HISTORICAL Fiction or Historical FICTION?

Did you see “Hidden Figures”, the movie about three women who worked at NASA and helped get John Glenn orbiting Earth? I loved the movie, like everyone else, but I did have trouble with the historical accuracy.

And, look, I know that most people (well, my friends) don’t agree with me on what Hollywood can do with facts. Heck, they invented “alternate facts”. Hold on to your seat. This is going to be a long one.

If I see a movie that is historical fiction or one that purports to be “based on true events”, I go fact-checking after viewing. I have to research what they got right and what they twisted.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love researching things of interest and have done so for nearly six decades. But movies? C’mon! The fact that I feel the need to fact-check is sorta sad, don’t you think?

I’m not even talking about the dialogue that is constructed to move the story along. We all know that even with the best documentation, not everything was recorded. So I give latitude, and we all should, for dialogue as long as it doesn’t blatantly contradict what we know about a person’s stance on issues discussed.

No, I’m offended by the Hollywood-ization of historical films, making changes for dramatic effect or to place a different focus on the event. If it’s a good story, tell it accurately. If it’s not a good story, find another one.

A writer friend and I had this very discussion recently. Since she writes historical fiction herself, I knew she was a stickler for accuracy. So it surprised me when she defended Hollywood-ization on the basis on trying to appeal to a larger audience and up the tension and drama so as to hook people on historical events and people. I argued that if a book is a best seller, you already know it’s popular, so just stick to the script, so to speak. We agreed to disagree.

Here are a few examples:

Gone with the Wind

My quest began with “Gone with the Wind”, re-released in the 1960s.

This movie was when I first noticed differences between a book and the movie. Likely it was the first time I had read something made into a movie. Scarlett was not an admirable woman, but when I saw her gladly toss her wedding ring into the collection for gold to be melted down, I remembered the scene in the book differently. The book is darker and Scarlett is revealed as much more Machiavellian and evil even than she comes across in the movie. In the movie you see flashes of concern for others on occasion; not in the book. The movie also downplayed Scarlett being grabbed in Shantytown. In the book the assailant is black, and in the movie, white. In the book we know that the men around Scarlett are in the KKK, but that’s not explicit in the movie. She is a terrible mother to three children in the book, but not in the movie where she is superficial and distracted. We know in the book Melanie has no milk for her baby and it is starving, also not mentioned in the movie. And so it went on. That was the first time I wondered if there was a responsibility for fidelity to truth in storytelling. Hollywood was into “alternate facts” before it was chi chi.

Gladiator

Russell Crowe is a composite of the many generals named Maximus, but Marcus Aurelius (yes, that Marcus Aurelius) and his son, Commodus, were real. However, unlike the movie, Commodus likely did not kill his father. The movie also gave Commodus a non-existent sister for dramatic effect.

Both the Coliseum and the gladiatorial combats appear to historically accurate, but the audience gave an historically inaccurate “thumbs down” to let a gladiator die. Commodus was even more of a narcissist and megalomaniac than was portrayed, and his government wanted him gone. Interestingly, rather than being killed by Maximus in the arena as the film depicts, a wrestler named Narcissus killed him in his bath. The assassination was planned by his advisors and his mistress.

Lincoln

Even with its hugely accurate portrayal of the events surrounding the passing of the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, Hollywood couldn’t keep from inventing a scene of Lincoln slapping his oldest son is the most unlikely of scenarios. Lincoln was indulgent with his children and averse to “parental tyranny”. And there is no certainty that Representative Stephens had made his housekeeper his mistress. Rumors have no place in a film purporting to be historically accurate. Why include them? Beyond titillation, what was the purpose? Other unlikely scenes, based on what is known of Lincoln? Swearing at his cabinet to get their support for the amendment. Black soldiers sneering and talking back to the President. Lincoln was larger than life. Being totally accurate, as best as possible, would not have taken away from the film one tad.

Hidden Figures

Mary Jackson was the first African-American woman engineer for NASA. She was indeed encouraged to go to school to become an engineer by the man she was assigned to work for. But rather than happening contemporaneously with the John Glenn orbiting in 1962, she had her degree and was a NASA engineer in 1958. Why isn’t that remarkable enough?

Dorothy Vaughn was hired by NACA (predecessor of NASA) during World War II. In 1948, 14 years before the movie time frame, she was made the first black supervisor. In the movie, she was passed over time and again as supervisor in the movie’s time frame. Why isn’t her story remarkable enough?

Katherine Johnson, the main figure, did not have to run a half mile each way to the restroom. That didn’t happen. Nor did the destruction of the sign for “colored women’s restroom.” NASA abolished segregated wings in 1958. Katherine Johnson says she was treated as a peer and did not experience the racism among co-workers that the film shows. That is not to downplay the racism outside the workplace, however.

The women didn’t ride to work together, but that’s okay. That bit of Hollywood-ization allowed for character development and is minor in the scheme of things. The movie makers compressed these women’s stories to fit the movie’s dramatic Glenn circling the globe. But why? I am fascinated with their accomplishments apart from Glenn even though that was part of their story, too.

As one film review in The National stated:

These women deserve to be celebrated, but director Theodore Melfi has allowed heart to rule head. Such factual inaccuracies do more harm than good – by embellishing injustice, you risk creating easy fodder for dark, reactionary forces to seize upon. There was no need to exaggerate the evils of segregation – and doing so threatens to cloud Hidden Figures’s well-intentioned cause. 

Back in the day, I taught children’s literature to both undergraduate and graduate students. I made the case that there is historical fiction and historical fiction. The emphasis being on which one has more weight. We expect and accept less accuracy in historical fiction, but for some reason when we see movies, we think what we see is all accurate. Generations of Americans think they are learning history when they see films. Maybe not so much.

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Welcome!

All I need is another blog, but what the heck! With this new pen name I am launching another genre focus.

Caroline Adams writes historical fiction and middle-grade biographies of intrepid women. She/I have always been a history aficionado. That is, in terms of definition, not one who is “very knowledgeable”; rather one who is “enthusiastic about an activity, subject, or pastime”. But I love learning, and the research I do for historical fiction is engaging and invigorating.

I have dozens of what I call “tickler files” with story ideas in historical fiction ranging from pre-history, biblical, Southwest Native Americans, the plagues, and onward, dipping into eras like sampling fine wines. A dilettante? Perhaps. I prefer to think of it as wildly curious about too many things to ever explore in this lifetime. I’ll have to reincarnate to finish them all up.

Hmm. Maybe that’s the reason for my passion for the past.

My first completed novel, Lucinda, takes place in two time periods with the chapters alternating between the early and late 20^th centuries. It’s a mystery and a romance. What did happen to Great-great Aunt Lucinda in 1910 Athens, Ohio? I’ve met with some agents and editors who have expressed an interest in this book. Stay tuned for updates—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

My newest foray is writing middle-grade (ages 8-12) biographies about little-known intrepid women. I have been researching more than a dozen, but the first one I’m writing is Elizabeth Jennings Graham who, a hundred years before Rosa Parks, brought about the desegregation of the New York City transit system. Women like that should be known. I intend to bring their remarkable and inspirational stories to children.

In this blog, I’ll share stories like Elizabeth’s and I’ll talk about aspects of writing historical fiction and biographies.

I hope you’ll be back! And share the word if you like what you see here.