Collinwood sounds like a good setup for a horror movie. Guillermo del Toro could do something interesting with it.
The idea that people would be so outraged by the suggestion that some nobles half a millennia ago fucked around on each other that you could never make a movie about it is pretty hilarious. I’ve seen British comedians being broadcast on British television, making jokes about Prince Harry not being King Charles’ kid, but martial infidelity from the 15th century is a no-go zone?
True, but the Congo Free State is the most well known of the area because very important people like Mark Twain and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle speaking about it very publicly. Other crimes of European powers at the time basically fell by the wayside due to how bad the Congo Free State was. South Africa is the only place you can find similar coverage of at the time.
As the OP, I now realize I did not accurately title and define this thread, so blame me. Historical events that are too controversial to dramatize are really only part of what I was getting at. I also wanted to cover events that are just too ugly, dark, depressing, unpleasant, and/or boring to depict outside of a documentary.
Oh, like the Trade Federation - Naboo dispute of 32BBY?
Don’t be silly. Tariffs and trade regulations always make for riveting dramatic action.
Sure. Anything that paints in an unflattering light persons or groups sufficiently culturally lionized in the time and location when the movie would be produced. This will vary by time, location, culture, etc.
Depending on the time and place, it needn’t even be overt, over the top, obviously propagandizing demonization. It could be something completely historically accurate, treated in an even handed manner. Or even something that just treats the subject as a normal, imperfect human being, erring as they must.
Say, a famed Elbonian civil rights leader, a good and great man…who also plagarized parts of his Master’s Thesis, and cheated on his wife. 'Felt bad about it, but he still did it.
Or maybe a famed Elbonian statesmen, one of the father’s of his modern nation…who is suspected of being at least tangentially complicit with the genocide of ethnic Berzerkistanis during the war of independence, or at least didn’t do much to bring the perpetrator to account.
Or maybe there’s hand-wringing concern on the part of the studio & co. that the film could be read as an attack on, or a “dog whistle” for enemies of, ethnic Elbonians as a whole, if you did a film about an infamous, cannibalistic serial killer who happened to be Elbonian. The motivation for this might be some notion of being socially responsible, or maybe just something as simple as “it will bomb at the box office, we lose money, and we’ll get such bad publicity that we’ll lose investors, and maybe get fired.”
This is, of course, talking about mainstream, “major” films. I think history has shown that there are plenty of avant-garde, outsider, subversive, grindhouse, exploitation, transgressive, and just plain impish filmmakers who’ll be up for doing anything, with wildly varying levels of skill, and usually not great production values. The ongoing democratization of filmmaking with easier to access technology widens the net considerably.
And I think history has also shown that there’s always a healthy audience to be found—the more “degenerate” you call it, the more tickets you can sell.
A drama set in the Rhodesian Bush War. Where the white Rhodesians are the good guys.
But wouldn’t that be the case only if the filmmaker was biased toward the white Rhodesians? A movie that tries to take an even-handed and neutral approach might be more effective.
You are referencing MLK, Idi Amin and Mandela, but chose not to use their real names and instead used a made up country from the famously racist Scott Adams. You are using the term Elbonian to clearly mean black. Why?
Because I already used Berzerkistan—created by the famously liberal Garry Trudeau—and “Ruritania” or “Zenda” would be too esoteric.
“Elbonia” could mean “black”—or it could mean “Turkish,” or “Japanese,” or “Gay,” or “Canadian.” It could mean ANY ethnicity, nationality, or social caste that the polite society or marketing departments of Krasnovia is conscious—perhaps even overly so—about offending, endangering, denigrating, or causing enough of an uproar about in the media that it drives away ticket-buying moviegoers, or investors.
Depending on the circumstances, the time, or the country, we ALL could be “Elbonians,” saint or sinner…or just some boring schmuck in a silly hat just trying to live our lives and muddle through our days.
At some point, it just becomes so much easier to clearly state whatever point you think you’re making.
It would appear to be that he thinks “Elbonia” and “Elbonian” are value-neutral terms. If that’s an accurate assessment, he’s objectively wrong about that for most of his audience. Maybe not for himself, but certainly for most others.
Define “most others”—people conscientiously hand-wringing about the ideological contagion spreading by the use of a made-up country name, used as a joke and a placeholder, or the general public of people vaguely familiar with a fake country based off of an inherently funny word, that’s been used in print since Gorbachev was in office?
(And a country, as it happens, are A) all very white dudes, and B) were partially inspired as a satire of how Americans see other countries: “It represents the view that Americans have of any country that doesn’t have cable television—we think they all wear fur hats and wallow around waist-deep in mud”)
And as a matter of fact…in my original post? I wasn’t referring to Mandela or Idi Amin. I was referring to Mustafa Kemal and Jeffrey Dahmer. The former, with his own homeland contentious about any negative or critical depictions of the man, for nationalistic and outright legal prohibitions against perceived Lèse-majesté; and the latter, in recent memory, drawing some complaints and criticism for a popular series depicting his life and crimes, as he happened to be gay, with the worry that this would demonize other gay men.
(Setting aside the fact that, in this particular case, many of his victims were also gay men, none of whom were serial killers or cannibals themselves, or were even remotely supportive of the practice.)
There’s at least one other infamous, cannibalistic murderer I can think of who is Japanese. And some Frenchmen. And several who were Scottish. And one Irishman. And a great deal of Russians, for some reason.
Depending on the context, the flavor of the time, the country, or the observer, which of these people should be considered a “protected class” and their potentially incendiary depiction handled with special sensitivity, or just not at all, will vary wildly. It could be one of them, none of them, or all of them. Even if they’re killing and eating innocent people just the same as any other average, normal human being would. (Yes, I’m being facetious)
The notable, distinctive, individual acts and follies of human beings…are surprisingly un-unique, and can broadly speaking be said about many of us. On a biographical level, to draw a comparison the ghoulish fellows a paragraph or two above might appreciate, we’re all the same hot dog meat, in the end. It’s just that some customers will reflexively balk at buying one tube of pureed nostril meat, depending on the packaging and brand name, but happily pay extra for the structurally almost identical one sitting next to it.
Something to be taken into account, when trying to peddle a product, be it meat or movies? Sure. But ultimately arbitrary, fashion-ridden, and not necessarily driven by logic. Just like the palatability of using one made-up, one-note country inhabited by ex-Soviet rock farmers wearing bearskins over another. 
My keyboard needs a hot key that will paste this into any post or email.
Look, the attempt to “neutralize” the example was doomed, because this is the Straight Dope.
(a) People will leap into figuring out what was it that you were avoiding saying, because we are clever Dopers and we will always beat a riddle.
(b) Plus there are people who just plain reject “value neutralizing” as a matter of principle, either as considering it a form of gotcha argument, or from the “there is no such a thing as neutral” viewpoint, and that it means you are on the “wrong” side else why hide it.
(c) both such groups will go into it then with the worst possible expectation of what you might have meant (really, notice: he started the list with a Black person, and some reactions locked on that all three have to, must, can only, be about Black persons) and come to the worst possible conclusion.
Had you stated things straight, if anyone got bent out of shape because they are locked in on that doing a docudrama about MLK, Kemal or Dahmer is immoral or is “Too Soon”, that would be on them.
…
You haven’t been down the same places in YouTube I have – someone could get backing for that.
Only here AFAIK. Haven’t seen it be treated like that in the wider culture.