Hold on to your britches, folks. This post is gonna be a doozy.
Time and time again, big movie producers have taken historical movements, events and individuals and adapted those stories into Hollywood movies. This repetitive trend in American cinema has been both treasured and harshly critiqued throughout the years and for good reason. A famous producer taking the reigns on an autobiographical adaptation can give attention to underplayed moments in history, like "Zero Dark Thirty," directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal, which shed light on the American military's long man-hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
But more often than not, Hollywood has been known to twist history for the sake of entertainment value and a heightened sense of American pride.
Take the recent award-winning historical adaptation, "Argo," directed and produced by Ben Affleck, which got heavy criticism for completely downplaying Canadian involvement in an important CIA operative. So much so, that ex-President Jimmy Carter, who was President in 1979 when said Iran Hostage Crisis occurred, spoke out against the facts presented in the film (The New Yorker)! This blog post by On Violence runs through the historical inaccuracies further, if you're as interested as I am in this topic.
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This reminded me of an issue that has conflicted me since junior year of high school, when I had an exchange student from Slovakia named Petra.
After being placed in a U.S. History class and studying the material, she said she was shocked by the difference in the way certain events were portrayed in her own European history books. The American dubbed "Vietnam War," for example, was illustrated in our books as primarily the United States military fighting against the North Vietnamese. However, in Petra's books, American ground troops were included in the re-telling, but hers had more of an international focus which reflected heavy influence by foreign troops, like those of Australia and New Zealand, as well as the sustained efforts of the South Vietnamese. Heck, my memory of learning about the War in high school is that the Vietnamese started guerrilla warfare and we should feel bad because the Americans didn't know how to handle it- but now I know that the US caused cruel and unimaginable harm, and was more tactless than I'd ever imagined.
It's a scary thought, that what many Americans know about history is what their public school books are required to teach them. The government plays a large role in choosing what books are read in public schools- from the literature in English classes to which adaptation of history is learned.
Actually, it's downright terrifying. No wonder some states have banned Ayn Rand's "1984" in their schools-- the government wouldn't want kids to learn how easy unchecked censorship is!
It was this thought that led me to connect Hollywood adaptations to the way I was taught history in my predominantly white, middle-class public school growing up. Luckily, my NYS district officials had no problem with us reading and discussing Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the previously mentioned "1984." The problem is that some Americans aren't as fortunate.
Flash back to that amazing movie trailer for "12 Years as a Slave" at the beginning of this post. The movie, which comes out later this week (Oct. 18th), is based on the 1853 autobiography "Twelve Years as a Slave" by Solomon Northup.
While you probably won't see advertisements for the movie on Twitter or shared by your friends on Facebook, it's an important movie that we all should see. Not because Brad Pitt is in it, but because the director isn't an American and has never worked in Hollywood.
Filmmaker Nelson George recently led a round-table discussion to broaden understanding and provide context for the upcoming film, and was joined by Chiwetel Ejiofor (who plays Northup), director Steve McQueen, and a small assortment of intellectuals who share passion and knowledge about the period of slavery in America and its relevance today.
As children, it seemed only natural to condemn slave owners and voice our disgust about the era in class, but looking back I can recall noticing kids and teachers glancing around the room before talking about it. I'm going to go ahead and assume that a lot of my white peers felt a sort of awkwardness talking about slavery when one or two black peers were in the class-- as if there was a sort of anticipation over whether or not the black students would give their own opinion and whether or not it would feel condemning of the white students. Would the black kids talk about their ancestors and how it affects their family today? That's something white students would have no clue about. Maybe the black students wouldn't even raise their hands because they don't want the white kids to imagine them for even a split-second as second class citizens. And would they? Why is that so taboo? Our country's politics give all races equal rights, right? And public schools' demographics reflect everyone who lives in a certain town, rather than dividing the town by race like it used to. But if that were the case, and if every American, regardless of race, is equal, why do little kids still feel weird talking about it? Is it because racial equality hasn't been fully reached yet? Is it possible to even reach, when a race that makes up 14.1%* of a country's people could have family history of enslavement by the race that makes up 80%* of the same land?
Why don't kids and teachers feel comfortable enough in a classroom to talk openly about a time they didn't even have to endure?
Well, what we do know is that slavery happened, and the ripples of its detrimental presence in American history are still felt today. Director McQueen sensed that the time to open the floodgates is now. The country is ready to absorb a real account of slavery without any flashy costumes or feel-good montages.
McQueen states,
"With Trayvon Martin, voting rights, the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and a black president, I think there’s a sort of perfect storm of events. I think people actually want to reflect on that horrendous recent past in order to go forward."I hope movies as important as "12 Years as a Slave," along with other historically accurate documentaries, news reports and books, become more accessible for the Americans who have trouble with the context and materials their schools are providing them with. It's time for classrooms to offer more honest narratives about the very real events that make up our country's complex history.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/movies/a-discussion-of-steve-mcqueens-film-12-years-a-slave.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
Here is a 5 minute featurette that talks a little bit more about why this film was important to it's creators:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMpDUYzLgzY
*Percentages are taken from various slightly-sketchy websites, due to census.gov being shut down at the moment...
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