# "Bad history! BAD!!!": Historically inaccurate movies and TV shows **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 17, 2009, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013 "2009-06-17T01:17:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/21 "2009-06-17T12:56:04Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Same with HBO’s ROME, a show I generally liked a lot until the second season went way too far afield. They took out Octavius’s first two wives… whah? One of them, no problem- she had no children, it didn’t really change history that much, but the other one gave birth to his only child, Julia, from whose line came Caligula and Nero. They took away Livia’s second child (Germanicus) from whom came Claudius (and also Caligula and Nero). And then- not historically inaccurate since the character’s fictional- there’s the kid who’s a baby when Caesar crosses the Rubicon (49 BCE) and when the series ends a year after Antony’s death (29 BC) the same kid is about 8. While they took lots of liberties with the timelines and relationships in “Rome,” I was fine with it. There’s only so much information you can pack into 22 episodes, you realize. The point of the series was to give you the feel of what Rome and Romans were like in and around the fall of the Republic, and they succeeded in a thousand different ways. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/22 "2009-06-17T13:27:00Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Speaking, Cate Blanchett’s _Elizabeth_ movies: did they manage to get anything _right_? My vote for possibly the worst big budget interpretation of a historical figure ever. This was the one I came in to mention. The first of these movies sent me into hissies when I saw it at the theater, and my poor friend whom I saw it with was afterwards subjected to a half-or-so rant about everything they got wrong (she said later it was like watching a Civil War movie with her father). The things that irritated me most were Elizabeth’s supposed ignorance of Robert Dudley’s being married, the conflation of two of Catherine deMedici’s sons–the cross-dresser Elizabeth never set eyes on, and the younger son she considered marrying much later on, when she was about 40 and he was about 22–and most of all, the deliberate decision on Elizabeth’s part to play the Blessed Virgin to her Protestant subjects who were craving something to replace their formerly Catholic mariolatry. I thought that that heavy white makeup was meant to cover the scars from her bout of smallpox, but this film would have it otherwise. It’s like she woke up one morning and decided to become a kubuki artist! > [@Sampiro](#): > > And of course _The Tudors_… HOW THE HELL DO YOU BLEND MARGARET AND MARY TUDOR INTO ONE AND THEN KILL HER OFF BEFORE SHE’S WHELPED!!! Is this like a STAR TREK reimagining alternate timeline? Without Margaret there’s no Mary Queen of Scots, no James V of Scotland, and no monarch of England since 1603. More than all the wild historical departures in the Tudors, the thing that bugs me most is that all the actors look far too modern. I am especially irritated by that friend of Henry’s who has the exact same stubbly-shaved head hairstyle and unshaven jaw look sported by Jack on _Lost_. Fashionable today, but not in the 16th century. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/23 "2009-06-17T13:28:31Z")
Any movie ever made about the Alamo. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/24 "2009-06-17T13:28:56Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > Speaking to that… > > There’s a scene in the second Blanchett _Elizabeth_ film showing the queen actually _watching_ the Spanish Armada going down in flames, just off the English coast. I’m guessing that that’s not historically accurate. It was just a little too cinematic. > > But what do I know. Where was Elizabeth during the Armada’s attack? She was the Sarah Palin of her times. _Deadwood_ is an interesting example of getting the feel right through inaccuracies. After the bajillionth reference to “blowjob” on the show, my wife and i looked up the word’s [origin](http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/407/). It appears to date to the 1930s. In further research, we learned that the most offensive language you could use at the time were words that scarcely merit a raise eyebrow now, e.g., “goddamn.” Historical accuracy would have required the characters to be “goddamning” this and “helling” that. But to modern ears, that wouldn’t have conveyed the sheer obscenity of their language: it would’ve sounded fairly mild, just one step below respectable language. By having the characters spew out a stream of modern profanity, the show gives modern viewers a sense of just how far beyond the realm of respectable society these characters were. My vote hardly qualifies, but what the hell. I wasn’t expecting historical accuracy from **300** , just a kind of goofy riff on a cool idea (300 soldiers defending a narrow pass from a much larger army). The giants, the grenade launchers, and all the other goofiness didn’t bother me. But **they left the pass!** That’s the one awesome thing about that battle, that they used the landscape to such an incredible degree. Throw some chainsaw-juggling unicorns into the mix, I don’t care, but don’t have the soldiers abandon the pass! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/25 "2009-06-17T13:37:00Z")
> [@](#): > > My vote hardly qualifies, but what the hell. I wasn’t expecting historical accuracy from 300, just a kind of goofy riff on a cool idea (300 soldiers defending a narrow pass from a much larger army). The giants, the grenade launchers, and all the other goofiness didn’t bother me. But they left the pass! That’s the one awesome thing about that battle, that they used the landscape to such an incredible degree. Throw some chainsaw-juggling unicorns into the mix, I don’t care, but don’t have the soldiers abandon the pass! I admit that I do love **300** for its unbrridled, overblown absurdity. (“That’s not a hunchback – _THAT’S_ a hunchback!”) But I have to admit that one thing that bothered me was their claiming that Ephialtes couldn’t join because they couldn’t compromise the integrity of the Spartan linked-shields line. _Then they spend most of the movie ignoring that feature_, and ight twirling like ballerinas. Gross historical inaccuracy doesn’y bother me as much as gross inconsistency, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/26 "2009-06-17T14:45:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > _Deadwood_ is an interesting example of getting the feel right through inaccuracies. After the bajillionth reference to “blowjob” on the show, my wife and i looked up the word’s [origin](http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/407/). It appears to date to the 1930s. In further research, we learned that the most offensive language you could use at the time were words that scarcely merit a raise eyebrow now, e.g., “goddamn.” Good point. I found it surprising that _fuck_ was not in reality used in the same way we use it now. > [@](#): > > In fact when you look up the word in Jonathan Lighter’s magisterial Dictionary of American Slang, you discover that the all-purpose insult “fuck you” was a turn-of-the twentieth-century creation, and “go fuck yourself” isn’t attested until 1920. “Fucked up” and “Don’t fuck with me” didn’t show up till around the time of the Second World War. And while people may have been emphasizing nouns with “fucking” from the 1890’s, it wasn’t until well into the century that you heard things things like “She fucking well better tell me” or “Get the fuck out of here,” both “Deadwood” favorites. > > The same holds for most of the other obscene words that you hear on “Deadwood.” Back in the 19th century, people used “asshole” to refer to a bodily orifice and “cocksucker” to refer to someone who performs fellatio. But it was only in the 1920’s that anybody thought to use them for a despicable person. And it was around the same time that the new word “motherfucker” was coined with roughly the same meaning. [Link](http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/deadwood.html) ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/27 "2009-06-17T15:05:30Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > My advice is not to learn history from movies, as I can’t think of a single one that even tries to be historically accurate, especially when it comes to ancient and medieval history. Indeed. Perhaps the most frustrating example is _Inherit the Wind_, which many people still think is an accurate reflection of the Scopes Monkey Trial. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/28 "2009-06-17T15:14:48Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Good point. I found it surprising that _fuck_ was not in reality used in the same way we use it now. > > [Link](http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/deadwood.html) Cool link, thanks! In **The Stuff of Thought** , Steven Pinker theorizes that “fuck” replaced “damn” in a lot of expressions as a verb, and “fucking” replaced “damn” as an adjective: thus “fuck you” isn’t really supposed to be a positive thing, since it replaces “damn you,” and “fucking stupid” has nothing to do with sex either, as it replaces “damned stupid.” ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/29 "2009-06-17T15:14:58Z")
The shootout OK Corral was very, very brief. According to wikipedia [30 shots were fired in 30 seconds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ok_Corral). BUt you just can’t have an old west shootout without a little running around and rustlers dying in slow motion. Sometimes you have to throw in one of those slow motion “Nooooooooooooo’s” as well. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/30 "2009-06-17T15:15:46Z")
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned the most ballyhooed boner of the summer - the faulty geography/history in the “Wolverine” movie. Specifically, that a caption indicates a scene is taking place in the Northwestern Territories of Canada in 1840, and Canada wasn’t even a nation until 1867! If you scrutinize the film really, really hard, I’ll just bet you find a few inconsistencies in “History of the World, Part I.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/31 "2009-06-17T15:19:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Indeed. Perhaps the most frustrating example is Inherit the Wind, which many people still think is an accurate reflection of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Yet another example of a play (later a movie) that wasn’t _intended_ to be historically accurate, which is why Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee changed all the names – Bert Castes for Scopes, Matthew Harrison Brady for Bryan, Drummond for Clarence Darrow, E.K. Hornbeck for H.L. Mencken. In the foreword to the printed edition of the play they make it clear that they knowingly took considerable liberties with the events of the Scopes trial, and never tried to pass it off as the Real Thing. But a lot of people evidently never got the memo. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/32 "2009-06-17T15:19:54Z")
> [@The New and Improved Superman](#): > > If you scrutinize the film really, really hard, I’ll just bet you find a few inconsistencies in “History of the World, Part I.” Are you suggesting Sid Caesar _wasn’t_ around in prehistoric times? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/33 "2009-06-17T15:20:40Z")
Similar to updating profanity because bad language in _Deadwood_ days was so mild by today’s standards, the director of _Moulin Rouge_ (the McGregor-Kidman version) said, while he wasn’t going for realism obviously, that he was bothered by the fact that the decadence of the dances and crowd at the real Moulin Rouge was almost family theme park laughable by today’s standards. I liked that movie and generally don’t hold it to any kind of historical accuracy standards, but one thing that did bother me was John Leguizamo’s take on Toulouse-Lautrec. He made him seem silly and, well, sorta kinda gay, when the real T-L was neither; he was a heavy drinking guy prone to morose spells and he checked into brothels like they were bed and breakfasts (where one prostitute called him something that translates as ‘5 legs’ due to his two small legs, 2 canes, and 5th appendage said to be of not much shorter length). ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/34 "2009-06-17T15:36:27Z")
Speaking of Robert E. Lee (albeit a different one from _Inherit the Wind_’s co-author), I got off on a wrong foot with the movie _Gods and Generals_ because of the very first scene. Robert (Lee) Duvall (in real life he claims to be a relative of Robert E. Lee, which proves he’s got southern blood\*) is seen in Federal uniform being driven to the White House to be offered command of the Union forces. It’s a jarring image of sorts- the [most famous Confederate face](http://www.freespiritart.com/images/robert-e-lee-schmehl.jpg) in a Union uniform and going into the White House. However- and this may be nitpicky, but- Lee didn’t look at all like that when he was offered (what would become) the Army of the Potomac. He would have looked a lot more [like this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Robert_E._Lee.jpg)- dark (though I’m sure salt’n’pepper and beginning to gray in places) hair, moustache, and clean chin. He grew the beard for the same reason most field troops did (to keep his face warm) and his hair went white in the first year or two of the war (when in addition to stress it’s believed he had some heart problems). Also, coming to D.C. was a matter of a short ferry ride or crossing a bridge from Arlington (you can see the capitol from his front porch) and not the long journey the movie implied. Of course while it’s not exactly historical inaccuracy but wardrobe, that movie and _Gettysburg_ both looked like they’d bought out a “Billy’s Bible School Prop Warehouse” supply of $5 fake beards. And then G&G’s take on Jackson was even further off from the real man than KA’s take on Robert E. Lee was. \*It’s long been said the best southern fiction is genealogy, but for some reason the obsession to connect to Robert E. Lee tops the list of this genre. My guess would be that it’s because most southerners whose families have been here since the Colonial era will have a Lee family (I have at least two) because it was a common surname in England, and in fact Lee’s own biological clan was enormous. (His first ancestors in Virginia had 6 sons who lived to produce offspring, so by his own lifetime he had hundreds of cousins named Lee- or in some cases Lea). For some reason the notion of reflected glory by proving you’re the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of Robert E. Lee’s great-great-great-grandparents is irresistible and can mess up some otherwise well documented genealogical research. The funny thing is that his family wasn’t all that- his dad hit the road running to dodge being thrown in debtor’s prison and Lee himself grew up in genteel poverty, and the vast majority of Lees including REL’s immediate family lived lives no more exciting or ‘glorious’ or distinguished than your average farmer or general store clerk, but for some reason it’s the absolute must have little black dress of southern genealogy (and if you can accessorize it with one of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s 340 and counting unproven unacknowledged alleged bastards or a hint of Pocahontas, you’re really cookin’ with gas). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/35 "2009-06-17T15:45:06Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > thus “fuck you” isn’t really supposed to be a positive thing, since it replaces “damn you,”. . . Wait, is there anyone who thinks that “fuck you” is a positive thing? 🙂 Anyway, I popped into this thread to give another book suggestion regarding historically accurate movies. “Based on a True Story: Fact and Fantasy in 100 Favorite Movies”, which is really an apologia for “JFK”, but is a good book. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/36 "2009-06-17T17:55:51Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Wait, is there anyone who thinks that “fuck you” is a positive thing? 🙂 Heh. Every now and then someone jokes about how they say, “Unfuck yourself,” because “fuck you” is wishing sex on someone, and that’s wishing them GOOD luck, not bad luck. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/37 "2009-06-17T18:33:58Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The reason I started this thread was because the other night I watched a movie I’d really remembered liking: [Shenandoah](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059711/). {List of inaccuracies omitted} That’s nothing. When I saw it, Boy and Gabriel sung a duet! I doubt that happened in real life, let me tell you. It was a catchy tune, though. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/38 "2009-06-17T19:03:34Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > That’s nothing. When I saw it, Boy and Gabriel sung a duet! I doubt that happened in real life, let me tell you. > > It was a catchy tune, though. > 😃 Was it _Ebony and Ivory_? Or _Out Tonight_. “In the evening I have to roam Can’t sleep in the fields with newly plowed loam feels too damned much like home when the enslaved babies cryyyyyy…” # I’ve never seen or listened to the musical. Is it any good? (John Cullum’s one of my favorite B’way singers and he played the father in the Broadway recording.) ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/39 "2009-06-17T19:21:14Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Are you suggesting Sid Caesar _wasn’t_ around in prehistoric times? Or that the Queen of France never got gangbanged? Balderdash! ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/40 "2009-06-17T19:26:46Z")
from **aldiboronti’s** link above in post #26: "But it was only in the 1920’s that anybody thought to use them for a despicable person. And it was around the same time that the new word “motherfucker” was coined with roughly the same meaning. " But I recently read this in _The Tsar’s Last Armada_ by Konstantin Pleshakov, quoting a radio transmission sent in 1905 when the short-tempered Russain admiral wanted hard facts and all he received were guesses: “Rozhtensky snarled, 'if you **motherfuckers** want to gain favor, the raise a signal saying ‘I want to gain favor.’ and if I respond ‘All right,’ then go for it.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013.md?page=3)