A growing number of people today are watching historical films and serial dramas. This raises much debate over whether learning history from such sources. In this essay, I will try to examine both of the points.
On the one hand, most of the historical films can give a general idea of an event or historical time to their viewers. Directors and studios are usually trying to reach realism, especially if they state that their movie is based on a true story. Using the Internet, it is also not a problem to watch opinions of history experts regarding some particular series or movie, and as I said, develop a general understanding of a certain historical person, event or country.
On the other hand, there is a controversy: are those facts learned from series really useful? If a person does not know fundamentals of history, sequences of basic historic events, watching historical movie may not only be a waste of time, but even be harmful. For example, viewer may become a victim of propaganda, especially if we’re talking about war movies. Or may learn some event from one point of view, never knowing there is another. Every movie or series is a piece of art, that is made by a certain person. And this person has his own viewpoint on what he is showing us off the screens. How can we adequately decide whether we agree with him or not, without knowing both points? And this inevitably requires learning history.
In my opinion, historical movies and series do not show a complete image of events or persons from all points, and are subjective works of their directors. That’s why learning history from them may be good for general concepts or imaginary of the scenes, but is still not a complete “learning”. I believe that everybody should consider learning more information to adequately critisise and understand different points and opinions.