had on that particular story,so I have to label it "historic".Not necessarliy everything in there is absoulte truth.But when you distort the only source you have,that's when I believ there is a problem.
And the recent King Arthur movie is another great point,we don't know the facts,so a movie about him is not in itself a bad idea,but when people believe only a media-driven version and don't bother to investigate further,that's when ignorance sets in and history gets distorted,or the facts forgotten.