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Early Access: Why Movies and Videogames ALWAYS get History Wrong
🕑 Added 2020-10-27 19:21:53 +0000 UTCHey all,
And now for something completely different. One of the things I often talk about with friends, colleauges or when on location, is how 'we' engage with history through popular products like Movies, Videogames, books, comics, music and more.
Of course, many of these projects get criticised about historical accuracy. While there is a case to be made against such errors, I think it would be good to have a look at the process of how these products are made and why they don't always conform to ''expectations''.
So in this video, I sat down with writes, developers, and game designers to talk about the challenges, draw upon my own experience and also on some of my interactions with museums. I hope that this video will allow people to see 'the other side' and shed light on a aspect of 'product creation' that is often not talked about. I am very grateful that other people working with history were happy to answer my questions and I believe they provided excellent insights that also helped me think about this topic in more detail.
This video was also made possible due to the United States Naval Institute. They provided me with a review copy of The Stringbags, a new history comic by Garth Ennis and PJ Holden, set up the respective interview contacts with both and put me in contact with Wargaming. However while I enjoyed The Stringbags, in my conversations with USNI I made it clear that I don't want to have this as a sponsored video as I felt it would be more interesting to branch out and talk with more people and engage with more products than do this simply based on one book. You can find all relevant information about these other products in the description below and I would also encourage you to watch/listen to some of the interviews I link at the end.
Looking forward to your comments and thank you very much for your support. As I mention in the video, without you - this channel would not be not possible.
Chris
Comments
Michael Moran
I finished reading Stringbags and thought it was first rate. Some people who read it may have difficulty believing how much clowning really went on among aircrews. My father wrote down a few stories and a few times I had to ask him “if this is really true how did you avoid getting in trouble all of the time?” He replied “actually we did get in trouble a lot and some guys were demoted losing their flight status. You have to remember we were only 19 or 20.” He did train with English airmen a few times. A great number of English pilots came to train in the US due to the better flying weather. He liked their sense of humor.
Michael Moran
Bought it off Amazon yesterday.
Military Aviation History
Thanks Mark, happy to hear your feedback!
Military Aviation History
Hey Michael, thanks, glad you enjoyed it. For Stringbags you can get it on Amazon or via USNI directly (seems like they also have a 40% sale atm): https://www.usni.org/press/books/stringbags
Excellent video essay, Chris. I appreciated the comments from the various creators and how you tied it all together. A truly informative piece. Thank you.
Michael Moran
I really liked the way you brought in other points of view. The whole presentation was creative and thoughtful. I hope it gets a lot of views as well. Well — off to find out how I can buy Stringbags.
I have a degree in history and I read history books. I also play video games...and so does the creator of this channel. I think you might want to revise your stance, Sir.
Military Aviation History
Hey Timothy, thanks for the recommendation!
Timothy Mulligan
I have taught a "History Through Hollywood" class for several years, always fun to point out that even the best historical films are not history. You might be interested in the book by S. P. MacKenzie, THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN ON SCREEN. 'THE FEW' IN BRITISH FILM AND TELEVISION DRAMA (Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2007).
H Norman Angell
Video games are for idiots who dont read books.
Military Aviation History
Thanks David! Yes, I can very much imagine that PJ and you have the same struggles when it comes to this. It's hard getting these details right that at the time (or later) were not always recorded because they seem insignificant. Who could have known that 75-100 years later people would make models, videogames, movies or drawings of what happened.
Military Aviation History
Thanks Francis!
Military Aviation History
Good point. I've meet multiple historians that have done several interviews with the same person and over the years, ask the same questions. Sometimes the answer they got differed from time to time, which shows how much the mind or human error can affect our perception of history.
Francis McGarry
Vis•cer•al . I could write a longer message, but instead permit me to simply agree, and thank you for this discussion, which is/was fascinating.
Great video Chris. I really enjoyed it. I emphasized with the creator of the comic book The Stringbag (which i have added to my shopping list. Thanks for that) I wargame with 28mm figures. One of the hardest things i came across was the colour of belts for the Imperial German Seebattalion for the tropical uniform (khaki) outside of China c.1911. You would think that would be easy, but it's not. I had the figures sitting unpainted for a month, and even then I am going with best guess. BTW, I always repost your videos on my facebook page. You always get a lot of likes on your work, so you are doing something right. (I also like the videos on trainers, but of course in Canada we had the Commonwealth Air Training Plan running all the country.)
Julian Corbett
Interesting video. I think one of possibly the biggest issues with accuracy in history is that people are faliable. If you are talking about a personal experience, then they may "big up" their contribution, or even play it down. They are remembering something that may have happened a long while ago and their recollection isn't as sharp as it once was. If you dealing with an overview, then conclusions can be drawn without taking every, single, possible factor into account. Maybe because it is not available, the person/people who were part of it never included their contribution or it was lost. All you can really do as a content maker is do the best with the information that is available at the moment you make it and if possible add corrections as you become aware of them, if new research changes things. I think the issue with things like movies, is they take such liberties with things that can be definitively proven didn't happen, or were not there, but include them because "it looks good" and it will go down well with the home market, or more egregiously, ignores the contributions of others who were there, simply to make the movies subjects look better.
