Artistic License to Kill

The arts have been misrepresenting history for as long as there has been history or the arts. Some people might say, "Well, history is written by the winners, anyway, and may not be what really happened. So, what's the big deal?" Maybe long ago there was the danger of studying the past inaccurately, but we have enough differing sources of events and people, along with technological advances like DNA analysis, to have gotten a pretty good handle on things. Yet, creative folks continue to "tell it like it wasn't" through their books, drama, music, and paintings. George Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But, is it any better if we remember it wrong?

Don't worry, you're not about to be inundated with comparisons of history and art, because my purpose in this post is not to deal with the many ways artists have taken liberties with everything that's ever happened. What interests me here is this question: Is it irresponsible of writers to knowingly make real people look worse than they actually were? My position is that it can be, depending on how the representation is handled.

Turn George Washington into a cannibal, as the author of The Washingtonians did, and you should be on safe ground, because the Father of Our Country enjoys an exalted image that's not at any risk from horror writers. If you "reveal" that Queen Elizabeth the First's papa was secretly a werewolf, in the manner of A.E. Moorat's Henry VIII: Wolfman, I don't think too many people will be misled. These are outrageous "claims" about two of history's most famous--and thus well-documented--men, who can be fictionalized without a fuss. But artistic license can be a dangerous tool when used on certain people and events.

To start with a pretty old example, I draw your attention to a famous Scottish fellow named Macbeth. On the face of things, and without digging into them, you might assume there is no way someone so well known and written about could have been treated unfairly by the arts. Yet, our most highly esteemed English-language scribe did present this medieval king of Scotland in a light he didn't deserve. The real Macbeth probably did kill his predecessor, Duncan, but that guy was a brutal tyrant who had also come to power through murder. What Mac didn't do was fall apart mentally, try to kill everyone he considered a threat to the throne, or lose the crown (and his crown) shortly after gaining it. He actually ruled fairly peacefully and well for ten years, after which he was traitorously assassinated by Malcolm. It's a very different picture from that created by Shakespeare, since he was writing to please King James, who claimed to be a descendant of one of Macbeth's victims. The real story did exist in print at the time, but the Bard chose instead to use the propagandized version for his basis, and thus Macbeth's reputation was ruined for all time.

Moving forward to the work of a living playwright, but still dealing with a long-dead person, I choose the case of Amadeus, Peter Shaffer's brilliant drama about Mozart and his musical colleague, Antonio Salieri. The play revolves around Salieri and his jealous hatred for the prodigy Mozart, and it ends with the Italian driving the Austrian into an early grave. It was only long after seeing Milos Forman's film adaptation that I learned Salieri was guilty only of being an inferior composer; Mozart died of a common infection. Still, the damage is done, and I know I'm not the only person ever fooled into despising the innocent Salieri.

Staying with the theme of historical killers, I can think of few more notorious than Jack the Ripper. The difference here is that we don't actually know who he was, though many people have shared many theories, one of which was that he was Dr. William Gull, the highly respected physician to Queen Victoria who murdered five prostitutes to protect a royal secret. Obviously, a library full of books has been published expounding on the identity and motives of the Ripper, so of course names have been dragged through the literary mud. But the theory of the royal physician has been all but disproven, which writer Alan Moore knew when he began his comic-book epic From Hell. In fact, Moore stated in the accompanying notes that he didn't believe the Gull speculation, but that didn't stop him from making the poor M.D. into an insane, misogynistic butcher. And how many people read supplementary notes to a text--especially a graphic novel--anyway? So, there are no doubt readers out there spitting on the memory of a man who was nothing worse than the queen's doctor.

There are plenty more examples to draw upon for my little thesis, but I believe these three are sufficient to show you my view that writers really should tread carefully and respectfully over graves in the historical cemetery. And, if you're going to dig these inoffensive people up to parade around in your own pageant, please try to put them back the way you found them.

#comics #fiction #drama #history