Analyse af Cory Franklins 'History According to Hollywood'

Analytical essay about Cory Franklin’s op-ed “History According to Hollywood”

Fact-based or realistic, fiction or non-fiction, historical movies shape the way we think about the past. Most people know that movies are fictionalized in some way, but the hard part is to keep Hollywood and history separate.

In the op-ed “History According to Hollywood” by Cory Franklin, it is explained that three Hollywood movies based on real events are nominated for Best Picture, but all three movies had also received a lot of critique about the accuracy of the events. The problem is not that Hollywood history clearly differs from real history – the problem is when the filmmakers claim that despite the historical inaccuracies, their films capture the historical truth. When teachers replace textbooks with movies that claim to be telling and showing the truth, students are likely to accept that as the whole truth, partly because people in general enjoy the polished, time-compressed versions of the truth. This is not the only problem – filmmakers can also alternate the “truth”, not only for dramatic purposes, but also to propagandize. Cory Franklin states that Hollywood history should be only the first step towards the truth and not the final step.