fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4681 ]

[ SECRET POST #4681 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4681 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 17 secrets from Secret Submission Post #670.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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05. https://i.imgur.com/3xN9B3y.png

Because for a long time, and to some extent still, people acted like historical or technical mistakes in a movie were objectively bad.

When a movie claims to be true history but actually is not remotely like the actual story, that is objectively bad. If they would say something like "inspired by," then that is acknowledging that they are inspired by history but changing a lot to suit the story they want to tell. But claiming they are giving us history when they aren't is lying and is bad.

We're not talking about documentaries here, we're talking about fictional movies.

Fictional movies can do what they want. In real movies that claim to be about real people like, for example, William Wallace, historical inaccuracies are objectively flaws. The number and type of flaws that make a movie bad is subjective.

Even if it claims to be about a historical person, it's still a fictional movie about that person. Filmmakers may choose to go away from the historical record for all kinds of creative reasons and that's a perfectly valid thing for them to do. It's unfortunate that a lot of people get their historical knowledge from movies but that doesn't change movies' ability to do whatever makes most sense creatively.

NAYRT, but fictional movies based on a historical time period aren’t usually presented as “writer and director so-and-so’s historical AU,” even when they should be.

They're fictional movies set in a historical time period or about historical people. They're not ever going to be the literal historical truth. That doesn't make them an AU.

Historical or technical mistakes usually are bad, though, or at least aren’t a net positive. Deliberately introducing shakycam for effect isn’t the same as not having the expertise to work camera equipment, and having 10th century Irishmen eat potatoes isn’t the same as giving a movie about 10th century Irishmen a classic rock score, or whatever. Mistake= “we were careless or didn’t give a fuck about research.” Deliberate anachronism= “yeah, we know it’s not what really happened but this would be cool anyway.”

Not caring about historical exactitude is a choice.

AYRT—and in my view, not caring about historical fact—not even necessarily exactitude, but just basic shit like “no new world crops in Europe prior to 1492” is lazy unless the creators have a creative/artistic reason beyond “eh we dgaf.”

You don't have to enjoy it but it's not an objective fault with the work, it's something that you personally dislike.

AYRT—we’re talking about film here. What in your view constitutes and objectively faulty movie? If you (is it you?) keep saying that the only purpose of film is to entertain, and I’m not entertained by a film, is it only not bad if someone else enjoys it more than I disliked it?

If you hated a movie for being ridiculously scrupulous about dye colors and period background music and appropriate livestock and period-accurate given names etc, and I loved it because I found it entertaining and you found it a snoozefest, would it be a successful movie?

In general, I think the closest thing to an objective standard to evaluate movies is how well the movie achieves the aesthetic goals that it sets out to achieve. If accuracy and realism are aesthetically important to what the movie is trying to do, and the movie fucks it up, then in those cases, it would be a reasonably objective critique to point it out (obviously, it's also difficult in practice to determine what a movie is in fact setting out to accomplish). It's when the lack of realism is an aesthetic problem that interferes with the larger creative thrust of hte movie.

Then on the other hand, you can also critique what a movie is trying to accomplish aesthetically, what its goals and its creative purpose is - but at that point, it's really a subjective critique.

And I think usually, when people make this kind of argument, they're usually doing the second thing - critiquing a movie for being unrealistic when it has no bearing on what the movie is actually trying to do creatively. So I would consider that subjective. And sometimes a person will hate a movie even though it's creatively successful (this is how I feel about most Kubrick movies, for example), or like a movie even if it creatively fails. So to answer your question -

If you hated a movie for being ridiculously scrupulous about dye colors and period background music and appropriate livestock and period-accurate given names etc, and I loved it because I found it entertaining and you found it a snoozefest, would it be a successful movie?</i? You loving it and me hating it, both of those are subjective reactions that don't have a bearing on whether the movie was successful or not.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2019-10-31 08:29 (UTC) - Expand

People act like it's morally superior? Seriously?

For one, I truly doubt this is the case beyond like, one squabble on f!s.

My only problem with people who allegedly care about historical inaccuracies is they're never really trained in history and often are wrong in their critiques, so at some point it's just exhausting.

eh, I've seen it frequently in reactions to blogs like Tyranny of Style that skewer the accuracy of costuming or makeup or props/sets, things that ultimately may not matter but are quite clearly inaccurate. most of the people that do the skewering are tongue in cheek to a point, they know it's not a hill to die on but they still need to point it out because there are people who get the wrong idea just because it was in a historical movie. case in point, the myth that all corsets are bad for your back. they're out there to provide good information. and then in come the fans acting like the biggest sin in fandom is to point out an inaccuracy, hdu crush my fun, lighten up it's just a costume, etc etc etc.

whoops I tl;dred but yes I have seen it in other places than f!s, secret OP is not wrong.

People act like this because the people moaning about historical inaccuracies are obnoxious as fuck.

You ever encounter some pseudo-physicist constantly reminding everyone that there's no sound in space and so Star Wars is scientifically inaccurate and shouldn't have been allowed to be made? And the longer they go on, the more you realize they're acting like this because they think that this is how smart people act, even though people who actually understand physics don't really care if movies get the physics right as long as they're good and/or the director's not actually trying to sell the movie as scientifically accurate.

Yeah. That's how people who wangst about historical accuracy come across. They don't come across as people who actually understand history. They come across as pseudo-intellectuals who don't understand movies.

I'm so sorry they get backlash, the poor dears.

And the longer they go on, the more you realize they're acting like this because they think that this is how smart people act, even though people who actually understand physics don't really care if movies get the physics right as long as they're good and/or the director's not actually trying to sell the movie as scientifically accurate.

Not necessarily true? (Unless you are literally only speaking of people who understand physics rather than just using that as an example.) I know a lot of people who can't watch shows about their fields of study/professions because inaccuracies bother them too much. Like I cannot watch The Good Doctor, despite many people/critics saying it is a great show, because of an early scene that was just so incredibly wrong it threw me completely out of suspension of disbelief. So yeah, a lot of people do care and would prefer accuracy if at all possible.

People who want accuracy exist in every field, but on the internet people complaining about accuracy are almost always speaking of historical accuracy.

This.

I've seen so many scientific inaccuracies in tv series and I don't even have a college degree, yet I've never heard scientists complain half as much as historical nitpickers.

I've never seen someone who doesn't care about inaccuracies painting themselves as superior to who does care either, but TONS of the opposite. And they complain SO MUCH.

If you're getting pushback like you claim (which don't think that you are) then it's probably because a) it's 2k19 and you still think movies would ever be historically accurate and b) most of us don't think history is that interesting and if we cared about it, we'd read a college textbook. The sole purpose of a movie is to be entertaining.

I personally find obvious inaccuracies that I, as a not particularly well educated person, can still pick up on to be the entertainment equivalent of going out to eat and realizing my salad has grit in it.

Like, I’m not entertained by ostensibly historical movies that don’t either make a conscious choice to go “anachronisms for everyone, fuck yeah this is fun!” or alternatively to at least make an effort to not have, idk, a doctor in 14th century Prague warning everyone about the dangers of bacterial cross-contamination.

If there’s gonna be blatantly wrong shit happening in a historical movie, I want it to be because it’ll make a comedy funnier, or draw a more obvious parallel with an equivalent modern situation, or for some other considered reason that’s not “people don’t care about facts or history, only sex and explosions and witty one liners, so we as screenwriters/directors don’t give a shit either.”

i mean, sure, but not meeting your personal preferences is not necessarily failure in a movie, is it? there is an audience for movies which put their focus elsewhere.
mind you i share your taste, but for example the popularity of police procedurals tells me a lot of ppl don't give a fuuuuuuuuck about any degree of accuracy and so producing things that way is valid.

Not doing the research is extremely lazy and worrying when the work is actually supposed to depict true events.

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