9 Horrible Facts About Historical Figures They Purposely Don't Want You To Know

• 11:53 pm June 27, 2022
• suhas

So you know how movies aren't true? The equivalent goes for biopics. Everyone makes mistakes, and in the event that all biopics introduced absolutely precise depictions of their subjects, we wouldn't have a ton of feel-good stories in Hollywood. Would anyone have wanted that A Beautiful Mind should win the Best Picture Oscar if they thought Russell Crowe's personality was a racist deviant? also. That quite occurred. That was certainly not a good example. However, reality stands: biopics need to compromise to recount balanced stories, and it's frequently simpler to leave out the less-engaging story beats. Nobody will get chills when they're informed that their film legend is a child molester.

'Kundun' Leaves Out Torture And Human Slavery

History - and popular society - recollect the Tibetan priests as survivors of Communist China's awful mid-century takeover of Tibet. The reality is much more complicated. Before China attacked the Tibetans' country, the 'peaceful' monks frequently kept and tortured human slaves. They likewise strained and abused most Tibetans people under their rule.

Martin Scorsese's Kundun, which follows the life of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th and current Dalai Lama, paints Tibetans as nonviolent victims for the sake of story. Before the 1997 movie arrived, this myth had already been promulgated by the monks themselves in an effort to curry national favor.

'Gandhi' Slept With Underaged Girls

Everybody, including the Oscar-winning Gandhi, expects that Mahatma Gandhi was ethically pristine in light of the fact that he was starving all the time. Not the case, as it turns out, the bold, serene legend of Colonial India was somewhat of a pervert. As a 'test' of his piety and purity, he would sleep next to young girls - including his grand-niece - and force himself not to touch them or become aroused.

This disrespect for women fell in line with his documented assertion that menstrual blood is a "manifestation of the distortion of a woman's soul by her sexuality." Oh and he also believed that Black people are sub-human. But Ben Kingsley's acting (and brownface), tho.

'The Miracle Worker' Ignores That Helen Keller Was Wildly Into Eugenics

It's absolutely impossible that that The Miracle Worker, a 1962 film about tutor Anne Sullivan teaching Helen Keller friendship, self-assurance, and trust, wouldn't encourage crowds. Helen Keller is viewed as one of the most heroic individuals ever, and for good reason: however blind and deaf from a young age, she proceeded to get a Bachelor of Arts and rouse individuals across the nation through lectures and writings.

Despite her own disadvantages, however, she still didn't believe that other disadvantaged people should be allowed to coexist with normal citizens. In the early 20th century, as the international public began to embrace eugenics - AKA the process of filtering out undesired traits from the gene pool through breeding and genetic experiments - Keller was one of the first to write:

"It is the possibility of happiness, intelligence and power that give life its sanctity, and they are absent in the case of a poor, misshapen, paralyzed, unthinking creature.”

She also added that allowing a "defective" child to die was simply a “weeding of the human garden that shows a sincere love of true life.”

Apparently, Helen Keller didn't want any competitors for the title of "most inspirational blind/deaf person in history."

'Remember The Titans' Forgot To Mention That Herman Boone Was A Massive Jerk

Who can forget Remember the Titans, the inspirational sports drama from 2000 that tells the story of Black and white football players coming together - despite the unbelievably high racial tension of their recently integrated high school - under the courageous tutelage of their coach, Herman Boone, played by Denzel Washington? And Herman Boone doesn't just bring the players together; he brings the entire Virginia town into peaceful unity around his championship-winning Titans.

Here's the thing, though, that wasn't actually what Herman Boone was like - at least according to his former players. In reality, a few seasons after the the events portrayed in Remember the Titans had taken place, Herman Boone left T.C. Williams High School in disgrace; his players and coaching staff had mutinied against him and his dictatorial coaching style and verbal and physical abuse. According to former player Greg Paspatis, Boone definitely treated all of his players equally - equally terribly.

"Herman Boone treated everyone one horribly, no matter what race," Paspatis remembered. That probably would have for a less-inspirational film, though.

'The Iron Lady' Magically Erased Margaret Thatcher's Racism And Homophobia

The 2013 passing of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent ripples all through the British citizens, with some memorializing her lasting effect for British politics and others reflecting upon her less-charming qualities. The 2011 biopic Iron Lady seemed to fall in the former camp, as it failed to include Thatcher's toxic attitudes towards non-whites and non-straights.

According to close associates of the Iron Lady (played by Meryl Streep in an Oscar-winning turn), she stubbornly stigmatized LGBT people in legislation and encouraged Australia to block immigration from Asia.

'A Beautiful Mind' Overlooked John Nash's Anti-Semitism And Sexual Assault

Yep, this beautiful, heartfelt movie about overcoming mental illness and finding true love was also about a rape, closeted gay man who hated Jewish people. Although John Nash and his wife deny any allegations that he slept with men, the records prove otherwise. Several of his male friends from young adulthood have gone public about Nash's awkward passes at them. There's also plenty of proof that Nash had ill feelings towards Jewish people, but he has since blamed those actions on being crazy.

These allegations were actually used against A Beautiful Mind in one of the nastiest Oscar-smear campaigns of recent history.