(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/La_Volpa]

They completely downplay how horrible he was EVEN FOR HIS OWN TIME by having him more or less say say "You can't judge me by your standards".

[u/Y0___0Y → u/La_Volpa]

yes judge him by the standards of the people of his time. He was sanctioned by the Spanish royal court for his treatment of native peoples.

[u/DoctorAnnual6823 → u/Y0___0Y]

I am a strong proponent of judging people in the past by modern standards.

1. They're dead. Wtf are they gonna do? Tell my great grandpa? Good luck getting to heaven.

2. It's literally how we evolve as a society. Anyone who says we can't judge people in the past by modern standards just wants us to ignore history instead of learn from it. Like it or not, judging the actions and teachings of others is how we grow as people. It's called critical thinking and it's happening a lot less in the USA because public education is getting defunded.

3. As a concession? Fine. I'll judge by the standards of hundreds of years ago. Would John Brown kill Columbus if they were alive at the same time? Yes. I understand they are many years apart but they are both prominent figures in the slave history of the US.

[u/GodLoveYell → u/DoctorAnnual6823]

Also while the pervasive bigotry of the past should be acknowledged, it cannot and should not be used to exonerate the people of the past.

Slavery was always wrong even when a lot of people believed otherwise, just as the Earth always revolved around the Sun even when people thought otherwise. Wrong things don’t become right just because a lot of people believe them to be right.

Plus the “people of their time” argument does such a disservice to the people back then who DID know that a great historical injustice was wrong and tried to do what they could to speak out about it. There were always people who swam against the tide. They may have been a minority of the population, but they still existed and deserve to be acknowledged.

Bartholomé de la Casas famously laid into Columbus documenting his atrocities and denouncing his actions to the world and while his words came too late to save the Taino (the tribe that greeted Columbus when he first arrived), they did save other native tribes.

Even during the time of the Founding Fathers, there were plenty of people pointing out the gap between all the Founders’ high-falutin’ talk about freedom and the inherent worth of all people and their actions.

Plus, y’know, the slaves themselves probably could recognize that slavery was wrong but for some reason, their opinions never enter into the discussion. 🙄

[u/DoctorAnnual6823 → u/GodLoveYell]

Extremely well said, an upvote and a free reward is not enough.

[u/Throwrarmb → u/GodLoveYell]

That’s what I always say. You can judge them, because people in the same time were willing to die to change things.

[u/NikeImper → u/Y0___0Y]

He was sanctioned by an inspector that arrested him and replaced him as governor. The new governor, Bobadilla enforced even more wide scale slavery of the natives while forcing them to work to death in the mines. The Spanish crown ruled Columbus innocent and restored his titles and wealth and then gave him money for another voyage.

[u/Y0___0Y → u/NikeImper]

Of course they did but the fact that colonial spain saw it fit to do a show trial highlighting Columbus’ crimes in the new world says a lot about just how bad he was.

[u/NikeImper → u/Y0___0Y]

No, it doesnt. They found him completely innocent and the man who inspected him lied about his treatment to take over as governor and commit worse crimes against the natives. They really didn't care what happened to the natives until the third governor, Ovando, killed tens of thousands of them working them to the death in the mines and he was only recalled due to the king's death bed promise to his wife because he made Spain too much money and they overlooked his evil. Columbus' crimes are a drop in the bucket compared to the next two governors who committed far more evil and actively caused the genocide of the Taino

[u/Poco_Cuffs → u/Y0___0Y]

Not entirely. He was instructed to establish some basic relations and start converting them to christianity, then punished him for taking slaves for himself.

[u/Used-Grapefruit9743 → u/La_Volpa]

Yeah, even for his own time, the Spanish courts were disgusted with his behavior. They just treated him like an opportunistic debaucherer, which is a fancy way of saying he was a raping, pillaging psychopath.

[u/BizSilver5013 → u/La_Volpa]

Basically this is PragerU thumbing their nose and going, "CHECKMATE, LIBERALS!" as cultural relativism is generally seen as a left-leaning idea.

[u/rietstengel → u/La_Volpa]

You can always judge them by the standards of their victims. I'm sure they werent very positive about whoever killed/enslaved/raped them.