Some people suggest that one of the effective ways of learning about the past is through movies and television shows, although they may provide inexact information. While acknowledging the effectiveness of visuality from this method, I mostly disagree with regards to the possible false knowledge and the insufficient story-telling.
The first reason for my disagreement is that this form of material may promote misinformation. Indeed, movie producers can introduce bias by describing history with untruthful incidents or images to influence the facts. As well as this, wrong knowledge may be spread because movies and TV shows sometimes contain made-up details for dramatic effect. For instance, death by electric chairs appeared in the film “The Green Mile” which is set in Louisiana in 1935, however, this form of execution was not introduced until 1941.
Additionally, this method can result in an incomplete understanding of history. This is because historical events can span over lengthy periods, which involve numerous developments and complicated details. Movies and TV shows, on the other hand, are limited to a short runtime. This can oversimplify the actual events, giving learners little understanding of how and why they happened.
Admittedly, this approach assists learners in the imagination process. Specifically, historical events are reenacted through motion pictures the way they happened or in some cases, real footage is introduced. This way, viewers can easily visualize and study the happenings of history. For example, the video recording of President Kennedy’s assassination scene contributed significantly to the later investigation.
In conclusion, although learners can easily imagine history through movies and TV shows, I somewhat disagree that these materials are a useful way to study history since they may be used to misinform and only provide the partial facts. In addition to films, viewers need to cross-reference with other reliable sources such as academic articles.