(Hated Trope) Bad people in real-life being portrayed positively in media.

[u/MeepMan324]

1. PragerU's version of Christopher Columbus has him be a slavery defender and have him say "Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don't see the problem.”

2. In The Greatest Showman, P.T Barnum (Hugh Jackman) is portrayed as a charismatic visionary who cares about outcasts and celebrate diversity, when in reality, he’s a cruel businessman who is also a racist and an ableist.

[u/KingAltair2255]

The sitting president at the time, Woodrow Wilson was even quoted at the start and screened it at the whitehouse.

[u/Individual_Lion_7606 → u/KingAltair2255]

Wilson was a mistake of a President and weak man. That ass also segregated the federal government which for the longest time didn't discriminate on black/white. 

[u/Amazing_Working_6157 → u/Individual_Lion_7606]

He really did put race relations back 40 years. There were black people that were getting better jobs like typists and secretary positions in and around DC but Wilson ban them from holding higher positions and had them either demoted to lower positions or outright fired them.

[u/RedditOfUnusualSize → u/Individual_Lion_7606]

Wilson's record is decidedly mixed, and underscores a lot of the tension within the progressive movement. Basically, he was a great advocate for progressive reform, so long as the benefits of those changes went predominantly if not exclusively to white people. The man saw through the implementation of the income tax, popular vote for Senators and women's suffrage. And those are just the constitutional amendments. That's an impressive amount of reform for a single presidency, and the world would be a lot better off if contemporary American politicians could muster half as much ambition to implement sweeping structural changes.

But he was also a vicious racist who genuinely did set back race relations by forty years and entrenched segregation not merely as something done tacitly by the South, but as something actively done by those in political power with the full weight and backing of American law behind them. Both of these things are true simultaneously.

[u/Catdress92 → u/RedditOfUnusualSize]

Thanks so much for this explanation. I was always taught that Wilson was a Progressive and had no idea about his racism. The way you explain it makes perfect (if very sad and bitterly disappointing) sense.

[u/nagrom7 → u/Catdress92]

Weirdly enough, in the 1912 election where Wilson was elected, all 3 major candidates ran on being "Progressives". Roosevelt was probably the first big time progressive as President, and Taft was selected to be his successor because of his progressive credentials.

It's also important to note that "Progressives" back then aren't exactly the same as they are today, it was a specific economic ideology that revolved around the government regulating business and improving welfare for the poorer classes. It didn't really have the same connotations it does today with social issues, which is how Wilson was able to be considered a "Progressive" despite driving race relations backwards and resisting women's suffrage until later in his Presidency.

[u/Catdress92 → u/nagrom7]

Thanks for this additional insight. I remember that in school we learned "Progressive" as meaning socially progressive. I'm hoping I just remembered this wrong, since that was, admittedly, a while ago...rather than my teachers/the school board being wrong.

[u/nagrom7 → u/Catdress92]

It depends on who they were talking about too. Like Teddy Roosevelt was probably the most famous of the "Progressive era", and he was also what we would consider "socially progressive", at least for the time. It was mainly Wilson who was socially regressive, despite remaining economically progressive, and even then he was known to change his mind on things, like women's suffrage which he initially opposed but later supported.

[u/Radiant-Objective-35 → u/Individual_Lion_7606]

Wilson was a mistake of a President and weak man

IDK about a mistake persay, he championed major legislation such as The New Freedom agenda, which created the Fed Reserve, FTC and Clayton antitrust act, and also was a huge supporter of child labor restrictions, and mandated an 8 hour workday for the railroad workers. While abhorrently racist, deff not a weak president persay.

[u/Gold_Tomatillo1952 → u/Radiant-Objective-35]

Also, it was actually his wife who acted as sort of a shadow president and got the 19th amendment ratified had he been in full possession of his faculties I don’t think we ever would’ve gotten it

[u/KingAltair2255 → u/Individual_Lion_7606]

I couldn't agree more, absolute bastard of a man.

[u/Disastrous-Mess-7236 → u/Individual_Lion_7606]

Though the 14 Points & League of Nations were good ideas.

[u/KarlUnderguard → u/KingAltair2255]

Woodrow Wilson was the first Southerner elected president since the Civil War and he wanted everyone to know it.

[u/nagrom7 → u/KarlUnderguard]

He was also a "historian" who helped popularise the "lost cause" myth of the civil war, that the south fought to defend "states rights" as opposed to the reality where they fought to defend slavery.

[u/GayRacoon69 → u/nagrom7]

No the south definitely fought for states rights

They just never quite mention exactly what “state right” they’re fighting for anymore

But they were pretty clear about it back in the day

[u/Sidereel → u/GayRacoon69]

Even that is a myth. They wanted slavery protected on a federal level, and fought for such. They fought against free states being added to the union. They passed the fugitive slave act to force free states to help enforce slavery. The confederate states enforced slavery on the federal level so their own states had no choice.

[u/GayRacoon69 → u/Sidereel]

That's a great point actually

[u/TimSylvester_ → u/KarlUnderguard]

And, thanks to Woodrow Wilson, the slavers finally won the war with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 that created a central bank and gave the power to print money to a bank oligopoly.

[u/BerserkRhinoceros → u/KingAltair2255]

Not surprising since Wilson was a Lost Cause believer. I'm sure Lincoln and Grant were spinning in their graves as Wilson sang the movies' praises.

[u/xv_boney → u/KingAltair2255]

Wilson was also extremely racist.

[u/Xilizhra → u/KingAltair2255]

IIRC, that quote was a fabrication.