I'm not in the documentary business and facts are for SISSIES

There has been a big hullaballoo lately about a lack of diversity in movies -- and particularly in Oscar-nominated movies. This post is not about that, not really. This post is about history. QUICK DICTIONARY TIME. For this post, we'll define history as: stories about people who are all dead now. I know, I know, history is always happening all around us all the time, so a lot of people are still alive at the moment that are important to history, but we gotta start somewhere, so we'll say that history is about dead people, kk?

Look! Some history! Sorta!!!!

Let's talk about Hamilton. Wait. Back up. Let's talk about "historical accuracy." A few years ago Clint Eastwood made a movie called Flags of our Fathers, which was about the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima and what happened to the guys in the picture after the picture got famous. Clint Eastwood (who, it is becoming obvious, is kind of an asshole and maybe not even a great director, but definitely the father of some foxy, foxy kids) at the time got a lot of criticism for not having a single African American soldier in the movie. (He also cast Michael Pena as Native American Ira Hayes, which I can't remember if people didn't like or not.) Anyway, back then, Eastwood's main argument was that he was going for HISTORICAL ACCURACY, SPIKE LEE, OKAY?, and there weren't any black soldiers in the movie because in WWII the units were segregated and the fact was there actually weren't any black marines present at the flag-raising in real life. Spike Lee and others did not like this, for obvious reasons, and eventually Spielberg had to get involved to break up the old-man fistfight, because I guess he's like everybody's mom.

Flash-forward to 2015 and Suffragette. Now, if you've been following along, you'll know that Suffragette got into hot water for almost exactly the same reasons, only here there was no Spielberg to sort it out with milk and cookies. Suffragette, which about the women's right-to-vote movement in the 1912ishes in England, doesn't have any people of color in it either -- doesn't have any women of color participating in this otherwise kickass lady victory. And then there was this t-shirt thing. Not great.

What do we want? HISTORICAL ACCURACY! When do we want it? ALWAYS!!!! unlessit'snarrativelyinconvenient

See, that, to me, was the extra-crazy part about the Suffragette debacle -- they actually went with the Eastwood party-line of WE ARE GOING FOR HISTORICAL ACCURACY, so no black people. And, yeah, they're right; there WEREN'T many/any women of color involved in this particular part of the suffragette movement in history, but that's because they were being deliberately excluded, even then. Admittedly, England wasn't super diverse at the time, but definitely around the world, women of color, like Ida B. Wells, were fighting this fight while all of this was going on and they were being persecuted for it, even more so than their white sisters -- even sometimes by their white sisters.

But my point that I'm trying to get to in all of this is: WHO CARES. Here is a friendly reminder, say this with me:
"What is history?"
History is stories.
"Who writes the stories?"
The winners, the owners, those who have power.
"What happens to the losers in history?"
Their stories are told for them or forgotten.

Then say it again and again until it starts to sink in. HISTORY IS STORIES. The winners write the stories. The losers' stories are told for them -- or forgotten.
HISTORY IS STORIES.
No, wait, you say, movies are stories. History is facts. NO. History is stories, told by the people who live to tell them, who pay to tell them, who have the power to tell them. So history is fluid by nature, subjective by nature, OPPRESSIVE BY NATURE.

Enter Hamilton. If you have been paying attention, you don't need me to tell you that Hamilton is the shit. It's everything. But one of the reasons it's everything is because it gives zero fucks about good ol' historical accuracy. Let's rap about the founding fathers! Let's cast WHOEVER in it -- in fact, let's make the only white guy in the show the King of England. Let's be incisive, let's be crude, let's be unforgiving. In fact, let's bring the women to the front -- the women who were ACTUALLY THERE -- YOU KNOW WHAT, THERE'S SOME HISTORICAL ACCURACY -- instead of brushing them under the historical rug. In fact, Hamilton is damn accurate -- more accurate than most of the "historical" stuff we make.

Bitches be accurate af

But it doesn't have to be. That's what I'm getting at here. People calling Hamilton a "reimagining" are ignoring the fact that every piece of fiction -- book, play, movie -- based on history IS a reimagining. Actually every history book is ALSO a reimagining. Think about THAT. Is our history that precious? Or is it that when we hide behind historical accuracy, we're just showing our true colors? Is our view so narrow, our footing so precarious, that we are still walking on the eggshells of the past, still afraid of the long, long dead ghosts of the former winners, the ex-owners, the men (always MEN!) who used to have power???

My point is, I wasn't there. Neither were you. Neither was the main character of Suffragette, by the way, whom the filmmakers have said is a "hybrid" character. Oh, so we fictionalized that, but we couldn't fictionalize a single suffragette who wasn't white? Oh man. The past isn't coming for you, creators. We are the ones telling the stories now. Realize you were raised with blinders on, and seek at every turn to cast them off, seek at every turn to stop to stop telling the stories you think are "true", and start telling the ones you want to MAKE true. Yes, it is good to find the badass people in history who were always bucking the systems -- like the suffragettes -- and yes, PLEASE, try to tell their stories. But also go after the systems themselves, the systems that are still feeding you the lies of what you can and can't make, the systems that are still teaching you that you can somehow break or dishonor the dead. They are dead and we are alive and our only chance to speak is NOW. You know, I'm just saying (to myself as much as to you or anyone): don't throw away your shot.