# Fiction which is misrepresented in pop culture **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 23, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683 "2013-06-23T03:17:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/81 "2013-06-27T15:48:45Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > If I remember the book correctly, Tarzan learns to speak French before he learns to speak English; his first human friend is a shipwrecked French sailor. [Text](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/78/78-h/78-h.htm) True, he does learn to speak French first. He’s already learned to read and write English, but not to speak it. D’Arnot teaches him to speak French. Previously, Jane has tried to get him to speak using English, French, and German. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/82 "2013-06-27T16:03:47Z")
> [@Renifer](#): > > Another – Randall McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest raped a woman. So he wasn’t merely a free spirit unjustly incarcerated in a mental institution – he actually harmed at least one person before being admitted. Wasn’t it consensual sex with an underage girl? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/83 "2013-06-27T16:11:44Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Wasn’t it consensual sex with an underage girl? In the movie, yes. It was a willing underage girl (or, at least, so Nicholson claims). But I’ve never read Ken Kesey’s book, so I don’t know if MacMurphy was less admirable there. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/84 "2013-06-27T17:02:53Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I’ve given this example before, but what the heck- I’ve been known to beat dead horses before. > > Nobody reads Eugene Burdick’s 1958 novel _ **The Ugly American** _ any more, but the phrase “The Ugly American” is used all the time. Generally, the phrase is applied to any stereotypical loud, boorish American tourist, the type of ignorant yahoo who doesn’t know or care about foreign cultures, and expects everything to be like it was back home. > > In the novel, the “ugly American” in the title is Homer Atkins, an American engineer. He is NOTHING like the aforementioned stereotypical American jerk. He is idealistic, intelligent, and respects the Asians he lives and works with. He’s called “ugly” because, despite his good heart, he’s not at all good-looking. On the other hand, virtually every other American depicted in the novel is an “ugly American”. ---
**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 27, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/85 "2013-06-27T17:16:15Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > I dunno. It seems pretty ambiguous. It does strongly imply that the “fiend” is being “created,” and from that we can infer that [in some undisclosed way] he is creating the tissue, but I don’t see where he mentions anything meaningful. He does mention collecting bones to study the human body, and probably from there we get the idea of grave-robbing to stitch them together–but I think Shelley (as Frankenstein) left out the details on exactly how he made his creation deliberately. Nope – it’s in there about him getting stuff from slaughterhouses. i don’t have the time to search for it now, but if I can steal a look, I’ll print the reference. Shelley certainly DID leave out the details of construction, which was clearly deliberate – the book is supposed to be Frankenstein’s reminiscences via Captain Walton, and Frankenstein didn’t want anyone duplicating his work. One thing that certainly isn’t in the book is vivifying the creation with electricity. There is discussion of Galvani’s experiments in the 1831 preface (long after the initial publication), and in recalling the night that gave birt to the story, it was admitted that they talked of those experiments, but Mary Shelley never says a word about it in her novel, and it isn’t clear that she even had it in mind. ---
**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 27, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/86 "2013-06-27T17:23:10Z")
> [@Renifer](#): > > And sunlight didn’t make him dissolve or burn. That started with _Nosferatu_. > > . …and almost ended with _Nosferatu_. The film was made without the consent (or even knowledge) of Stoker’s widow, and she tried to get all the copies destroyed. She didn’t completely succeed, but she did manage to keep it out of general circulation for a long time. So for years afterwards, vampires in film and fiction got dispatched with stakes, fire, and acid, but not sunlight. The vampire in Carl Dreyer’s film _Vampyr_ is even staked (with a metal pipe, not a wooden stake) in broad daylight. the dissolve-is-daylight thing got a new lease on life, so to speak, in two Universal films of the 1940s that Curt Siodmak either wrote the screen story or screenplay for – _Son of Dracula_ and _House of Frankenstein_. I suspect that Siodmak, who grew up in Germany, remembered the ending of _Nosferatu_ and decided to use it for a bloodless demise of the vampires in the more fastidious forties. Then Hammer films used sunlight to destroy Dracula in its _Dracula_ (called _Horror of Dracula_ here in the States) in the late fifties, and after that use by a different studio the trope pretty much stuck, and is now irrevocably fixed in the public mind. ---
**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 27, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/87 "2013-06-27T17:29:12Z")
Well, it is a much more cinematic death. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/88 "2013-06-27T19:03:56Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I’ve given this example before, but what the heck- I’ve been known to beat dead horses before. > > Nobody reads Eugene Burdick’s 1958 novel _ **The Ugly American** _ any more, but the phrase “The Ugly American” is used all the time. Generally, the phrase is applied to any stereotypical loud, boorish American tourist, the type of ignorant yahoo who doesn’t know or care about foreign cultures, and expects everything to be like it was back home. > > In the novel, the “ugly American” in the title is Homer Atkins, an American engineer. He is NOTHING like the aforementioned stereotypical American jerk. He is idealistic, intelligent, and respects the Asians he lives and works with. He’s called “ugly” because, despite his good heart, he’s not at all good-looking. Thanks for beating me to this, I was gonna mis-attribute it to Graham Greene.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Rubixcube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Rubixcube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubixcube)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/89 "2013-06-27T19:24:34Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > If I remember the book correctly, Tarzan learns to speak French before he learns to speak English; his first human friend is a shipwrecked French sailor. Sort of. Tarzan initially learns to read and write in English via the books in his parent’s cabin, but he obviously can’t learn to speak it. He rescues D’Arnot, a French Naval officer, from being executed by a native tribe. He communicates with him through writing and asks D’Arnot to teach him to speak English while he’s healing. D’Arnot teaches him a little but ultimately finds it too difficult and begins again with his native French. By the end of the first book he fluently speaks both French and English (in addition to Mangani of course). I believe he picks up Arabic and whatever it is the Wasiri speak in the second book. I’m pretty sure he learns some German at some point later on, as well as some more fictional languages during his visit to Pelucidar. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/90 "2013-06-27T19:36:32Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > In the movie, yes. It was a willing underage girl (or, at least, so Nicholson claims). > > But I’ve never read Ken Kesey’s book, so I don’t know if MacMurphy was less admirable there. The book was also Statutory Rape of a claimed willing participant. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/91 "2013-06-27T19:56:19Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Deliverance is a lot more than Dueling Banjos and Squeal like a pig. But really, those are the best parts. ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/92 "2013-06-27T20:11:49Z")
Going on from the mention of Watson’s misrepresentation (and as much as I like them, we can thank the Rathbone/Bruce films for that): Holmes himself is often a bit Flanderized in my opinion. For starters, there’s his infamous cocaine use. Many portrayals of him leap on that and portray him as a full-fledged addict. But it’s important to remember that at the time these stories were being written, cocaine was seen as being no more harmful than a strong drink–it was opium that was considered the danger. Doyle was a little ahead of his time in even having Watson warn Holmes of its effects. It was possible to portray a drug user without it necessarily following that he was an addict. (Case in point: the fact that he was depicted as only resorting to cocaine when there were no cases to occupy him, and being able to go without it when there were.) Knowing what we know now about drugs, when we read the stories through modern eyes we can only see an addict. But as much as I love Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven Per Cent Solution, I’m not sure that Doyle meant this to be the case. Then there’s the “tortured, misanthropic genius” that shows up in portrayals like Jeremy Brett’s (as good as it is) and modernizations like House. True, Holmes could be blunt and rude. But when I reread the stories, for every instance of Holmes being a jerk, I see many more of his being warmhearted, generous, or compassionate. So many times, he showed concern for his clients despite his claim that they were only factors in a problem for him. (He was ready to beat the crap out of one guy who’d wronged a young woman.) So many times, even when Lestrade treated him arrogantly, Holmes let him have the credit at the end of the case, claiming that the work was its own reward. And sure, he could be eccentric and keep to himself most of the time, but he had no trouble interacting with others when he wanted to. Then there’s the aforementioned Lestrade. Sure, he could be a bit mean-spirited to Holmes at times, but as the stories went on, he showed genuine admiration and respect for him, even saying at the end of The Six Napoleons, “We’re not jealous of you down at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very proud of you, and if you come down tomorrow there’s not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn’t be glad to shake you by the hand.” Far cry from the jealous Lestrade that we often saw in films like the Rathbone ones! ---
**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 28, 2013, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/93 "2013-06-28T13:02:32Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Nope – it’s in there about him getting stuff from slaughterhouses. i don’t have the time to search for it now, but if I can steal a look, I’ll print the reference. > > Shelley certainly DID leave out the details of construction, which was clearly deliberate – the book is supposed to be Frankenstein’s reminiscences via Captain Walton, and Frankenstein didn’t want anyone duplicating his work. > . I pulled out my copy of _The Annotated Frankenstein_ (with annotations by Leonard Wolf), and found it in Chapter II: > [@](#): > > …I collected bones from charnel houses; and disturbed , with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room _and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials_; and often did my human nature turn, with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near tp a conclusion. The italicization is mine – unless the citizens of Ingoldstadt were butchering and eating thir fellow human beings, Frankenstein was getting animal parts from a _slaughter-house_. Wolf helpfully points this out in a foot-note. (“Here the uneasy suggestion seems to be that Victor employed animal parts for his creation.”) This is from the original 1818 printing of the book. I haven’t compared, but it’s possible this got changed for the later 1831 printing, which had a number of changes, and, I believe, formed the basis for most copies still in print. The relevant quote is on pp. 68-69 of the original hardcover editioon of the annotated version. Wolf must have had a falling out with the publishers of his Annotated Frankenstein and his Annotated Dracula, because he later re-issued them as _The Essential Frankenstein_ and _The Essential Dracula_ (and added “essemtial” Jekyll and Hyde and Phantom of the Opera). These were pub;lished in the 1990s and reprinted less than a decade ago. A bit earlier in the same chapter, Victor explicitly refuses to tell Walton the Secrets of Life and Death > [@](#): > > I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/94 "2013-06-29T05:55:34Z")
> [@Renifer](#): > > Randall McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest raped a woman. So he wasn’t merely a free spirit unjustly incarcerated in a mental institution – he actually harmed at least one person before being admitted. Values dissonance. To Kesey and his circle, that wasn’t incompatible with being just a free spirit, particularly since it was “only” statutory rape. ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/95 "2013-06-29T08:32:29Z")
The Island of Dr. Moreau is not about a mad scientist creating human-animal hybrids. The title character’s hypothesis is that the only thing stopping animals from being human is the anatomical inability to function as humans and his experiments involve things like surgically altering the larynxes so that they will be able to speak, and orthopedic surgery so that they can walk upright. It’s a much more subtle look into what exactly differentiates humans from other animals than I got from the popular conception (or the 1996 movie) which is more about pure horror and more random experimentation. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/96 "2013-06-29T14:17:46Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > If I remember the book correctly, Tarzan learns to speak French before he learns to speak English; his first human friend is a shipwrecked French sailor. On the tv series all of the animals understood Swahili, or at least something that was I think supposed to be Swahili. ---
**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 29, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/97 "2013-06-29T14:50:21Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > On the tv series all of the animals understood Swahili, or at least something that was I think supposed to be Swahili. Authentic African Gibberish[.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5Mr5eCF2U) ---
**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 29, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/98 "2013-06-29T18:08:55Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > The Island of Dr. Moreau is not about a mad scientist creating human-animal hybrids. The title character’s hypothesis is that the only thing stopping animals from being human is the anatomical inability to function as humans and his experiments involve things like surgically altering the larynxes so that they will be able to speak, and orthopedic surgery so that they can walk upright. It’s a much more subtle look into what exactly differentiates humans from other animals than I got from the popular conception (or the 1996 movie) which is more about pure horror and more random experimentation. None of the movie versions got the story straight, really. They all edgfed toward horror, but none of them had straight surgical procedures for the animal-to-human conversion. The 1930s _Island of Lost Souls_ used radsiation to convert animals to human (and, at the end, convert Moreau to semi-animal). The 1970s Burt lancaster/Michael Work version used biochemical conversion. The 1996 Marlon Brando film was an utter mess, with the force of wills of Brando and Val Kilmer skewing the film, and the screenwriter infiltrating the set as an extra. As a friend pointed out years ago, films and popular conception rarely seem to properly grasp what Wells was getting at in his books. Wells was really doing Swiftian satire at the end of The Island of Dr. Moreau, with Prendick seeing savage insights into human behavior among the beasts after moreau’s death, and doing a Gulliver/Houyhnym thing after returning to civilization. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/99 "2013-06-29T18:18:00Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > The Island of Dr. Moreau is not about a mad scientist creating human-animal hybrids. The title character’s hypothesis is that the only thing stopping animals from being human is the anatomical inability to function as humans and his experiments involve things like surgically altering the larynxes so that they will be able to speak, and orthopedic surgery so that they can walk upright. It’s a much more subtle look into what exactly differentiates humans from other animals than I got from the popular conception (or the 1996 movie) which is more about pure horror and more random experimentation. The book makes it clear that the surgery was done without anesthesia. (:eek:) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683/100 "2013-06-29T18:35:24Z")
The book (and films) Nineteen Eighty-Four. First of all, it’s often misrepresented as “1984”, but I guess new editions on Amazon spell it that way now so it’s ok. Just another example of history being erased I suppose. More importantly, it’s not a cautionary tale about government surveillance. Surveillance technology features prominently in the book, but that’s only a small part of it. The book is a cautionary tale about human nature. It describes a stagnant xenophobic society where people willingly give up their freedom in the name of (perceived) safety and conformity. They will conveniently ignore any facts or figures that doesn’t reconcile with the party message, even as they create that message themselves (so-called “doublethink”). But most people just say “it’s like 1984” whenever someone invents a better CCTV camera. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Inception is definitely about dreams. It’s similar to VR, but the environment is the dream of one of the participants, not a machine-hosted fiction - this is why the non-player characters are hostile to all participants except the host. > > The machine is just a mechanism to facilitate the sharing - the dream happens in the heads of the participants. I think you’re both right. They are creating artificial worlds so it is a sort of VR technology. But it’s creating by tapping into a persons subconscious while they are sleeping, causing them to experience the VR world as a dream. Also, IMHO I’m glad they limited any crazy psychedelic dreamscape stuff, even if that’s not really how people dream. Dreams “feel” real, regardless of how bizarre they are, but films about bizarre dreams do not. Or to quote another expert on VR: “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” -Morpheus, The Matrix > [@Sampiro](#): > > I’ve never made it all the way through _Atlas Shrugged_ (I’ve started it several times and gotten into the interior a couple, but just cannot connect). > > However, I’ve found if you describe it using the words “selfishness” or “social Darwinism” or “screw the poor”, all terms that I’ll admit crossed my mind when reading it and apparently the minds of many others as well, you’ll quickly be told- often succeeded by a long rant that’s easy to ignore- how this isn’t the message at all. Atlas Shrugged is not about “screw the poor”. It is a cautionary tale against the corrupting nature of collectivism. That when people feel entitled to take from those who create to give to those who can’t or won’t, it ultimately hurts the poor by destroying the businesses they could have worked for, stopping production on the products and services they could have benefited from. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-which-is-misrepresented-in-pop-culture/661683.md?page=6)