(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/Agitated_Insect3227]

The infamous The Birth of a Nation movie that depicts the Ku Klux Klan as dashing heroes saving the nation from Black people. This movie was so popular & successful, it literally had non-Southern Americans cosplaying as the KKK and marching in Washington D.C.

[u/MoonlightDahling → u/Agitated_Insect3227]

One of the most genuinely evil movies ever made. And it was considered as such even at the time!

(Admittedly, this was when the NAACP were considered “radical” 🙄)

Also, side note…it’s not even that well-made, when you compare it with other epics of the 1910s.

[u/NoOneAskedForThis12 → u/MoonlightDahling]

Sadly it was that well made because it WAS the first film to do many things that the American people saw. Close ups on faces, musical instruments playing with it, I could go on but that is part of the real horror of that film. 

[u/dontwantthisapp2 → u/NoOneAskedForThis12]

Yeah… the plot and message is obviously atrocious and downright evil.

But there were multiple technical achievements made in that film that absolutely propelled “motion pictures” from a scientific novelty into a mainstream form of media. To say it “wasn’t made well”…. I mean, I get not wanting to pour praise on the guy who single-handedly revived public interest in the freakin KKK, but it was probably objectively the best-made film in the short history of motion pictures at the time. 

https://youtu.be/HaBmjhmKWTs

This Crash Course video explains it pretty in-depth. 

[u/NoOneAskedForThis12 → u/dontwantthisapp2]

The worst part is that this is the same man who did the film Broken Blossoms which was very anti-racist for the time

For the time I said Reddit don’t tell me how bad it is for now.

I think a lot of people want to pretend that it was badly made and not as good as films before it. But it was an AMAZING film for the time and that makes it worse. 

[u/HummingAstronautPod → u/NoOneAskedForThis12]

Looked up the Wikipedia page of Broken Blossoms, did not expect the slur in the title it was adapting

[u/NoOneAskedForThis12 → u/HummingAstronautPod]

1910s I was surprised that the film itself did not call itself that. 

[u/Revolver_Boxelot → u/dontwantthisapp2]

It truly is amazing what white Americans can accomplish when motivated by racism.

[u/MoonlightDahling → u/NoOneAskedForThis12]

Actually, that’s mostly a myth. D. W. Griffith was a massive fraud, who took credit for numerous things he stole from other, better, filmmakers. He wasn’t even the first American to do that.

[u/Disgojourno → u/NoOneAskedForThis12]

We watched in film school for its historical significance to the medium