Chapter Five of NextText explores the idea of making and remaking history. In the introduction to the chapter, Kress and Winkle write:
...the field of history is wider and more complex; it includes biography, autobiography, graphic narrative, and texts written from competing theoretical perspectives (for example, feminist, conservative, libertarian, etc.). At base, all histories relate and interpret information about the past. Interpretation is critical because once historians move beyond simply providing a chronology of dates, they begin to shape our understanding of events by creating a narrative, a causal chain...History, then, is not a static field; rather, it is an ongoing dialogue with the past that is always informed by the present.Discuss how three of the following Chapter Five selections illustrate the idea that history is subjective and constantly changing.
- Clayborne Carson, "Malcolm X" (405)
- Sarah Vowell, "1776: A Musical about the Declaration of Independence" (413)
- "Frontlines: Dispatches from U.S. Soldiers in Iraq" (420)
- John Hodgman, "The States, Their Nicknames and Mottoes, and Other Facts Critical to Safe Travel" (432)
- Anne Scott MacLeod, "Rewriting History" (440)
- Ian Mortimer, "Revisionism Revisited" (450)
- Robert Brent Toplin, "Judging Cinematic History" (457)
- Lynn Neary, "The Mixed Reviews of the Museum of the American Indian" (464)
- John Leo, "Googling the Future" (471)
- "A Portfolio of Graphic Novels" (476)
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In the article “Rewriting History” Anne Scott MacLeod gives us some examples, based on many historical novels, of how much historical facts and narratives can be distorted by different writers. The point of view of a writer describing historical events shapes the interpretations of readers who are seeking insight on the event. For example, in the book ”Johnny Tremain” Eisther Forbes portrays the American Revolution as a fight for political freedom, while Robert Newton Peck’s ”Hang for Treasure” interprets the same event as “greed for land” rather than the attempt to gain liberty. Children’s books are a prime example of misinterpretation of history since these stories are often full of fiction and lack historical truth. As an example, Patricia MacLachlan describes in “Sarah, Plain and Tall” the life of a farm girl in the nineteenth century without talking about the toil that was an essential part of everyday life in that time. Anne Scott MacLeod believes that misrepresenting historical events is a result of the desire of writers to accommodate to contemporary sensibilities. The author states that even though human nature doesn’t change, human experience does. By denying historical truths writers fail to accept historical change. The article “Googling the Future” illustrates the idea that history is constantly changing. He predicts that by 2014 the press as we know it today will disappear and the new electronic media will take its place. With the development of electronic technology, not only does our perception of life change, but history in general changes as well.
In “Rewriting History,” Anne Scott MacLeod argues that authors of children’s historical fiction are more harmful than good by changing the past to fit our contemporary ideas. Authors narrate history and include their own interpretation, which alters the true history. MacLeod discusses how the authors ignore historical realities to accommodate political ideology. In the past thirty years, children’s books have been changed to fit the way Americans view the past. Historical writers want their audience to reflect modern ideas to understand the past, but MacLeod argues that people of the past were completely different than us. Times have changed and by interpreting modern ideas to understand history we are in denial of what was really happening in the past.
Clayborne Carson in “Malcolm X” illustrates how the modern spin on Malcolm’s life takes away from his true identity. The autobiography and the film attract a different audience. The book conveys the complexities Malcolm faced in his life. The film outlines Malcolm’s life story with contemporary scenes like the Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King and an epilogue showing Nelson Mandela. The film’s main focus is Malcolm’s days as a hustler, which attracts the young audience. The book depicts the current issues in African American life.
In “Googling the Future,” John Leo questions whether news should be tailored to each readers preference. He pretends it is the year 2014 and the news consists of blogs, preferences, claims, and random thoughts composed by random people and continued by ordinary people. Newspaper publishers are getting nervous because young people are resorting to the Internet for their news source. The Internet displays what people want that’s why it has more viewers. News is not about what you like and do not like, it is to give an idea of what is going on around you. Whether you like it or not the events happening around you are going be taking place, so might as well be informed of it.
In “Malcolm X,” Clayborne Carson examines the historical inaccuracies found in Spike Lee’s film about the life of the civil rights leader. Most of these discrepancies were added to the screenplay in an apparent attempt to make Malcolm into a simplified and sympathetic character. The film omits Malcolm’s evolving political views later in his life and instead focuses on “the self-destructive rebelliousness of Malcolm’s youth.” In addition, certain aspects of Malcolm’s history are altered: his abusive father is portrayed more heroically, the Nation of Islam is shown to be more involved in the civil rights movement, and several events from the last year of his life are not portrayed. Clayborne argues that the film does not truly embody Malcolm X’s beliefs, but merely condenses them for a modern audience.
Anne Scott MacLeod’s “Rewriting History” discusses how modern beliefs are often infused into historical accounts to make them more appealing to contemporary readers. This is said to be especially true in the case of children’s historical fiction, where historical fact is sometimes ignored to make a more pleasant story. MacLachlan’s Sarah, Plain and Tall is set on a farm, but fails to truly mention any of the hard labor that took place on farms of the time. MacLeod particularly criticizes Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle for its historical inaccuracy. The story, featuring a teenage girl who becomes captain of a ship, is said to be wholly impossible and misleading to those who read it. The quality of the stories themselves is not debated, but MacLeod cautions that critics who praise such stories as historically relevant are only harming the reader’s perceptions.
Robert Brent Toplin defends Hollywood’s creative take on history in “Judging Cinematic History.” Toplin argues that while there may be historical inaccuracies in a film, they should not replace the main idea in the audience’s mind. The film Glory is noted as having certain errors in terms of history; however, it is argued that such discrepancies are used to symbolically highlight the main ideas being conveyed. Toplin does admit that there is a limit to how much a film can get away with in terms of historical revision. He ultimately concludes, however, that a film needs artistic freedoms to make it more accessible to the general public.
In the article “Malcolm X”, Clayborne Carson examines how Spike Lee’s film distorts some of the facts of Malcom X’s life. There is a distinct difference between Spike Lee’s film and Malcolm’s true history in his autobiography. The film mainly portrays Malcolm X’s early life which includes the environment he grew up in and his struggle to become a civil rights leader. The film doesn’t really focus on the main parts of Malcolm X’s life like the events during the civil rights movements and his struggle as a leader. This can be due to the fact that Spike Lee chose to focus on specific aspects of Malcolm’s life, in a subjective manner, which then allows audiences to receive a distort perspective of Malcolm X’s life.
In the article “Rewriting History”, Anne Scott MacLeod discusses how historical facts can be skewed by authors who attempt to write historical fiction. The history revealed in those works is manipulate and shaped by the authors whose beliefs have an influence on the readers who attempt to gain some awareness of historical accounts. An example that is used is that of children’s historical fiction, which is said to hinder a child’s insight of history because of the disregard of the facts in the work. These historical writers attempt to recreate history using ideals and beliefs of their own time which conveys a subjective view on history. As time passes, authors will continue to instill their own subjective views of history in their works and therefore cause history to be constantly changing.
In the article “Googling the Future,” John Leo discusses how people will solely resort to the Internet as their source for news and media. He illustrates this by giving a scenario in which it is the year 2014 and the Internet has become the prime source for news by people, rejecting the newspapers and the press. This reveals that people are swaying toward a more accelerated efficient form of news which then shows how the times change and how everything is growing through history.
In "Malcolm X," Clayborne Carson makes points of how The Autobiography of Malcolm X has some inaccuracies. The film did not focus on some of the important facts of Malcolm's life which should have been included such as his activities outside the Nation of Islam. It ignores some of his important activities as well as change some of the facts about his life.
Anne Scott MacLeod in "Rewriting History" argues that authors of historical fiction for children are inaccurate as well. She notes that even though writers say that they know "what really happened" (MacLeod 440) they can't possible know the exact facts because they were not there at the time. Historians usually interpret what happened in their own words which could or could not be right. Children's literature and history books have been politicized over the years as well, not only that but they might change he facts by making them more pleasing to the readers. Sometimes human life is so complex that it is hard to give the exact facts on it. People in the past saw the world differently as well as act differently which makes it difficult to restate it on paper.
In "Googling the Future," John Leo notes that today it is difficult to get the exact facts about history especially on the internet. People constantly add on their own thoughts, opinions, claims and etc. The newspaper is the same way because reporters and writers try to get the readers attention and could possibly alter the facts of history. But now that newspaper are dying off and technology has evolved so much, people would rather read all this stuff online.
“Googling the Future” by John Leo tells us that the world is constantly changing. He tells us that by the year 2014 the media (aka,paprazzi, newspapers, magazines..etc)will no longer by be here but another form of electronic will take over. The new advancement of electronics will will change our lives and the way we view the world. So the advancement of electronics will change history as well.
In “Malcolm X”, Clayborne Carson demonstrates how the life of Malcolm X identifies who he really is. The movie attracted a lot of attention to people in the world and it affected some people. The movie of Malcolm’s life is a story portrayed in the cities of crime and Malcolm trying to evolve the political views that had focused in his younger years. Malcom tired to make a change in the world by letting us know what was happening in the society.
In “Rewriting History,” Anne Scott MacLeod quarrel that many book writers are being harmful to childerns books. They change the way the past is my using contemporary ideas and using it to narrate the history with their own. MacLeod issues how authors are ignore historical realities to accommodate political ideology.
Within the article,"Rewriting History" Anne Scott Macleod explains how history is constantly rewritten and revised based upon new cultural biases and interpretations of history. She also states that some of this history is politicized by those who hold different political philosophies. Anne Scott Macleod's points out the obvious, it is lucid that nearly all of American history textbooks that are brought into public schools are actually the Masonic version of American history. In this sense, different viewpoints become infused with history and distort the actual realities of our world.This practice of deception however, is not a first. Oftentimes history becomes distorted over the ages, where conflicts can become legends, and legends can turn to myths.
In "Googling the Future" John Leo introduces the concept of Googlezon (Amazon and Google along with many other corporations) as a joint corporate world that feeds the public a computerized version of the news. This parallels our own American news networks and can explain why Fox News (A GOP news line) has stretched so many truths and censored others who speak out against Faux News. People hear only what they want to hear. And Googlezon is simply John Leo's explanation of why news lines are driven to connect with their readers.
Within the article "Judging Cinematic History" Robert Brent Toplin justifies the actions of films that stretch the truth or highlight certain aspects of a central concept to connect with their broad audience. Toplin explains that this is almost a necessity to be able to produce a film for the movie to bring home something to the audience and that films do need artistic freedom within the industry. This is why history is distorted by the media and is always misinterpreted by the uninformed, unquestioning public.
The article "Rewriting History" by Anne Scott MacLeod, describes how writers have used previous events in time to describe how they will affect the future. The two articles, "Googling the Future" and "Frontlines: Dispatches from U.S. Soldiers in Iraq" both describe how certain written documents affect how people will view the future. With knowing what has happened in the past, will give knowledge for the future. All articles give way to the saying. "the past repeats itself". "Googling the Future" describe the year 2014 when press is no longer a means to receive information, but instead, people turn to a new form of google; the website that combined with Amazon. "Frontlines..." discusses soldiers stationed in Iraq, writing about the events surrounding them. The soldiers felt it was important to keep family and friends up-to-date with current events.Each article describes how written history will change the aspect of how people view the future. The articles are both pieces that write about history and the importance of recording each event. However, the way events are recorded may not necessarily be the most important detail.
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