# "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:** 3
**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, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/41 "2009-06-17T19:27:34Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Or that the Queen of France never got gangbanged? > > Balderdash! Louis XVI did prove that it’s not always “good to be to the king”. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/42 "2009-06-17T19:30:35Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > 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.” Yeah but that Russian admiral probably wasn’t saying it in _English_. Different languages have different histories of cuss-words, I would imagine. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/43 "2009-06-17T19:31:44Z")
[Six Movies Based on a True Story (That are Also Full of Shit)](http://www.cracked.com/article_17326_movies-based-on-true-story-that-are-also-full-shit.html) ---
**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, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/44 "2009-06-17T19:37:45Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > 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.) I give it a mixed review. I saw Cullum live in the part; he reprised his role for the ill-fated revival in 1990ish. I went up to NY to see it on a hot August day about a week after it opened, and the next month it had closed. He did a fine job. The Anderson/Gabriel duet is actually one of the standout tunes, in my humble view. ---
**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, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/45 "2009-06-17T19:50:11Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. Thereby answering George Carlin’s question, “When did _cocksucker_ go from being a good woman to being a bad man?” ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/46 "2009-06-17T20:54:29Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > 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.” I remember a William Safire language article soon after transcriptions were released of the cockpit communications between the Soviet fighters who shot down KAL 007. One of the pilots was quoted as saying “Fiddlesticks!” He had a fascinating column about why the Russian term the pilot actually used was translated as “Fiddlesticks.” ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/47 "2009-06-17T21:01:22Z")
> [@TV\_time](#): > > Any movie ever made about the Alamo. I’d speak up in mild defense of the most recent one with Billy Bob Thornton; it was still Hollywoodized all to hell, but at least they tried a little. By contrast, historians in John Wayne’s “The Alamo” demanded their names be removed from the credits because there really wasn’t a single scene that was historically accurate. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/48 "2009-06-17T21:08:04Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > [Six Movies Based on a True Story (That are Also Full of Shit)](http://www.cracked.com/article_17326_movies-based-on-true-story-that-are-also-full-shit.html) Also, [You Fail History Forever.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouFailHistoryForever) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/49 "2009-06-17T21:14:24Z")
The most prominent example of a BAD historically inaccurate movie has got to be _Birth Of A Nation_ (BAD in terms of spawning a massive revival of the Ku Klux Klan, thanks to a laughably and horrifically inaccurate portrayal of Reconstruction which includes blacks pillaging the helpless white South, lusting after pure white Southern womanhood etc. only to be vanquished by the heroic Klan). The consequences of spitting on the historical record don’t get any worse than that. Second prize goes to _JFK_, in which inane conspiracy theorizing gets a second wind and D.A. Jim Garrison is transformed from a creepy opportunist who preys on the innocent, to a selfless fighter for the Truth. Bleah. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/50 "2009-06-17T21:17:00Z")
I’ve never seen it, but I’ve heard plenty of people complain about U571, a movie about capturing a German Enigma machine. The real life incident involved Brits, the movie made them Americans. ---
**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, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/51 "2009-06-17T21:43:15Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Yeah but that Russian admiral probably wasn’t saying it in _English_. > > Different languages have different histories of cuss-words, I would imagine. > [@](#): > > **DrFidelius** : > > I remember a William Safire language article soon after transcriptions were released of the cockpit communications between the Soviet fighters who shot down KAL 007. One of the pilots was quoted as saying “Fiddlesticks!” Well, shit guys, I’ll just send an e-mail to the author and ask him what’s up with the quote. (so what do you suppose are the chances of a full professor at Mount Holyoke answering his e-mail in the second week of June?) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/52 "2009-06-17T22:32:24Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > I’ve never seen it, but I’ve heard plenty of people complain about U571, a movie about capturing a German Enigma machine. The real life incident involved Brits, the movie made them Americans. I believe you’re wrong here. There was no real-life incident during WWII anything like the movie plot. The closest the British Navy ever got to taking over an operational U-boat by stealth, was when units damaged a sub (forcing its evacuation) and a team of British sailors boarded the abandoned vessel to recover valuable papers and an Enigma device. It _was_ an heroic effort (no one knew if there might be some diehard Nazi aboard somewhere, the boat could have started suddenly sinking and the recovered items were quite helpful to Intelligence), but not one that would have made a good movie. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/53 "2009-06-17T22:51:32Z")
I believe what you are referring to here is the capture of the U-505, which was captured by elements of the US Navy, specifically a taskforce commanded by Admiral Daniel Gallery aboard the USS Guadalcanal. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/54 "2009-06-17T23:17:56Z")
Tall, blond, blue-eyed Jesuses creep me out. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/55 "2009-06-17T23:44:34Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > A lot bothered me about [The Legend of Zorro](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386140/). The worst was Abraham Lincoln showing up to welcome California into the Union–ten years before he was first inaugurated. No, the worst was Catherine Zeta Jones, playing a 19th Century Mexican Catholic, divorcing and kicking out her husband, abandoning her son and taking up with another man in the matrimonial house: I admit to not being conversant with the divorce laws of the Territory of California in the 1850’s, but I am reasonably sure that the women of the time did not carry on like they were auditioning for **Desperate Housewives** , possibly for fear of being burnt at the stake, or at least tarred and feathered. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/56 "2009-06-18T00:46:07Z")
**We Were Soldiers** , excellent movie, and much of the stuff that got fudged or re-did made sense in a movie kind of way, but it bugs me that they re-wrote the end of the movie to include a heroic cavalry charge that never happened (in real life, the battle at LZ X-Ray ended after Colonel Moore’s troops were reinforced by two other US Army battalions. IIRC, Colonel Moore’s battalion was withdrawn by helicopter, and the other two battalions marched overground to other LZs, with one of those battalions ending up in a nasty fight of their own at nearby LZ Albany. Don’t even get me started on **Pearl Harbor**. About the only thing accurate in that movie was that the US and Japan ended up being at war. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/57 "2009-06-18T01:10:22Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I believe what you are referring to here is the capture of the U-505, which was captured by elements of the US Navy, specifically a taskforce commanded by Admiral Daniel Gallery aboard the USS Guadalcanal. The incident I described involved U-110, attacked and later searched by the British Navy in May 1941. _“Firing several torpedoes at the convoy U-110 was caught by surprise by the escort ship, H.M.S. Aubrieta who immediately fired depth charges in the direction of the submerged submarine. The depth charges caused major damage to the U-boat, forcing her to surface and surrender. Some confusion on board the escorts led to the firing of small arms at those clamoring on to the deck of the doomed U-boat.[16] The submarine was not scuttled and a boarding party from H.M.S. Bulldog was launched. The party boarded the ship to find it deserted, with all of its classified material still intact. It became evident that the submarine was not going to sink. A towline was set up in order to try and capture the submarine. Mean while the entire U-boat was being searched and gutted. The boarding crew could not speak German so anything that was not clearly pleasure reading was taken off the submarine. An Enigma machine was retrieved from the U-boat, this was not the most important item found on board. The British already had several Enigma machines, but the codebooks were also found and proved to be invaluable. These codebooks allowed for “major insight” into German naval operations. This whole operation was completed in total secrecy; which was crucial so that the Germans did not change their encryption patterns. These documents enabled the British intelligence service to decipher a German naval message in around six hours.[17] This was a phenomenal feat for the British.”_ The same source describes the attack on and subsequent capture of U-505 by American forces on 6/4/44. By this time U-boats were no longer a significant menace and whatever intelligence seized, while helpful, was apparently not the coup it would have been much earlier in the war. Of course, the movie U-571 is historically inaccurate. But if we are going to cite WWII adventure movies for historical inaccuracies, we’ll be at it forever. For instance, I highly doubt that movies like _Where Eagles Dare_ and _Force 10 From Navarone_ are based closely on real-life incidents. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/58 "2009-06-18T01:11:11Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > No, the worst was Catherine Zeta Jones, playing a 19th Century Mexican Catholic, divorcing and kicking out her husband, abandoning her son and taking up with another man in the matrimonial house: I admit to not being conversant with the divorce laws of the Territory of California in the 1850’s, but I am reasonably sure that the women of the time did not carry on like they were auditioning for **Desperate Housewives** , possibly for fear of being burnt at the stake, or at least tarred and feathered. No, that might well be accurate. Nobody really enforced any law against it (though some places did have laws against violating matromonial vows, it was hard to prove and rare tried). An upper-class woman doing this would have caused a major _scandal_, however - it would not be kept very private any more than a Paris HIlton or Brittany Spears is today. However, I can zsemi-forgive the appearance of Lincoln, too. It didn’t claim he was President, but he definitely didn’t ever go to California. He also didn’t look like that at the time the movie takes place. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/59 "2009-06-18T01:36:14Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > The most prominent example of a BAD historically inaccurate movie has got to be _Birth Of A Nation_ (BAD in terms of spawning a massive revival of the Ku Klux Klan, thanks to a laughably and horrifically inaccurate portrayal of Reconstruction which includes blacks pillaging the helpless white South, lusting after pure white Southern womanhood etc. only to be vanquished by the heroic Klan). A sad irony is that it’s also one of the most historically _accurate_ films ever made about the Civil War. Several professors have shown it to their classes for the battle scenes (in which actual Civil War cannons and rifles were used and actual veterans served as advisors) and the Lincoln assassination scene (which included as extras a couple of people who were actually there that night). While mentioning the film, one of the “Charles Drew died because a white hospital refused treatment” type memes that I’m glad to correct is the famous quote attributed to Woodrow Wilson- that when he saw it at the White House he said “it is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true”. I won’t say Wilson never said this, but there were no reliable witnesses to him having said it and those who knew him said that while he did indeed see the movie he did not say anything about it, positive or negative. As the son of a slave owning Confederate chaplain and as a man who could remember the war himself [he was 9 when it ended] I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some “the Lost Cause” nostalgia, but as a man who was also a trained and respected historian long before becoming president I would hope that had some objectivity as well. (I’ll admit I’m not an expert on him and have never read a bio of him.) Hattie McDaniel (who was a maid for white people before stardom, as were her mother and her many sisters) was taken to task in her own lifetime for her portrayal of smiling happy slaves and maids, prompting the classic comeback “I smile because I’d rather be _playing_ somebody’s maid for $700 a week than _being_ somebody’s maid for $7 a week”. (She eventually earned far more than $700/wk. and in fact had a [large house](http://www.flickr.com/photos/8perf/2267872289/) and maids of her own.) I wonder how much flack the black actors in _Birth of a Nation_ received (none of whom were as famous- and the villain of course was a white actor in blackface). Some trivia: The year after _Birth of a Nation_ was released, another film called _Fall of a Nation_ was released based on a book by the same author. The film is often listed as a sequel; while clearly it was an attempt to cash in, it was actually less a sequel than an ancestor to _Red Dawn_. America is invaded by European superpowers, falls almost instantly, and underground guerilla and a female cavalry called The LAW [League of American Women] must rescue the nation. No known copy of the film survives today. [Cite](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D06E1D6163BE633A25754C0A9609C946796D6CF). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013/60 "2009-06-18T01:49:28Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > [Six Movies Based on a True Story (That are Also Full of Shit)](http://www.cracked.com/article_17326_movies-based-on-true-story-that-are-also-full-shit.html) I knew that would be [Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com) before I moused over and opened the link. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-history-bad-historically-inaccurate-movies-and-tv-shows/500013.md?page=4)