Warning: Many of Hollywood’s Movies Are Fiction

Warning: Many of Hollywood’s Movies Are Fiction

With various countries expressing outrage over movie inaccuracies, Joe Queenan points out the surprising fictional basis of many of Hollywood’s films

By Joe Queenan in the Wall Street Journal

Hollywood has come under unprecedented criticism for blatant distortions of the historical record in recent films. The Egyptians have banned “Exodus: Gods and Kings” because of national outrage over various historical inaccuracies, including the suggestion that Jews played a pivotal role in the building of the Pyramids.

Astrophysicists say that some scientific theories delineated in “Interstellar” and “Gravity” are ridiculous, positing all sorts of absurdities about black holes and parallel solar systems and reconfiguring the fabric of time. Nor is it even slightly possible that someone with an accent like Michael Caine ’s in “Interstellar” could ever spearhead a top-secret NASA mission. Things like that just don’t happen in the world of science. The scientific community has rules.

Were these the only instances of movies taking liberties with the truth, the whole thing could be dismissed as a tempest in a teapot. This is not the case. Some Chinese critics have taken the makers of the controversial film “The Interview” to task for misrepresentations about life in North Korea. Numerous historians have objected to the negative portrayal of LBJ in “Selma,” and the Iranians are still livid about the two “300” movies, which make Xerxes’s previously invincible Persian army seem inept, overly flamboyant and a wee bit camp.

Many other films should provoke similar ire, but they have eluded serious criticism thus far.

“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” is a tissue of lies; no one seriously believes that a tiny contingent of dwarves could defeat a horde of Orcs, no matter how feisty they were. The stupid science depicted in “Lucy” suggests that human beings can transmute themselves into different entities just by ingesting the right chemicals. Pharmaceutical experts will tell you that if people could actually do this, Charlie Sheen would have already done it.

Many more movies have played fast and loose with the facts. The relationship between a human being and a machine, as depicted in “Her,” is not possible. The urban flying sequences in “Birdman,” as any aeronautics buff worth his salt will tell you, are preposterous. “22 Jump Street” paints a misleading image of the New Orleans Police Department. The NOPD does not hire people like Jonah Hill. It, too, has rules.

Whenever a film’s credits contain the words “Inspired by Actual Events” or “Based on a True Story,” you can rest assured that what you are about to see is a baldfaced lie. Such cavalier disregard for the truth is nothing new: William Wallace (“Braveheart”) never met his screen lover Princess Isabella of France, so the saga of the mighty Scottish warrior, as depicted by Mel Gibson, is woefully inaccurate.

But 2014 was a banner year for falsehood on the big screen. Apes cannot fire machine guns, certainly not while mounted on thundering steeds. This is why Earth remains our planet, not theirs. None of the events depicted in “The Grand Budapest Hotel” are true. Maleficent was not a nice person, no matter what the movie claims. There is no such thing as a boxtroll. There are not a million ways to die in the West. There are not a million ways to die anywhere. There are only about 350.

The most egregious departure from what laymen and experts alike call “reality” is the recent Kevin Costner vehicle “Draft Day.” It advances the premise that the Cleveland Browns could use their draft picks wisely. What Hollywood has to say about the Jews working on the Pyramids may be true. Perhaps the New Orleans Police Department might one day hire someone like Jonah Hill to infiltrate a drug ring. Someone with a Cockney accent could conceivably take over NASA. But to suggest that the Cleveland Browns’ management could ever make the right decision on Draft Day is completely and utterly absurd.          

Poster’s comments:

1)      Movies are for the entertainment of the audience.

2)      Many people know this. Unfortunately many other people do not know this.

3)      Learning “true” history is often difficult and time consuming.

4)      Dumbing down a population can happen many ways. So for those who get their history through the movies they watch, good luck.

5)      Even on TV news these days, all too often the most inaccurate statements are made by the “newsreaders”.