{"id":132,"date":"2009-11-13T13:20:33","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T12:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"\/Blog\/?p=132"},"modified":"2009-11-16T00:26:56","modified_gmt":"2009-11-15T23:26:56","slug":"hollywood-versus-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/hollywood-versus-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood versus History"},"content":{"rendered":"

In History…<\/strong>
\nHeroes distinguish themselves by wearing elaborate cloth and headgear
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nHeroes distinguish themselves by wearing no headgear, no jacket (shirt only), and generally running around like the poorest peasant. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nHeroes wear helmets in battle.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nHeroes take off their helmets before battle. If they ever wore a helmet.<\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nSwords are worn in wooden or leather scabbards until late 19th century
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nDrawing a sword always gives a metal-on-metal sound. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nSwords are worn in wooden or leather scabbards until late 19th century
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nDrawing a sword always gives a metal-on-metal sound. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nBlack powder appears 1242 on the European battlefields.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nAny black powder weapon used in in the middle ages will baffle everyone, since they can’t ever have encountered it as it does not fit into Hollywoods image of the middle ages. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nNobody lights his house or castle with torches for fear of a fire.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nEveryone uses torches indoors. And they don’t even need to be replaced, they will burn 50 years or more once lit, especially in caves. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nGuns until about 1850 are muzzle-loaders and only fire one shot until reloaded again.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nThe average muzzle-loader can fire several times. And you never see anyone reloading it, because the guys in the studio also have no idea on how it’s done.<\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nIt could happen that the British capture a Nazi U-Boat and manage to decrypt the codes with the help of polish Scientists.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nUS-Americans will capture the U-Boat, even before they’ve even entered the war and will decrypt everything themselves. Except for the Japanese code “Purple”, because that would mean their government could have known about the attack on Pearl Harbour hours before it happened. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nIt often happens that no US-American is involved in some heroic deed. Or that along US-Americans other people from other nations were involved.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nSome US-American saves the day. If somebody else did it, US-Americans did it now. If somebody helped, like some thousands of Canadian troops, they are not shown in the movie. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nA knight is proud of being a knight, tries to behave as such and certainly wears clothes and armour of a knight.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nA knight might run around in a towel, a face painted blue like some picts did 1200 years earlier, and still lead a rebellion against the British. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nThe Scots really wore kilts, and claymores and broadswords. In the late 17th and the 18th century that is. They fought against British redcoats who mostly had muskets and bayonets.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nAh well. You already guessed it. They always do that; no matter the historical evidence. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nSome cities in the middle ages found it necessary to limit bathing for its inhabitants to three times a week, because its infrastructure couldn’t live up to the demand.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nPeople in the middle ages are always filthy, but most spot gleaming white teeth. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nPlate Armour is mostly made to fit the wearer and made in the style of the time.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nPlate Armour is made from whatever pieces are left from previous productions and in an style from 14th to 18th century. Except for helmets, those are in style from the early iron age to the 18th century. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nPeople thatched their roofs very tight, 20-50cm thick.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nThatched roofs are see-trough and only on houses used by peasants. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nPeople knew from the writings of Greek philosophers from A.D 300 upwards that the earth was round.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nPeople from the middle-ages believe in a flat-earth. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nPeople had a lower life-expectancy than today. Something like 60 years instead of 75. But if you factor in infant mortality, you get a mean of only 30 years.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nPeople in the middle ages of course only have a life-expectancy of 30 years. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nPeople wear shoes of their time, in the middle ages for instance turned-shoes without heels.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nThe Hero wears 19th century heeled cavalry boots. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nThe joined hose\/trousers got out of style in the early middle ages, to be replaced by separate hoses. The joined hose comes back in the 15th century (with a codpiece).
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nThe Hero does not wear separate hoses. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nThe Romans ridiculed hoses, they called them “feminalia” implying only women would wear them. And certainly would not like to wear them.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nRomans wear hoses. Because the actors would feel nude, and it would conflict Hollywoods morality standards. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nMost cannon-balls are just that: balls of stone or iron. The explosive shell is a relatively recent invention; explosive ammunition appears in the 17th century and is only shot by mortars. The first explosive shell for a flat-trajectory-gun appears 1823.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nAll guns shoot explosive shells. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nPeople have weird haircuts in certain epochs. Long hair was considered a sign of nobility in the middle ages, and later a sign of a gentleman until the early 19th century (tough you could wear a powdered wig if you didn’t have long hair).
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nHairstyles mostly reflect the time when the movie was made. Thus we get short-haired Ivanhoes, long-haired WWII aviators, and crop-haired Tudors. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nThe widht of belts varies with the epoch. They Merowingians wore huge belts. So did one in the 17th century. But in the middle ages, they wore very thin belts, 1-2cm in width.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nIt’s supposed to be historical, so people have to wear huge belts, besides some other historical movies did it like that before. <\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nPeople sometimes are ugly.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nActors are not chosen by their likeness to the historical person they are supposed to represent, but according to their prominence. Behold the slim and handsome Henry VIII. And the straight-nosed Wellington.<\/p>\n

In History…<\/strong>
\nHeroes sometimes have a very dark side as murderers, rapists or slavers.
\nIn Hollywood… <\/strong>
\nAny dark deeds of the Hero are never shown, whereas the the designated Villain gets attributed every imaginable crime, including mass-murder, even if the historical evidence says otherwise. <\/p>\n

See Also<\/strong>
\nClassic Cliches for the Medieval Historical Movie<\/a>
\nTroy: Hollywood vs. Homer<\/a>
\nHollywood Rewrites History<\/a>
\nHollywood hokum: Fake history in films wipes out the facts learnt in class<\/a>
\nNovelist condemns Hollywood’s yen to rewrite history as cultural imperialism<\/a>
\nHollywood Censors History<\/a> (PDF)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In History… Heroes distinguish themselves by wearing elaborate cloth and headgear In Hollywood… Heroes distinguish themselves by wearing no headgear, no jacket (shirt only), and generally running around like the poorest peasant. In History… Heroes wear helmets in battle. In Hollywood… Heroes take off their helmets before battle. If they ever wore a helmet. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[51,52,100,53,54,55,50],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-filmkritik","category-history","tag-bloopers","tag-cliches","tag-history","tag-hollywood","tag-medieval","tag-middle-ages","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seegras.discordia.ch\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}