Also terrifying is the research that shows that Americans get their history from films and video games. If we are to take another Ridley Scott film, Gladiator, as an example, we may as well hang our heads in shame. There is no way a Caesar would fight a gladiator in the Coliseum (and there is certainly no way that a gladiator would kill a Caesar in the Coliseum). The historical accuracy of the plot is preposterous (but it’s such an entertaining movie!). I also really liked Woelder’s suggestion of using a film as one source, and having it compared with another source. I found last night’s exercise using Black Hawk Down*, the Walter Clark interview, and statistics from the UN to be really interesting and helpful. I will absolutely try to use this in my own classroom. Having students critically look at a film and compare it as ONE source of information against others is a terrific way to enhance student’s media literacy. If students (and adults) are getting a good deal of their history education from Hollywood (shudder) this seems like an especially apt and worthy goal for history teachers: make students dissect a film and be critical consumers of its information. For Robin Hood, I could use the opening scene of laying siege to a French castle, and could also look for artwork of a siege or weapons used in a siege, and written descriptions of siege warfare. This would help students think critically about the film and not just treat watching a movie as a “break” from thinking.
*Ridley Scott is not paying me to talk up all his films, I swear.
Mary, I really appreciated your comment that as teachers we can pick and choose what will be useful in a lesson; i.e. if a film as a whole is historically inaccurate we do not have to show it in its entirety, or we can ask students to question what is historically inaccurate. I think teachers are often criticized for bringing popular culture into the classroom. However, if a teacher uses a piece of popular culture such as a novel, a film, or a song critically and appropriately they have done their job. The benefit to using popular culture is two fold, it teaches content and raises students' interest level. Because let's face it, watching Russel Crowe in battle is infinitely more interesting than watching a dry documentary on medieval battle techniques; at least for the average teenager.
ReplyDeleteFirst I have to say that you are not the only one who has they annoying distinction of pointing out movies historical in accuracies and being nerdy, I tend to do it all the time. It is very shocking though that so many students 'learn' most of their history through movies and video games. Yes there are historical aspects of all of these, but after reading this I now want to show even more movies in my classrooms just so I can tell the students, look this is not historically accurate. My favorite one is I had one student in middle school tell me that in the movie 300, the Spartans would have been actually crushed by an Elephant. It only took me about five minutes to convince him that Persia did not actually use elephants to fight with and that the movie was not completely accurate, he looked crushed after I told him this.
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