Seems like Ms. DuVarney comes from a place of anger rather than artistic truth. She let her own narrative hijack historical facts and as a result, the film's flaw becomes the subject which diminishes the story she largely sought to tell. That's a shame, and one that she should regret on some level.
43
Maureen Dowd wrote on February 16, 2013, “The Oscar for Best Fabrication.” She missed the most severe mischaracterization of President Abraham Lincoln in the movie “Lincoln.” I refer to the scene in which Mary Todd Lincoln berates her husband for not doing enough to secure passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. This fictional scene was completely fabricated by the acclaimed playwright who wrote the screenplay, Tony Kushner.
The Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery throughout the country had failed to win the requisite two-thirds majority of the House in June, 1864. Following his reelection as President in November, 1864, Lincoln claimed in his message to Congress the following month that the electorate had endorsed the proposed amendment and he urged its immediate passage by Congress (May we not agree that the sooner the better?).
On February 1, 1865, the day after the House passed the amendment, Lincoln responded to White House serenaders that he “could not but congratulate all present, himself, the country and the whole world upon this great moral victory.” Lincoln noted that if the Proclamation were all that protected the freedom of slaves, its legal validity might be questioned. The Amendment was therefore “a King’s cure for all the evils.”
Janet Ellingson commented on the 2013 column: “As someone who has taught American history to hundreds of college students, I can verify that what most students think they know about American history they learned from the movies."
The Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery throughout the country had failed to win the requisite two-thirds majority of the House in June, 1864. Following his reelection as President in November, 1864, Lincoln claimed in his message to Congress the following month that the electorate had endorsed the proposed amendment and he urged its immediate passage by Congress (May we not agree that the sooner the better?).
On February 1, 1865, the day after the House passed the amendment, Lincoln responded to White House serenaders that he “could not but congratulate all present, himself, the country and the whole world upon this great moral victory.” Lincoln noted that if the Proclamation were all that protected the freedom of slaves, its legal validity might be questioned. The Amendment was therefore “a King’s cure for all the evils.”
Janet Ellingson commented on the 2013 column: “As someone who has taught American history to hundreds of college students, I can verify that what most students think they know about American history they learned from the movies."
15
Why twist it? Considering the source (Hollyweird), nothing is straight - twisted is just natural. It's why you have to give tickets to school kids to go see a 'film' like this but ironically don't (or won't) teach the facts (yea, the straight ones) in the schools themselves.
17
The Academy should give the director the Oliver Stone Award for historical accuracy.
18
It is "just a movie". She never tried to push it as a work of non-fiction.
What's so believable about being told that on the night of Kennedy's assassination Johnson turns to his top aide and says, "great, now we can push for civil rights"? Absolutely nothing
What's so believable about being told that on the night of Kennedy's assassination Johnson turns to his top aide and says, "great, now we can push for civil rights"? Absolutely nothing
2
The truth shall set you free, but it may not make as much money.
30
Good column, Ms. Dowd, especially the part about how history itself, reasonably portrayed (because it is impossible to accurately portray it given the limitations of film making,) has all the drama one needs to craft good art without having to go too far off track.
16
Mississippi Burning was a fictional movie that showed the FBI in a role that they never played in the South. If Ms. DuVernay did not want to make another "White Savior" movie just leave Johnson out of the story rather than lie about his role. Once political progress is shown in a movie about the end of slavery or legal discrimination it is impossible not to give the President who was White, the major role.
23
I have no desire to see another "whitey is bad" movie. They won't get my money.
30
Wow, Hollywood got it wrong? Amazing. Of course, some of us recall how LBJ could not have accomplished a thing without the support of GOP in congress, but we never hear about that either. You know whitey. He's racist. That's the way it is...
16
LBJ has been made to look like an obstacle to voting rights in this movie. In the "Butler' he was made to look like a fool. Why are the two movie's taking a negative view of Johnson? He did more for Black rights than any other president
except Lincoln. Are people jealous of his accomplishments because he was white?
except Lincoln. Are people jealous of his accomplishments because he was white?
36
Have we gotten to the point where historical correctness is politically incorrect?
29
The real Lyndon Johnson surfaces clearly in Robert A. Caro's multi-volume bio of LBJ. He was a sleaze, worse than Nixon ever imagined.
10
Ms. Dowd:
I can't tell you how many times I've been in a group meeting with some White public official who tells us to "wait," who says "not yet," who is concerned with public opinion -- they are politicians, after all. The film gets this right. And a writer is allowed to write and tell the story of conflict as she wants to. I'm sorry you don't like President Johnson's reputation hurt, but many people of color I know respect him, and recognize that White elected officials -- including LBJ -- faltered under the pervasive umbrella of Whiteness. I'm from Texas, I see this all the time. Selma is a beautiful film, and deserves to be seen.
I can't tell you how many times I've been in a group meeting with some White public official who tells us to "wait," who says "not yet," who is concerned with public opinion -- they are politicians, after all. The film gets this right. And a writer is allowed to write and tell the story of conflict as she wants to. I'm sorry you don't like President Johnson's reputation hurt, but many people of color I know respect him, and recognize that White elected officials -- including LBJ -- faltered under the pervasive umbrella of Whiteness. I'm from Texas, I see this all the time. Selma is a beautiful film, and deserves to be seen.
22
I imagine DuVernay's portrayal of LBJ initial resistance is quite accurate. It's just the timing of his conversion is a bit off.
7
Hubert Humphrey was the star of Civil Rights from a government perspective, not so much Johnson -- but he had to be there; since he had the power.
Malcom X was part of the ying and yang of those times -- a critical role in change.
I'm reading Marble Manning's book Malcom X a life of reinvention. It's a must read if you really want to know the truth.
Malcom X was part of the ying and yang of those times -- a critical role in change.
I'm reading Marble Manning's book Malcom X a life of reinvention. It's a must read if you really want to know the truth.
2
Look at Argos -- it had no problems winning awards right left and centre, despite overblowing and distorting the American part and downplaying the much more significant Canadian contribution!
23
It is just a movie about the past with convenient falsehoods that are of juvenile intent.
11
Thank you, Maureen for trying to bring truth back in during this crazy era where it somehow became defined that truth no longer matters.
First we had the post-modernists who talked about "your truth" and "my truth" (false equivalency anyone?). Then we had right-wing media and politicians promoting the idea that facts, evidence, data, & truth don't matter when they come into conflict with one's (right-wing, religious, or prejudiced) beliefs, attitudes, & opinions.
So now we have Republicans & right-wingers refusing to agree there is climate change--despite the inconvenient truth that 98% of well-educated, professional scientists have demonstrated climate change/global warming is happening and is a very serious problem. "I'm not a scientist" the Republicans respond as an excuse to refuse to acknowledge the problem or do anything about it.
Similarly, we have a filmmaker who takes on a project to depict the persons and events of a very important historical event and yet sees no problem misrepresenting the attitudes and actions of a key player (in the name of artistic license?). Her response when challenged for her lack of accuracy: “I’m not a historian. I’m not a documentarian.”
DuVernay was born in 1972, so only a baby years after the real Selma and the initial civil rights struggle, but isn't that all the more reason to try to get it right?
What's the harm? Smeared reputations, false impressions, misinformed children, ... Maureen is right: it is not "just a movie"!
First we had the post-modernists who talked about "your truth" and "my truth" (false equivalency anyone?). Then we had right-wing media and politicians promoting the idea that facts, evidence, data, & truth don't matter when they come into conflict with one's (right-wing, religious, or prejudiced) beliefs, attitudes, & opinions.
So now we have Republicans & right-wingers refusing to agree there is climate change--despite the inconvenient truth that 98% of well-educated, professional scientists have demonstrated climate change/global warming is happening and is a very serious problem. "I'm not a scientist" the Republicans respond as an excuse to refuse to acknowledge the problem or do anything about it.
Similarly, we have a filmmaker who takes on a project to depict the persons and events of a very important historical event and yet sees no problem misrepresenting the attitudes and actions of a key player (in the name of artistic license?). Her response when challenged for her lack of accuracy: “I’m not a historian. I’m not a documentarian.”
DuVernay was born in 1972, so only a baby years after the real Selma and the initial civil rights struggle, but isn't that all the more reason to try to get it right?
What's the harm? Smeared reputations, false impressions, misinformed children, ... Maureen is right: it is not "just a movie"!
23
I'm trying to wrap my head around this idea that LBJ is a savior whom we have to protect from artistic license. In almost every documentary about JFK he's seen as someone who hated Camelot, Jackie, and even John-John. He was the architect of the Vietnam war. He was known as a Son of Bitch to not just Southern Democrats but to the entire congress because he knew all their secrets. And King was a pain to him politically. Was he a terrible man? No. Was he evil? No. But why can't he be a character in a movie?
Because Ava DuVernay portrays him as a manipulator we should be up in arms? LBJ is NOT the bad guy of this movie. The mob that beats and kills is. Your focus is off. LBJ has a tiny part of this movie, and your focus on him proves that you miss having a white savior. Get over it. Ms. Duvernay made an artistic decision that you don't like. So what. Plenty of mediocre films with mediocre actors do it all the time.
The critics should make sure they're taking the same biased tweezers to all the other movies that have made every person who served in World War II a savior. From Monument Men to the Imitation Game. I wont hold my breath.
Oh and Maureen it would have been okay if you saw Selma with a theater full of white teenagers. In fact, it would have been preferable. Maybe you could have taken the barista who told my friend, "I didn't even know there was a movie about MLK out. Is Selma his middle name?"
You might want also want to tell him that LBJ is not a rapper.
Because Ava DuVernay portrays him as a manipulator we should be up in arms? LBJ is NOT the bad guy of this movie. The mob that beats and kills is. Your focus is off. LBJ has a tiny part of this movie, and your focus on him proves that you miss having a white savior. Get over it. Ms. Duvernay made an artistic decision that you don't like. So what. Plenty of mediocre films with mediocre actors do it all the time.
The critics should make sure they're taking the same biased tweezers to all the other movies that have made every person who served in World War II a savior. From Monument Men to the Imitation Game. I wont hold my breath.
Oh and Maureen it would have been okay if you saw Selma with a theater full of white teenagers. In fact, it would have been preferable. Maybe you could have taken the barista who told my friend, "I didn't even know there was a movie about MLK out. Is Selma his middle name?"
You might want also want to tell him that LBJ is not a rapper.
33
I welcome the very rare opportunity to agree with Ms Dowd, about anything, but especially about the baleful effects of distorting history. And yet, I must object to her referring to the "presidential historian" Michael Beschloss.
The presidential fabulist Michael Beschloss lost all credibility as an historian of any kind in November 2008, on the Don Imus radio program (of all places), when he asserted that Barack Obama has an IQ "off the charts" and is the smartest man ever to occupy the White House.
To his eternal credit, Don Imus asked Beschloss what is Obama's IQ. Beschloss could not answer. In other words, the scholarly Michael Beschloss had simply made that up.
He made it up.
As for Barack Obama being the smartest man ever to occupy the White House, that is an assertion that is, to put it charitably, debatable.
The presidential fabulist Michael Beschloss lost all credibility as an historian of any kind in November 2008, on the Don Imus radio program (of all places), when he asserted that Barack Obama has an IQ "off the charts" and is the smartest man ever to occupy the White House.
To his eternal credit, Don Imus asked Beschloss what is Obama's IQ. Beschloss could not answer. In other words, the scholarly Michael Beschloss had simply made that up.
He made it up.
As for Barack Obama being the smartest man ever to occupy the White House, that is an assertion that is, to put it charitably, debatable.
14
Two wrongs, my grannie told me, don't make a right.
Nonetheless. Consider two famous white-guy films by title only:
Birth of a Nation
Gone with the Wind
I mean, really. DuVernay isn't playing in that league of hatred and distortion. She obviously respects LBJ, and she has an extremely valid point when she says she doesn't want a white guy to take center stage in King's story. AND, as an old man, I remember how vulgar, how petty, how racist and sexist and brutal LBJ could be; an American original to be sure, but a crude and difficult man. Insofar as Duvernay shows us that man, she is not distorting history.
TCB
Nonetheless. Consider two famous white-guy films by title only:
Birth of a Nation
Gone with the Wind
I mean, really. DuVernay isn't playing in that league of hatred and distortion. She obviously respects LBJ, and she has an extremely valid point when she says she doesn't want a white guy to take center stage in King's story. AND, as an old man, I remember how vulgar, how petty, how racist and sexist and brutal LBJ could be; an American original to be sure, but a crude and difficult man. Insofar as Duvernay shows us that man, she is not distorting history.
TCB
26
For another perspective, please read the following article countering the arguments of Dowd and others: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17512/selma_criticism
Dowd's article, and the comments from white folks on this thread, are a terrible sign of how burdened many of us still are with cultural white supremacy. We cannot handle seeing a movie that is not all about white people, or that portrays history in a way that challenges our preconceptions. A white president is portrayed in a complex manner, and now this is the worst film of all time. One commentator had the audacity to compare it to Birth of a Nation.
History is not an exact science; history is subjective. Hollywood films have always 1) gotten history wrong, 2) changed events' order/context for improved flow, and 3) emphasized or de-emphasized certain facts in order to make a point. History is actually not exciting enough on its own to avoid this and still have a film anyone would want to sit through. And worst of all, Hollywood has consistently, to the present day, uplifted white people while it degrades, ignores, villainizes, and makes invisible people of color.
I wonder how many people commenting here allow their children/grandchildren to watch Disney's "Tarzan" - a vile, racist film which eliminates an entire continent of people, where the only "people" on that continent are apes? How many of us wrote letters and condemned the director?
I urge us all to step back and reflect before jumping on this bandwagon.
Dowd's article, and the comments from white folks on this thread, are a terrible sign of how burdened many of us still are with cultural white supremacy. We cannot handle seeing a movie that is not all about white people, or that portrays history in a way that challenges our preconceptions. A white president is portrayed in a complex manner, and now this is the worst film of all time. One commentator had the audacity to compare it to Birth of a Nation.
History is not an exact science; history is subjective. Hollywood films have always 1) gotten history wrong, 2) changed events' order/context for improved flow, and 3) emphasized or de-emphasized certain facts in order to make a point. History is actually not exciting enough on its own to avoid this and still have a film anyone would want to sit through. And worst of all, Hollywood has consistently, to the present day, uplifted white people while it degrades, ignores, villainizes, and makes invisible people of color.
I wonder how many people commenting here allow their children/grandchildren to watch Disney's "Tarzan" - a vile, racist film which eliminates an entire continent of people, where the only "people" on that continent are apes? How many of us wrote letters and condemned the director?
I urge us all to step back and reflect before jumping on this bandwagon.
23
"Ars gratia artis," as Goldwyn reminded us at the end of all his movies. What he, and others failed to recognize is that it sends a message just like Western Union used to do.
Whatever truth is these days, it's buried not only in the arts, it's distorted by all the media to suit their political leanings.
Oh, how I miss Jack Webb, Sgt. Friday. "The facts, ma'am, just the facts."
Whatever truth is these days, it's buried not only in the arts, it's distorted by all the media to suit their political leanings.
Oh, how I miss Jack Webb, Sgt. Friday. "The facts, ma'am, just the facts."
8
Things aren't always black and white.
10
All we need to do right now is further stir up angry young black men and women which is what this movie did.
8
So she got LBJ wrong. I'm sorry, that does not erase 400 years and counting of this country's racial inhumanity. Johnson became a wealthy politician in part because of white privilege. That he overcame southern racism is to be commended. This film correctly recreates some of the horrific history all whites to some degree countenanced and to some degree continue to tolerate. Even this outrage over the director's artistic license is overblown. Congress has overturned the Voting Rights Law. THAT is the obscene historical distortion here. If you are minority in this country, rich or poor, in prison or not, your anger is justified and your willingness to seek political solutions remarkable.
16
Hmmm. Republicans are made villains with lies all the time. But a Democrat? That's different. I just finished reading MLK's Letter From A Birmingham Jail. Bull Conner was on the Democratic National Committee. Almost all the southern white racist were Democrats. You never see Dowd or any of the other white progressives mention this.
11
The movie may go down as a great piece of cinematography depicting the "Black perspective" of the fight for civil rights and a tragically flawed work. Put it on the shelf next to D.W. Griffith's masterpiece, "Birth of a Nation."
2
Napoleon Bonaparte: What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Just watch the much under credited movie "Wag the Dog" and see what "historical" movie making is all about; need to distract the public, create a war to occupy their minds (I wonder of President Bush watched it just before invading Iraq?).
For if the film makers are willing to "make up" things and present them as "history", who is to know?
MLK needs more attention than LBJ? Tweak a few words here and there and, voila, history is renovated.
I will end with another quote, this time from an investigative reporter: If your mother says she loves you, check it out!
The "truth" is out there but sometimes needs some "digging" to be found. Meanwhile, enjoy the movies as aren't they just a means of escape and not to be taken as serious and factual?
Just watch the much under credited movie "Wag the Dog" and see what "historical" movie making is all about; need to distract the public, create a war to occupy their minds (I wonder of President Bush watched it just before invading Iraq?).
For if the film makers are willing to "make up" things and present them as "history", who is to know?
MLK needs more attention than LBJ? Tweak a few words here and there and, voila, history is renovated.
I will end with another quote, this time from an investigative reporter: If your mother says she loves you, check it out!
The "truth" is out there but sometimes needs some "digging" to be found. Meanwhile, enjoy the movies as aren't they just a means of escape and not to be taken as serious and factual?
2
When Ms. Dowd is not writing about President Obama or Mayor DiBlasio, she is in full command of the sharp insight of which she is capable. I think this is accurate and points to a certain hypocrisy on the part of some recent film-makers who, as Ms. Dowd notes, on the one hand say, Hey, it's a movie not a history book. Meanwhile, on the other hand they tout the "true story" dimension of what they've done as a selling point. Young people both black and white need to see and so at least vicariously experience some of the painful history of the Civil Rights era--whose work, as recent events demonstrate, is far from complete. In many ways President Johnson was not an appealing figure. But he most certainly played an enormously active and important role in getting the Voting Rights Act passed and signed (by him) into law.
12
No Johnson - no civil rights. It is a terrible thing DuVernay did in distorting the truth. Thanks to Maureen Dowd for the courage to expose her. I will not see the movie even if free. I genuinely fear people like DuVerney and the damage they do to truth. But let’s not forget the actors including Ms. Winfrey who helped to perpetrate this fraud.
20
Maureen Dowd's view of LBJ is the "artful falsehood". History was rewritten to make the Progressive hero LBJ seem as if he actually cared about Blacks, when in fact, he and the Democrat Party only cared about their vote. Dowd is worried that if Blacks figure out they have been lied to about LBJ, they will also realize that they have been lied to about his socialistic welfare policies which have utterly devastated the Black family and community.
"I'll have them n------ voting Democratic for 200 years!" LBJ
"I'll have them n------ voting Democratic for 200 years!" LBJ
11
Maybe that was why it wasn't nominated for an Academy Award. Frankly, I was glad that the Academy was not "politically correct" in balancing black and white nominees. I think they might be, perhaps rightfully, worried about being seen as a political organization rather than an artistic one. Without Lyndon Johnson and his skills, the black could have whistled Dixie.
11
"Artful falsehood is more dangerous than artless falsehood, because fewer people see through it."
Thank you, Maureen. You have outlined why I will not see this movie much better than I ever could have. And Johnson was not my favorite president because of Vietnam. Distortion of truth to serve your agenda is disgraceful.
Thank you, Maureen. You have outlined why I will not see this movie much better than I ever could have. And Johnson was not my favorite president because of Vietnam. Distortion of truth to serve your agenda is disgraceful.
17
Will we get a story about the "episode?"
1
Maureen it has been a long time since I have agreed with you but I do today.
I was a young boy during that time, I want to say that many folks had Johnson as the not quite good guy. Things said during my Teenage years. He was involved in the assassination of JFK, and He was not crazy about the Voting rights act.
That He told King there was not enough blood in the streets to convince Congress to act on the voting Rights act. He was a boogie man for many.
I am not sure he deserves it though. Many of us grew up loving the Kennedy Aura and many of us saw the public feud between Johnson and RFK. So history is written by the victors. I feel he is victim of his times and generation. Where was the federal Government during Selma? Where was the national guard. Did he believe that people needed to die in public to convince the rest of us that the voting rights act was justified. If so doesn't that make less of the hero that you want him to be. Still with out him there is no voting rights act of 1964....
I believe Johnson was a good man and a great president. But things are never as black and white as we would like them to be.
Chuck from Ohio
I was a young boy during that time, I want to say that many folks had Johnson as the not quite good guy. Things said during my Teenage years. He was involved in the assassination of JFK, and He was not crazy about the Voting rights act.
That He told King there was not enough blood in the streets to convince Congress to act on the voting Rights act. He was a boogie man for many.
I am not sure he deserves it though. Many of us grew up loving the Kennedy Aura and many of us saw the public feud between Johnson and RFK. So history is written by the victors. I feel he is victim of his times and generation. Where was the federal Government during Selma? Where was the national guard. Did he believe that people needed to die in public to convince the rest of us that the voting rights act was justified. If so doesn't that make less of the hero that you want him to be. Still with out him there is no voting rights act of 1964....
I believe Johnson was a good man and a great president. But things are never as black and white as we would like them to be.
Chuck from Ohio
7
I agree with Maureen. Anyone depicting or reporting on the lives of real figures has a moral obligation to do so truthfully. To falsely discredit a person's reputation is immoral, regardless of the platform. DuVernay's wrongful portrayal of Johnson just to conveniently fit her narrative is appalling.
21
I hope Oliver Stone is reading this.
6
Bravo! Ms Dowd is correct. It took many people of good will representing different races and religions to bring about this change. To diminish one leader is to diminish the other. For me who participated in the civil rights movement both King and Johnson were great heros. Johnson too merits his place in this part of our nation's history. It is sad that DuVernay found it necessary to so distort his role.
18
Never forget: A movie is entertainment, first and foremost.
4
Stupid DuVernay - ruining what could have been a great movie with her political misrepresentation of facts. Knowing this, I don't even want to see the movie. When will Hollywood learn?
13
Great piece MoDo. Totally agree. When important historical films twist facts in the pursuit of ahem... money, I am always disappointed. In this case Selma and also recently The Imitation Game another massively dishonest film.
As you say truth telling is is fascinating - there was no need to smear LBJ in this film.
As you say truth telling is is fascinating - there was no need to smear LBJ in this film.
10
Thank you Maureen! Egregious is THE word! An otherwise stunning and important film has been greatly diminished by Ms. DuVernay's inaccurate and highly insulting depiction of LBJ. I have heard some pundits say "Well, she needed a villain." Give me a break! The movie and the real life story is loaded with true villains and LBJ was not one. Her depiction is really inexcusable as it flies in the face of her otherwise accurate storytelling.
14
Fearlessness
He was the hero of my youth
From Bull Conner's Birmingham jails
To the rock throwing racists in Skokie
He faced these oppressors with dignity and grace
LBJ was hardly a oppressor or a antagonist in this matter and to suggest otherwise saddens me.
He was the hero of my youth
From Bull Conner's Birmingham jails
To the rock throwing racists in Skokie
He faced these oppressors with dignity and grace
LBJ was hardly a oppressor or a antagonist in this matter and to suggest otherwise saddens me.
9
Worse, this movie might give the impression to young people of today that all it takes are protests, marching in the streets, and chanting slogans to create change. Nope.
As a first-generation American, I went to law school and learned how much in this country: LEGISLATION matters. These laws are the stuff that later court cases are built on. Legislative intent, as we see the upcoming ACA case, is part of the analysis, but I also found interesting all the legislative techniques employed to pass voter intentions into laws (how the sausage gets made, mostly with lobbyist help). LBJ was masterful at this. A practiced hand from years in the trade, pre-Presidency.
Downplaying this part of the hard work in the movie is sad because it allows the street demonstrators of today to overestimate their role, and not acknowledge the people who understand you have to combine passion and an outsider's eyeballs with an educated insider's pragmatism. LBJ was not a god, but he was crucial in his role as Congressman turned President in getting the job done.
Read more history, if you don't believe me.
(I liked best the part about Women's Rights being legislated into being as a predicted 'poison pill' in the bill myself...)
As a first-generation American, I went to law school and learned how much in this country: LEGISLATION matters. These laws are the stuff that later court cases are built on. Legislative intent, as we see the upcoming ACA case, is part of the analysis, but I also found interesting all the legislative techniques employed to pass voter intentions into laws (how the sausage gets made, mostly with lobbyist help). LBJ was masterful at this. A practiced hand from years in the trade, pre-Presidency.
Downplaying this part of the hard work in the movie is sad because it allows the street demonstrators of today to overestimate their role, and not acknowledge the people who understand you have to combine passion and an outsider's eyeballs with an educated insider's pragmatism. LBJ was not a god, but he was crucial in his role as Congressman turned President in getting the job done.
Read more history, if you don't believe me.
(I liked best the part about Women's Rights being legislated into being as a predicted 'poison pill' in the bill myself...)
9
Read the history of Texas. Lyndon Johnson was a criminal. Read the histories of the Kennedy Assassination. JFK was killed in Dallas, Texas. Not a coincidence. Don't worry about LBJ's reputation. He's a corrupt, deceitful, sociopathic murderer. He wasn't worthy of washing Martin Luther King's laundry.
2
DuVernay's dismissal of LBJ as an obstructionist white guy is reason enough to have left her out of the Oscars…too bad the film got even one "best picture" nomination and too bad ANY kids, no less black kids, get subsidized seating at the flick….the protrayal of LBJ disqualifies the film as history and, if it's "just a movie' as DeVray excuses it, what's all the fuss about the "snub."
19
Well, since our theme here is historical accuracy, let it be noted that James Reeb was not a "priest." He was a Unitarian minister. He and two other UU clergy were attacked after eating dinner at a restaurant that served all comers. He died two days later, apparently taken off life support. He had lived his values and he died in their service.
Some of the more inspiring content of Dr. King's speeches in 'Selma' derive from his eulogy of James Reeb.
The UU Church has a proud history of social action.
Some of the more inspiring content of Dr. King's speeches in 'Selma' derive from his eulogy of James Reeb.
The UU Church has a proud history of social action.
19
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. The film’s depiction of LBJ’s harsh put-down of Gov. Wallace clearly places LBJ on the right side of history. Focusing on differences of opinion in timing and tactics is beside the ultimate point. What is important in the film to me is how it showed how the movement was about much more than just the ‘great men’.
As to LBJ, let’s have a film just on LBJ’s evolving attitude on race and civil rights legislation. LBJ was a hero on civil rights and poverty action, a villain on Vietnam, and any movie about him would need to bleep out his frequent use of the N word during his life. Ironies would abound. Can any movie handle him with utter accuracy?
As to LBJ, let’s have a film just on LBJ’s evolving attitude on race and civil rights legislation. LBJ was a hero on civil rights and poverty action, a villain on Vietnam, and any movie about him would need to bleep out his frequent use of the N word during his life. Ironies would abound. Can any movie handle him with utter accuracy?
15
Haven't seen the movie (didn't even see BIRDMAN yet) but may I please comment about LBJ generally. It would be false for a movie about civil rights to depict LBJ as villainous, though he certainly became disliked as the Vietnam War escalated, and decided to not seek re-election in '68 because he knew he wasn't gaining back popularity. Amazingly, his VP Hubert Humphrey barely lost that Presidential election. I didn't read biographer Robert Dallek's treatment either, but perceive from viewing his CSPAN television appearance(s) & book reviews that Dallek tries for factual accuracy.
2
You know who REALLY paved the way for the Voting Rights Act? The countless brave people that peacefully demonstrated and marched over and over again knowing the probability of getting seriously hurt.
Thank you
Thank you
15
'“I wasn’t interested in making a white-savior movie,” she said." So, instead she made a lying one? Dumb, very dumb. People know that you can't put the whole true in a 2 hour movie. But to deliberately put a falsehood into her film allows people to dismiss the whole thing. Once you find one lie, you wonder how many other lies there are. Was it really that bad? Was it really, really that dangerous? How much did she fake so she could get a dramatic story on the screen? She made a very bad decision.
18
So, the movie mischaracterizes the relationship between two historical figures. Is there anything else? I lived through this time and was horrified at the treatment of white police and their bosses. Did J. Edgar Hoover attempt to portray MLK in the most negative light? Yes he did. Did the movie get that right? Is there anything else Ms Dowd?
14
Sorry, Maureen, but I don't buy this "Saint LBJ" line that you and others are pushing, including Califano. I find it strange that Robert Caro, author of the masterful multi-volume political biography of LBJ, has not spoken out on this issue. After reading the long, and frankly horrifying, 3d volume of that work--covering LBJ's years in Congress and the Senate, I believe the movie captures the spirit of Politician Johnson quite well. He was known as a New Deal Democrat, but he was also a Southerner--in the House and Senate. He worked closely with the racist, obstructionist Good Old Boys-- e.g., against anti-lynching laws, repeatedly, and engineered many other successful Southern attempts to continue the oppression of blacks. He did it so that he could rise up through the ranks--which is why he did everything he did.
If he came to believe in civil right and the voting rights act, it was not with a pure heart, but rather with his highly tuned political sensibility: that it would be a way to get what HE wanted--in this case, probably his legacy was on his mind. I'm very glad he made the changes he did and used his power for good, when he did so. But I don't doubt that he could and would patronize and drag his feet--on *anything*--if he felt things weren't going the way HE thought they should go.
If he came to believe in civil right and the voting rights act, it was not with a pure heart, but rather with his highly tuned political sensibility: that it would be a way to get what HE wanted--in this case, probably his legacy was on his mind. I'm very glad he made the changes he did and used his power for good, when he did so. But I don't doubt that he could and would patronize and drag his feet--on *anything*--if he felt things weren't going the way HE thought they should go.
30
I have seen this movie twice and lived this history once. I saw no diminution of LBJ. I agree with Gay Talese, who was part of the New York Times team that covered the Selma march in 1965, and wrote in a recent Times letter to the editor (after seeing "Selma"): In my opinion, there is nothing in Ms. DuVernay’s film that significantly distorts this historic event or the leadership role played by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." Why are so many, like Ms. Dowd, so sure that it is otherwise?
26
Maureen Dowd wrote on February 16, 2013, “The Oscar for Best Fabrication.” She missed the most severe mischaracterization of President Abraham Lincoln in the movie “Lincoln.” I refer to the scene in which Mary Todd Lincoln berates her husband for not doing enough to secure passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. This fictional scene was completely fabricated by the acclaimed playwright who wrote the screenplay, Tony Kushner.
The Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery throughout the country had failed to win the requisite two-thirds majority of the House in June, 1864. Following his reelection as President in November, 1864, Lincoln claimed in his message to Congress the following month that the electorate had endorsed the proposed amendment and he urged its immediate passage by Congress (May we not agree that the sooner the better?).
On February 1, 1865, the day after the House passed the amendment, Lincoln responded to White House serenaders that he “could not but congratulate all present, himself, the country and the whole world upon this great moral victory.” Lincoln noted that if the Proclamation were all that protected the freedom of slaves, its legal validity might be questioned. The Amendment was therefore “a King’s cure for all the evils.”
Janet Ellingson made comment to the 2013 column: “As someone who has taught American history to hundreds of college students, I can verify that what most students think they know about American history they learned from the movies.
The Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery throughout the country had failed to win the requisite two-thirds majority of the House in June, 1864. Following his reelection as President in November, 1864, Lincoln claimed in his message to Congress the following month that the electorate had endorsed the proposed amendment and he urged its immediate passage by Congress (May we not agree that the sooner the better?).
On February 1, 1865, the day after the House passed the amendment, Lincoln responded to White House serenaders that he “could not but congratulate all present, himself, the country and the whole world upon this great moral victory.” Lincoln noted that if the Proclamation were all that protected the freedom of slaves, its legal validity might be questioned. The Amendment was therefore “a King’s cure for all the evils.”
Janet Ellingson made comment to the 2013 column: “As someone who has taught American history to hundreds of college students, I can verify that what most students think they know about American history they learned from the movies.
7
"Selma" is about ordinary people, including an unidolized Martin Luther King, who risked their lives, even paying with their lives, for the right to vote. One hundred years after another truly Great White President ended slavery.
Fifty years after the march across that bridge, ordinary people are still fighting for their right to vote. Because the Supreme Court refuses to admit that ordinary people still have to fight for their right to vote.
Because the ancestors of the people who were doing the punching, kicking, clubbing, shooting and cursing haven't stopped their side of the fight, either.
And here you are, Ms. Dowd, clucking about historical accuracy, because another (truly) Great White President is supposedly not getting his due? Is it really untrue that Lyndon Baines Johnson, despite where his heart lay, did not have to mightily struggle with the political realities of his day to get his considerable legislation through Congress? Johnson was a man who knew the true price of things, and ultimately paid it, fully aware. I've always thought LBJ a greater, not a lesser, man, for that. I believe Johnson would want us to know that.
But apparently, what's completely historically accurate about "Selma" is that so much of the audience that needs to see this movie is making every excuse they can to look away, to change the subject.
Ordinary people are still trying to march across that bridge, Ms. Dowd. And what are you doing about it? This? This is your contribution?
Fifty years after the march across that bridge, ordinary people are still fighting for their right to vote. Because the Supreme Court refuses to admit that ordinary people still have to fight for their right to vote.
Because the ancestors of the people who were doing the punching, kicking, clubbing, shooting and cursing haven't stopped their side of the fight, either.
And here you are, Ms. Dowd, clucking about historical accuracy, because another (truly) Great White President is supposedly not getting his due? Is it really untrue that Lyndon Baines Johnson, despite where his heart lay, did not have to mightily struggle with the political realities of his day to get his considerable legislation through Congress? Johnson was a man who knew the true price of things, and ultimately paid it, fully aware. I've always thought LBJ a greater, not a lesser, man, for that. I believe Johnson would want us to know that.
But apparently, what's completely historically accurate about "Selma" is that so much of the audience that needs to see this movie is making every excuse they can to look away, to change the subject.
Ordinary people are still trying to march across that bridge, Ms. Dowd. And what are you doing about it? This? This is your contribution?
26
Race is probably the most emotional conflict in America. Those who live in the middle of the struggle can't easily step back. Truth cam get lost.
I think that’s what happened here. With all the energy and passion it takes to make a film, it's easy to see how Ms.Du Verney and her team might have made some mistakes.
I think that’s what happened here. With all the energy and passion it takes to make a film, it's easy to see how Ms.Du Verney and her team might have made some mistakes.
6
“This is art; this is a movie; this is a film,” DuVernay said. “I’m not a historian. I’m not a documentarian.”
As a regular critic of Ms. Dowd's columns, I can barely believe that I agree completely in this case. I was angry when I heard DuVernay say that she was not a historian and therefore not responsible for unforgivable historical inaccuracy about JBJ's role in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Making it worse is her pouty comment about not making a "white-savior movie." Anyone who portrays salient episodes in our history through Hollywood movies should be more careful about accuracy than those who merely write books or teach. For movies burn false and dangerous impressions of history into the brains of millions. Think of what the racist movie "The Birth of a Nation (1915) did to an accurate view of the aftermath of the Civil War (Reconstruction), even in the educated, Ph.D. mind of Woodrow Wilson, who described that wretched movie as "history written with lightning." One could go on citing other films such as "Gone With the Wind" (which cemented a false view of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the minds of millions) and other blockbusters that made the truth of history almost impossible to get across. History is as dangerous as dynamite and must be handled with precision and care.
As a regular critic of Ms. Dowd's columns, I can barely believe that I agree completely in this case. I was angry when I heard DuVernay say that she was not a historian and therefore not responsible for unforgivable historical inaccuracy about JBJ's role in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Making it worse is her pouty comment about not making a "white-savior movie." Anyone who portrays salient episodes in our history through Hollywood movies should be more careful about accuracy than those who merely write books or teach. For movies burn false and dangerous impressions of history into the brains of millions. Think of what the racist movie "The Birth of a Nation (1915) did to an accurate view of the aftermath of the Civil War (Reconstruction), even in the educated, Ph.D. mind of Woodrow Wilson, who described that wretched movie as "history written with lightning." One could go on citing other films such as "Gone With the Wind" (which cemented a false view of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the minds of millions) and other blockbusters that made the truth of history almost impossible to get across. History is as dangerous as dynamite and must be handled with precision and care.
25
It perhaps pays to see the column "The Glory and Tragedy of L.B.J." written by James Reston almost 42 years ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/12/specials/johnson-glory.html
I found the following sentence most telling: "triumphant at home (!!!-exclamation points mine) and tragic in Vietnam, and like most Presidents, his policies will be judged by the historians". Alas not. The tragedy of L.B.J. is that for many, the lasting imprint of his domestic policy is judged by Hollywood. He deserved better.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/12/specials/johnson-glory.html
I found the following sentence most telling: "triumphant at home (!!!-exclamation points mine) and tragic in Vietnam, and like most Presidents, his policies will be judged by the historians". Alas not. The tragedy of L.B.J. is that for many, the lasting imprint of his domestic policy is judged by Hollywood. He deserved better.
12
Sorry, but Argo bore almost no resemblance to the truth. In reality the CIA agent had a tiny role (if any) in saving the US hostages. Ben Affleck should have been ashamed of himself.
9
Go back and write about Kathryn Bigelow's best film, Hurt Locker. It was about war in it's most undigested, unexplainable form. No sermonizing, no dialectics, no heroes. Just pain.
I saw it at a movie theater near Fort Campbell, and after the credits finished and the lights came up, everyone was still in their seat, totally silent. This was their story. A soldier's story. No mention of Bush, or Rumsfeld, or anybody in Washington.
Selma is about the people from Selma and other parts of the South that placed their lives in danger. That gotten beaten and jailed, and yes, killed.
If you didn't understand that, you didn't understand the film. This wasn't about MLK or LBJ, it was about people that we don't know and will never know.
I saw it at a movie theater near Fort Campbell, and after the credits finished and the lights came up, everyone was still in their seat, totally silent. This was their story. A soldier's story. No mention of Bush, or Rumsfeld, or anybody in Washington.
Selma is about the people from Selma and other parts of the South that placed their lives in danger. That gotten beaten and jailed, and yes, killed.
If you didn't understand that, you didn't understand the film. This wasn't about MLK or LBJ, it was about people that we don't know and will never know.
23
selma is artificial and not art as it relates to mlk and lbj but artistry otherwise
I haven't seen Selma, but the review of the Imitation Game that Maureen points out, describes many serious historical distortions in that movie. After reading this review, I will skip it. The Enigma was cracked before the war started by Marian Rejewski and his Polish colleagues who actually succeeded in twinning an Enigma which eventually made it to Bletchley. Since this is part of the historical record, there wasn't any need to portray the story otherwise.
4
I was in high school in the early 1960s, and my information was mostly from what the television networks reported as news/reality, plus Ralph McGill was not bullied onto silence though I did not read newspapers thoroughly nor see enough television news at the time of Selma circa 1965.
I'll assume film/art distortion of LBJ has much to do with Vietnam. McGill admired & protected LBJ. I wish I had saved a humorous note he sent me after I had criticized LBJ while expressing liking Eugene McCarthy circa 1968 being much influenced by a Norman Mailer essay in CANNIBALS AND CHRISTIANS. McGill said I should vote for Mailer!
McGill's courageous column was bluntly front page in the early sixties. Slanting/narrative/subjectivity is human reality, though dramatization of history ought to try to convey complexity not insulting over-simplification.
I don't know if the writers of 1960s history (other than Robert Dallek) treat LBJ fairly. LBJ became hated by both liberals and by conservatives for the different reasons.
I'll assume film/art distortion of LBJ has much to do with Vietnam. McGill admired & protected LBJ. I wish I had saved a humorous note he sent me after I had criticized LBJ while expressing liking Eugene McCarthy circa 1968 being much influenced by a Norman Mailer essay in CANNIBALS AND CHRISTIANS. McGill said I should vote for Mailer!
McGill's courageous column was bluntly front page in the early sixties. Slanting/narrative/subjectivity is human reality, though dramatization of history ought to try to convey complexity not insulting over-simplification.
I don't know if the writers of 1960s history (other than Robert Dallek) treat LBJ fairly. LBJ became hated by both liberals and by conservatives for the different reasons.
6
Ms. DuVernay's film is a masterpiece, this is fact. Of course LBJ was central to passage of the Civil Rights Act, but the fact that he didn't order Federal troops to protect Black and white northern marchers is a fact and a disgrace. Ms. Duvernay just showed LBJ in his Texas white boy mode. We who lived through this era got to witness plenty of his white boy shenanigans.
10
Well congradulations. You've convinced me to actually see the movie and find out for myself if LBJ is treated harshly as you say or just as a pragmatist.
10
Having been in college in the South at the time, I found the portrayal of Johnson plausible and positive, especially his mano a mano smack down of George Wallace in the Oval Office. MLK had his infidelities exposed in the film that seems to balance his depiction. DuVernay underplayed the vitriol of white counter-protesters and could have legitimately cranked that up to reflect the much higher level of ugliness displayed at the time. Johnson could not have passed the Voting Rights Act without Selma and he was correct to tell King that. I don't know what your problem is here, Ms Dowd.
21
This is the reason I refuse to see any movie directed by Oliver Stone.
6
Outrageous that the big controversy about "Selma" is that it didn't get Oscar nominations - THAT'S the problem? Not that she changed the role LBJ had in the Civil Rights Movement. Shame on her. It only hurts the children that are trying to learn, understand, and improve in to which they were born. And they get the free tickets and special screening as if to say this is a special film so you can learn about our government? Egregious. Dowd put it perfectly - the truth (and human beings, and history) is fascinating enough - why twist it? DeVernay must issue an apology and make the rounds to apologize for her mistake and set the record straight. African Americans have suffered enough, and still do, at the hands of those above and around them. Why not show how it can (or did) get better?
11
I found the tone of this piece patronizing. Does Ms.Dowd want a special "I'm not racist" award for watching this with an audience of black teenagers? The primary purpose of this movie or any other is to entertain which this film has accomplished. Education is best presente in schools and families. Or does ms. Dowd think that these teenagers are unable to differentiate between movies and reality? I for one am pretty sure that Middle Earth doesn't exist.
20
Selma could still have been a dynamic film without distorting Lyndon Johnson's role in the civil rights movement. The misrepresentations weren't made for artistic license but for the purpose of manipulating the viewers. That's why it is so disappointing.
15
I once thought it was ok, may be, to distort slightly, you know for the greater good. But it is the truth that will free us from this unending bind. A black President should have made a difference but Obama has no warmth to endear either side. 2014 brought us the worst of race relations, starting with the NBA/Sterling fiasco and ongoing with the NYC police department. Yet either race would bone the other, as long as no one they knew would find out.
2
What I will never understand is how telling the truth about LBJ would diminish MLK. We make heroes of the founding fathers who allowed slavery, but we are afraid to acknowledge a white, long time, southern pol who understood human rights? It seems to me that there are too few good men who do good things to deny them and call it artistic license. To distort one part of the movie is to distort all of it. I was an adult during this horrific period of American history, but I remember clearly being proud of LBJ as well as being awed and inspired by MLK. Having lived through WWII and served in the Marine Corps during Korea I understood man's inhumanity to man. That in America there could be such rancid behavior shocked me more than WWII, Korea and the Cold War. I understand the need for a movie like "Selma," but I also understand the need to represent the truth. Or as Malcolm X said: "I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against." I remember watching the MLK speech live on TV and being totally moved by its eloquence and depth. I am saddened by DuVernay's choice to paint LBJ as something he wasn't. Don't we have enough politicians who distort reality on a regular basis? Isn't it implicit that artists seek to tell us something about ourselves that we would otherwise not see? Read Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Ellison to name just a few and one will get the lasting idea that truth matters, even when it is painful.
25
I wonder how many movie critics posting comments have not seen the movie they critique.
4
The idea that ever intended to do anything to help Black people is absurd. History speaks for itself. Too bad this movie doesn't really help fix that. Eventually he will become known as the full throated progressive he was.
2
The idea that LBJ ever intended to do anything to help Black people is absurd. History speaks for itself. Too bad this movie doesn't really help fix that. Eventually he will become known as the full throated progressive he was.
5
Ms. Dowd goes too easy on the movie. The problem is not merely unfairness to LBJ, though that is bad enough. The problem is that a movie on this subject that makes all Black people victims and all White people villains is a piece of racist propaganda.
16
I appreciate the analysis and I concur. The director was clearly short sighted and more interested in her own agenda than history.
17
If the movie's director has already agreed that it is fiction, then we have no choice but to agree.
10
Ms. Dowd is half right. If the movie portrays LBJ as "skittish" on civil rights, it is not accurate. Johnson did indeed set civil rights high on his agenda immediately after he became president following the JFK assassination. It was a highlight of his "Let us continue" speech in which he pledged to fulfill JFK's domestic agenda as a tribute to the fallen martyr.
But what was the real reason he continued with JFK's agenda? Was it because he really believed in it, or was it JFK's agenda was his path to hold on to the power of the Presidency by winning the 1964 election? If he really believed in it, why didn't he push Congress to pass civil rights while Kennedy was still alive? He was, after all, a consummate Congressional power broker.
Ms. Dowd is also half wrong. She gives LBJ too much credit for the advancement of civil rights, and not enough blame for the disaster in Vietnam. Both efforts bear the mark of LBJ's bull-in-a-china-shop leadership style. The Vietnam failure was evident within a few years, and civil rights still seems to be a never-ending saga, fifty years later. I think Kennedy's more deliberative approach would have sent us on better trajectories in both cases.
But what was the real reason he continued with JFK's agenda? Was it because he really believed in it, or was it JFK's agenda was his path to hold on to the power of the Presidency by winning the 1964 election? If he really believed in it, why didn't he push Congress to pass civil rights while Kennedy was still alive? He was, after all, a consummate Congressional power broker.
Ms. Dowd is also half wrong. She gives LBJ too much credit for the advancement of civil rights, and not enough blame for the disaster in Vietnam. Both efforts bear the mark of LBJ's bull-in-a-china-shop leadership style. The Vietnam failure was evident within a few years, and civil rights still seems to be a never-ending saga, fifty years later. I think Kennedy's more deliberative approach would have sent us on better trajectories in both cases.
2
So, historical truth was deliberately, even proudly, set aside to forward a race-driven progressive agenda? Because DuVernay is not a documentarian? Would it then be acceptable to her and her fellow travelers to portray Robert E. Lee and William Quantrill in a future movie as misunderstood crusaders for freedom and states rights? Because there's even more money in pandering to white longing for our mythical past.
9
Having seen Stone's JFK, and listening to viewers who actually believed it to be valid, I long since shunned any Hollywood "true" story. Artistic liscence is just another way of saying "lying because I thing my version is better than the truty". I wasn't a Johnson fan, but clearly the director isn't a truth fan. Actually, when a director takes liberties with the truth they are basically saying they think their version is more important that reality of those days. There was more than enough "truth" "back in the day" to enlighten, sadden, shock and praise without a revisionist with an agenda mucking it up.
7
Lyndon Johnson was a corrupt man and no Maureen Dowd liberal indignation can cover that up. He needed the Southern Democrats to pass his agenda and did not want to offend them by passing a Civil Rights bill. He was sold out and anyone who lived during his presidency was embarrassed to witness his lack of morale clarity. We have witnessed hubris in the current president but he learned it from LBJ.
3
The director says she is not a historian but directs a movie based on historical events. That's pretty lame, sort of like rightwingers saying they are not scientists and then voting against climate change legislation.
20
she could have shown LBJ listening to the sex tapes and joking about them with his aides, at length, again and again. we know that happened for a fact. then the tapes magically showing up in Coretta's hands.
point being they could have easily made LBJ look much worse by showing agreed upon facts.
point being they could have easily made LBJ look much worse by showing agreed upon facts.
8
I agree. It was really goofy to portray LBJ that way. He knew the risk of losing the South forever, and yet he still did the right thing. Dissing LBJ like that is like dissing the hallowed dead of Gettysburg.
13
Don't worry, Maureen. The Academy has snubbed the movie for its "horrendous" treatment of poor LBJ. Out of the woodwork have come the white historians, columnists, pundits, and contemporaries of Johnson to cry foul. Ms. DuVernay just forgot the "42 Rule." Lionize a black hero all you want, but make sure there is a saintly white Branch Rickey making it all possible.
Even as a white man, I find this upsurge of raucous sanctimony a little embarrassing. Relax, fellow palefaces. We are still very much in charge.
Even as a white man, I find this upsurge of raucous sanctimony a little embarrassing. Relax, fellow palefaces. We are still very much in charge.
20
Like so many before her, Dowd cites Oscar's snub of the movie's dazzling actors. I wonder if it even occurs to Ms. Dowd that her criticism blatantly accuses the Hollywood community of object racism. Nothing other than race is given for the absence of these actors on the list of nominees. Few can question Hollywood leans Left politically and has been amongst the strongest backers of anti discriminatory causes. Yet Dowd , and others ignore every other possible reason, other than race, for other actors being more worthy. Like beauty, all art including the quality of an actor's performance is in the eyes of the beholder. Dowd assumes that all or most of the voting members view performances soley through the prism of race. Her accusations should be recieved as unfounded as well as highly insulting.
4
For your review, "Not just a Movie", I thank you.
The world of history should not be turned into a poll driven "movie". Some things are true and real. Why diminish LBJ? Why alter history? Why not accept that LBJ thought we were in this together? This aspect of this tale is a disservice to integrity.
If we lose our grasp on truth, don't we only have a bottomless falsity on which to try to stand?
The world of history should not be turned into a poll driven "movie". Some things are true and real. Why diminish LBJ? Why alter history? Why not accept that LBJ thought we were in this together? This aspect of this tale is a disservice to integrity.
If we lose our grasp on truth, don't we only have a bottomless falsity on which to try to stand?
6
I haven't seen Selma yet. But I do know some of the history. I ope the young black children get to read, see, and understand the contributions Thurgood Marshall made to the civil rights of this nation. The NAACP would not have been the organization it is if Marshall hadn't used the money to win Court cases.
4
In this article, I must admit that I agree with you. Yes, one can take artistic licenses, but it is more important that school children not have distorted historical facts about the civil rights movement and those who so bravely participated in the Selma March.
Ms. DuVernay should have not dismissed the criticism about her portrayal of President Johnson's role. School children should know that a white Southern president worked with Rev. King. I am equally surprised that Oprah Winfrey, as one of its producers, permitted this fallacy.
Ms. DuVernay should have not dismissed the criticism about her portrayal of President Johnson's role. School children should know that a white Southern president worked with Rev. King. I am equally surprised that Oprah Winfrey, as one of its producers, permitted this fallacy.
13
I was in Montgomery, AL at the time of the march from Selma and it was as much a war zone as Vietnam was when I was there in 1969-1970. Lydon Johnson gets the credit for the Civil Rights Act, but he was dragged kicking and scream to the table by a Republican Congress that continues to be vilified. When will these movie makers start telling the facts instead of twisting history to match their agenda?
3
Brava, Maureen! Like it or not, the masses watching movies like "Selma" that are supposedly based on fact and true events, view them in their minds as documentaries with dramatic recreations of actual events. Propagandists have known the power of this "art" since Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" and Joseph Goebbels' nonsensical films supposedly portraying historical events. In short, the portrayal of LBJ in this movie is an outrage as is the reason why the filmmaker decided to twist the facts. Clearly, DuVernay's decision to rely on "art" as an excuse led to the snub from Hollywood - and rightly so.
10
I cannot understand the actors being snubbed but I can certainly understand the director's snubbing. This film was too important at this time to play fast and loose with the facts.
11
It seems to me to be a legitimate characterization of history to say that white people in power could have and should have done a lot more a lot sooner to end the horrific violence and prejudice against blacks in the South. Complaints about historical inaccuracy have been hijacked by racists who are jumping on the bandwagon of nit-pickers to distract us from that truth entirely.
15
Am I the only person who wonders what Dowd's response would have been if she hadn't been forced to watch the film "in a theater full of black teenagers", which obviously made her uncomfortable? Why exactly are white elites only concerned about the impact of this film on Black youth, and not concerned about the impact of several tons of historical whitewashing on White youth?
Here's my summary of Dowd's article: I went to see a movie, and there were a bunch of Black people there in the theater. I was uncomfortable with how they responded to the movie, and they also just made me uncomfortable in general. So I decided the film must be a bad influence because Black people - unlike White people - are incapable of understanding nuance, interpretation, filmmaking, or historical and intellectual scholarship in general.
Here's my summary of Dowd's article: I went to see a movie, and there were a bunch of Black people there in the theater. I was uncomfortable with how they responded to the movie, and they also just made me uncomfortable in general. So I decided the film must be a bad influence because Black people - unlike White people - are incapable of understanding nuance, interpretation, filmmaking, or historical and intellectual scholarship in general.
23
The history of Johnson's role in civil rights is far more complex than either Ms Dowd or the movie present. For years running for office in Texas and then as majority leader in the senate he firmly and repeatedly opposed civil rights legislation.
Was it genuine recognition of the serious moral issue here or that of a politician who realized that the time had come that moved him to act after he became president??
Was it genuine recognition of the serious moral issue here or that of a politician who realized that the time had come that moved him to act after he became president??
12
The real culprit here, if we must have one, is Robert Caro. Anyone who's read the massive biography (and I'm pretty sure that includes Dowd, Ifill, Beschloss et al) is convinced she knows the truth because of her confidence in the teller and the tale and that anything else is distortion. Caro's focus is power expressed as mastery of the legislative process. While no doubt accurate no single history is a 360º view - only breadth of scope and time can get close that. Thanks to Ms DuVernay for giving us another angle.
7
If only the critics of "Selma" would do just as much fact checking about the real life politicians who are running for office. How often do movies misrepresent African Americans, women, gays, the disabled or any other disaffected group in the name of entertainment and appealing to the ticket buyers?
Women in Hollywood are most often used as sex objects and exploitable extras in order to sell entertainment rather than real life thinking and feeling humans. African Americans have been stereotyped (and continue to be) since D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation over 100 yrs ago. The disabled are left out of mainstream entertainment due to their lack of supposed "star power" or box office draw.
Mainstream movies are often used as propaganda tools for the public including the popularity of Zero Dark Thirty which won best picture although presented false material to suggest that the capture of Bin Laden was due to the use of enhanced interrogation techniques which experts have already testified was erroneous. No one in the media or public ever took the director to task for her glorification of war or misuse of facts in order to tell a story.
Now, because an African American directed a film about an African American civil rights leader, the public is up in arms about the portrayal of LBJ in the film. What does this say about the dominant culture when the director is dismissed due to this single factual error in a movie which otherwise is a true depiction of a great leader?
Women in Hollywood are most often used as sex objects and exploitable extras in order to sell entertainment rather than real life thinking and feeling humans. African Americans have been stereotyped (and continue to be) since D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation over 100 yrs ago. The disabled are left out of mainstream entertainment due to their lack of supposed "star power" or box office draw.
Mainstream movies are often used as propaganda tools for the public including the popularity of Zero Dark Thirty which won best picture although presented false material to suggest that the capture of Bin Laden was due to the use of enhanced interrogation techniques which experts have already testified was erroneous. No one in the media or public ever took the director to task for her glorification of war or misuse of facts in order to tell a story.
Now, because an African American directed a film about an African American civil rights leader, the public is up in arms about the portrayal of LBJ in the film. What does this say about the dominant culture when the director is dismissed due to this single factual error in a movie which otherwise is a true depiction of a great leader?
20
So much, "LBJ would be considered a great president if it weren't for Vietnam," commentary here. But, there was Vietnam; there was Vietnam; there was Vietnam. Why so concerned about LBJ's legacy? His was a deeply troubled administration and he was a deeply conflicted and frequently absurd man. The disproportionate number of young, black men deployed to Vietnam must be considered in any discussion of his role in the civil rights narrative of this country. No matter what the readers of Caro's book think.
9
Voting rights are up for grabs today in the South ever since the Roberts' court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County case. In response, many jurisdictions, predominantly in the South, have rushed to set up more onerous voting systems for minorities and/or to dilute minority voting power.
The movie Selma's message of white cruelty in the face of just demands for the minority vote would have been watered down by casting LBJ as a white savior. The director was well within her artistic license in not making that movie and, had she done so, that would have made it easier for whites to look away from voting issues today. This is no different than the artistic liberties taken in a wide swath of "historical" movies ranging from Lincoln to American Sniper.
Also, history is typically not an objective recasting of events, but written from a point of view. Witness the different retelling of American history from an Indian or black perspective. So, the idea of many readers here of history being "just the facts" is a bit naiveté.
The movie Selma's message of white cruelty in the face of just demands for the minority vote would have been watered down by casting LBJ as a white savior. The director was well within her artistic license in not making that movie and, had she done so, that would have made it easier for whites to look away from voting issues today. This is no different than the artistic liberties taken in a wide swath of "historical" movies ranging from Lincoln to American Sniper.
Also, history is typically not an objective recasting of events, but written from a point of view. Witness the different retelling of American history from an Indian or black perspective. So, the idea of many readers here of history being "just the facts" is a bit naiveté.
6
Films require tension and conflict to succeed in telling a story.
The director in this instance obviously felt that portraying Johnson as temporarily being an quasi-impediment helped to make a better film.
At the end, the bill does pass, right?
Johnson was most likely being used as a "stand in" for the entirety of the white dominated Washington political machinery to simplify the storytelling. He is the chief executive, after all.
I understand how historians and confidants of Johnson can bristle at this portrayal of events, but I also understand the filmmakers point of view.
If I had made the film, I would have hewed closer to the actual facts, and Ms. DuVernay does not help her case by stating that she "is not a documentarian or historian". Such a statement sounds like an excuse, not an explanation. If you make a film about a historical event as important as this one, you owe it to the viewer to make it as accurate as possible while maximizing it's dramatic impact.
She obviously felt that she accomplished that. Some may disagree.
The director in this instance obviously felt that portraying Johnson as temporarily being an quasi-impediment helped to make a better film.
At the end, the bill does pass, right?
Johnson was most likely being used as a "stand in" for the entirety of the white dominated Washington political machinery to simplify the storytelling. He is the chief executive, after all.
I understand how historians and confidants of Johnson can bristle at this portrayal of events, but I also understand the filmmakers point of view.
If I had made the film, I would have hewed closer to the actual facts, and Ms. DuVernay does not help her case by stating that she "is not a documentarian or historian". Such a statement sounds like an excuse, not an explanation. If you make a film about a historical event as important as this one, you owe it to the viewer to make it as accurate as possible while maximizing it's dramatic impact.
She obviously felt that she accomplished that. Some may disagree.
4
I can't see the difference in a black movie director doing the same thing that white movie directors have done for years. That is viewing history from a black perspective and promoting a black view of life. This should probably be done more instead of less. Then let the historians and the misled public figure out the facts on their own. In this country we have a long history of distorting history and turning a blind eye to the facts and that's why there are so many conspiracy theorists out here.
4
LBJ was certainly a flawed man who would do almost anything to grab power and keep it. He was absolutely instrumental and vital in pushing forward civil rights as he wanted a legacy in creating the Great society. Robert Caro deftly presents the first 47 days after JFK's death where he masterfully took control and secured power. Johnson immediately realizes that he must secure the Kennedy team's loyalty by pushing through JFK's agenda. when they tell him civil rights laws can't be passed, he bravely exclaims " What's a Presidency for"! He started leading the team that previously despised him. He also knew he would forever lose the support of the Southern Leaders who had given him power. Whether he switched his direction out of political opportunism or heart felt belief is not known. It is definetly known that he was the main person to manipulate the Congress and pass the law. It wouldn't have happened at that time without him. It's a fact.
8
I really wanted to go see Selma. MLK was and still remains a great man for all times. Such a film needs to be accurate. The Director did a great disservice by distorting the facts concerning LBJ.
I won't be seeing this film.
I won't be seeing this film.
7
Dowd's point taken. But she also could have been more honest, since she's aware, by including that fact that Johnson also spent a lot of energy, prior to his presidency, stopping civil rights legislation. Doesn't let the movie off the hook, but would be a more fair and balanced complaint.
4
I had planned on seeing Selma because I hoped a record would be shown to a mass audience that explained the complex and heroic nature of those who fought for the civil rights movement. Any issue that allied LBJ with Republicans like Everett Dirkson against Al Gore's father and Democrats like the old Klan member Robert Byrd who filibustered for 14 hrs against the act would have enough intrigue and tension to capture anyone's attention. Throw in the awful violence directed toward the marchers, the murder of James Reeb, the Jewish support, the arm linking with Orthodox Archbishop Iakovas and you have a compelling story of Black Americans led by Dr. King galvanizing a racist and uncaring nation into action. From what I have been reading, however, it appears that the director of Selma took the easy way out and created a composite of opposition to civil rights and plopped it into the character of LBJ who was a proponent of civil rights. I have already mentioned two villains in the drama that could have been used as the face of the opposition that would have been factual. Selma appears to be a missed opportunity.
6
I am old enough to have lived through the incidents in the film "Selma."The tragedy of the film is not slight liberties the director took with some of the events. To me the tragedy is that only students in mostly all AfricanAmerican areas in NJ are being exposed to the film which portrayed the racism in the South of that era. I live in Warren County, NJ and took my 48 year old son who has a learning disability to see Selma. We were the only ones in the theater. He was truly engaged and enraged at the victimization of blacks portrayed in the film. It should be mandatory for NJ educators to take their classes to see this film so that our current crop of students who were not alive during those events would know the history of the Voting Rights act.
10
Making movies is not the same as teaching History. The idea in making movies is to make money, win an Oscar, become famous etc. If anyone believes that Davy Crockett (John Wayne) grabbed a torch and ran into the armory blowing himself up at the Alamo thereby helping to begin the whole idea of Texas is deluding themselves. Oliver Stone's movies were designed to raise questions and create controversy, thereby putting behinds in theater seats. President Johnson, 100 years after the Civil War worked with congress and actually put the civil rights movement into law almost fifty years ago. The law still stands. To denigrate that simple fact is not valid criticism. It's movie making. School children should get their history lessons in a classroom, not a movie theater, at some point before the movie comes out. Actors, directors, producers and script writers make lousy school teachers. I haven't seen the movie yet. I don't anticipate being surprised.
2
The election of President Obama is indication enough that King and Johnson were party to the advancements we have seen. Unfortunately, our country is starting to resemble a bucket of slime and I can only hope that this sort of failing will be cyclical.
4
"no need for DuVernay to diminish L.B.J., given that the Civil Rights Movement would not have advanced without him."
This makes DuVernay's point, exactly.
Sports writers love (need?) to portray team sports as duels between individual stars--Brady vs Manning or Luck. Politics writers love (need?) to portray ideological movements as duels between their quarterbacks. Although--as Obama has tried to teach us--movement leaders are more like faces of brands than quarterbacks and certainly not "omni-gods."
If not for LBJ it would have been someone else--or the USA would be now like the Middle East. If not for the MLK, someone would have taken his place.
And--obviously--the underclasses--by race or whatever--need role models for bootstrapping. Otherwise, they are like damsels in distress needing handsome male saviors--regardless of color.
MD should know better. And--inspiration aside--the verisimilitude of fiction can be more real and true than the truest non-fiction.
This makes DuVernay's point, exactly.
Sports writers love (need?) to portray team sports as duels between individual stars--Brady vs Manning or Luck. Politics writers love (need?) to portray ideological movements as duels between their quarterbacks. Although--as Obama has tried to teach us--movement leaders are more like faces of brands than quarterbacks and certainly not "omni-gods."
If not for LBJ it would have been someone else--or the USA would be now like the Middle East. If not for the MLK, someone would have taken his place.
And--obviously--the underclasses--by race or whatever--need role models for bootstrapping. Otherwise, they are like damsels in distress needing handsome male saviors--regardless of color.
MD should know better. And--inspiration aside--the verisimilitude of fiction can be more real and true than the truest non-fiction.
7
While DuVernay should not be held to the standard of a documentarian, it is reasonable to expect that a director of a major film based on historical events will not deliberately misrepresent important facts in order to serve her artistic or, more likely, political purpose. I have no doubt that LBJ proceeded cautiously because of the political risks carried by pursuing civil rights legislation. JFK was virtually paralyzed by those same concerns. Both feared that moving forward on civil rights would cost the Democrats the South. Remember at the time there were many southern Democrats in Congress and they were powerful--especially in the Senate. Nevertheless LBJ moved forward and, as he expected, the Democrats lost the South to the Republican Party-a situation which persists to this day.
6
I want to see the movie and expect it to be powerful and sensitive and compelling. But having read Robert Caro's book on Johnson, it's a terrible violation of public trust to depict LBJ in such an inaccurate light. He was passionate and brilliant about making the Civil Rights Act happen, no matter that he was a villain about the Vietnam War. It's mean-spirited and racist for this apparently brilliant filmmaker to take her chip on shoulder into what must otherwise be a work of art. I agree completely with Maureen Dowd in taking the filmmaker to task on this issue.
12
Perceived history is often a curious piece of fiction; or perhaps the facts that go unrecorded are equal to those that do. Movies may change an accepted narrative, but what is accepted also may not be what was, particularly regarding LBJ and a flattering or unflattering historical record which meanders far from the truth. Movies exist as propaganda, not truth and again paint with point of view not facts or objectivity.
LBJ offers a curious puzzle, a riddle not easily described, as he lingers in real time not a long since distorted past. Interesting in that the same historically laundered LBJ red carpet was used before for Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. To unveil those would paint a far different historical narrative particularly regarding the Asia corridor.
LBJ offers a curious puzzle, a riddle not easily described, as he lingers in real time not a long since distorted past. Interesting in that the same historically laundered LBJ red carpet was used before for Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. To unveil those would paint a far different historical narrative particularly regarding the Asia corridor.
3
Revisionist history in Hollywood movies has always been a bad idea. Just ask Canadians on how they felt about Ben Affleck's Argo, or Hotel Rwanda. No one expects Hollywood producers, directors.. et al to be historians, however, a modicum, of respect towards historical accuracy, would greatly contribute, to better understanding and communication between groups.
9
I think the distortions of history in this film had a role in the academy rejecting it as best film of the year. What would be the reaction if the film had portrayed King asking LBJ to slow down his efforts until he (King) could cause a repugnant event that would change American's view of civil rights. Could the film's director claim "hey its just a movie"?
LBJ will go down in history as the President who did more for civil rights than any other President, including Lincoln, Kennedy dithered, LBJ acted.
LBJ will go down in history as the President who did more for civil rights than any other President, including Lincoln, Kennedy dithered, LBJ acted.
14
Your Valid point sums it well, especially for such an important part of our history: "Filmmakers love to talk about their artistic license to distort the truth, even as they bank on the authenticity of their films to boost them at awards season." The public does use films as an easy source of history; filmmakers should be responsible about that opportunity.
4
When historians study US media to understand portrayal of black people in the 21st century, Dowd's columns will provide rich material. In a critique of a movie, she begins: "I went Friday morning to see "Selma" and found myself watching it in a theater full of black teenagers." Why is the race of the teenagers in the theater important? In describing their behavior, typical teen-age behavior, she sets up these black teens as special in their need to be uplifted and educated by a movie, only to be deceived. And isn't that a pity because they, seemingly, don't have educators, families, friends, relatives who lived these lives, to help them understand the nuances of history. No one to help understand that history, accompanied by novels and movies about said events, is written by the winners first, to establish the 'truth'. When the stories of the defeated and oppressed are finally told, the winners are still powerful enough to dismiss an alternate understanding of events as false because it disrupts their 'truth'. In this case, people living in horror trying to vote and frustrated by the slow actions of LBJ. My concern, however, is Dowd. in objecting to the movie, which is her right, she unwittingly, perpetuates the stereotype of black children as misbehaving, uncouth and without the educational and cultural resources to understand a movie is a vehicle for further exploration and study. Her portrayal and assumptions of black teens in the theater Friday is the real disappointment.
21
It's great that donations pay for D.C. public school students to go see this movie but it seems to me that the private school students should have to see it. I'm sure many of them have no idea about civil rights, the Voting Rights Act, etc. and how African Americans were treated.
8
I don't think I am easily shocked, but I find the "it's just a movie" line offensive. If you are going to portray real people on the screen then you have a responsibility to do so as accurately as possible. This isn't George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or some other figure that we have to fill in the historical gaps for -- Lyndon Johnson left a paper trail (and even a television trail), as well as allies and adversaries who are still alive to talk about him. No excuse for getting this wrong. I say this as a person who does not have the best opinion of Mr. Johnson as president.
33
It's as if the producers and screenwriters say, ''Here's the opinion on this issue you are being given. Run with it!''
The film ''American Sniper,'' meanwhile, deals with such in-between things quite honestly, such as a soldier wanting to finish his part of a war while showing signs of PTSD already, and the heartache of the loving wife of that man. Perhaps this studio trusts its viewers.
The film ''American Sniper,'' meanwhile, deals with such in-between things quite honestly, such as a soldier wanting to finish his part of a war while showing signs of PTSD already, and the heartache of the loving wife of that man. Perhaps this studio trusts its viewers.
3
It's a specious argument to say it's okay that the director of Selma played loose with the facts because this is a "film" as opposed to a "documentary."
That same argument was made when D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation was released, to counter the critics who called to task the film for ignoring the historical record, in favor of a biased view of the Civil War and Black Americans.
Similarly, historians and critics were inspired to respond to Leni Riefenstahl's fascist cinematography as disingenuous propaganda masquerading as artistry.
If the director of Selma has knowingly and willfully ignored historical fact, then she's just as much of a propagandist as Griffith and Riefenstahl -- and her film, just like The Birth of a Nation and Riefenstahl's documentaries, deserves to be judged harshly.
That same argument was made when D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation was released, to counter the critics who called to task the film for ignoring the historical record, in favor of a biased view of the Civil War and Black Americans.
Similarly, historians and critics were inspired to respond to Leni Riefenstahl's fascist cinematography as disingenuous propaganda masquerading as artistry.
If the director of Selma has knowingly and willfully ignored historical fact, then she's just as much of a propagandist as Griffith and Riefenstahl -- and her film, just like The Birth of a Nation and Riefenstahl's documentaries, deserves to be judged harshly.
18
I do not believe it is the director who is ignoring the facts. The Democrats were not thrilled with the civil rights movement and it was only by the aid of republicans at the time that it passed. If you check your history you will find that men like Al Gore Sr. fought the civil rights amendment tooth and nail, and in Al Gore Sr's case actually fillibustered the amendment. The KKk was the enforcement arm of the Democratic party and many democrat leaders were also high ranking Klansmen. Senator Robert Byrd being the last publicly know Klansman to hold office until the mid-2000's.
1
How does Ms. DuVernay think the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act got enacted? Did Johnson sit back and use a few speeches to get passage? No he worked the bills the old fashioned way by extensive one on one political pressure but in this case politics and ethics went hand in hand. Actually DuVernay seems to think that Kennedy was president rather than Johnson since the go-slow approach may have fit Kennedy but certainly not Johnson. Unfortunately, when it came to Vietnam, Johnson may not have ended as a tragic figure if he had invoked some of that Kennedy caution.
11
The white progressive liberal masters have always used ugly tactics. Why does Ms Dowd believe it not to be true? I saw Mayor De Blasio do it to Al Sharpton just last month.
3
You're right that the director's excuse for the treatment of Johnson, "its only a movie" is very lame. She seems to have wrongly imputed to Johnson some of the hesitancy of JFK. It was an age of heroes, and Johnson should have rightfully been included among them.
How many of those young AA appreciate that those voting rights, achieved by activists willing to be clubbed senseless, are now being undermined by the successors to Bull Connor in Red states legislatures?
How many of those young AA appreciate that those voting rights, achieved by activists willing to be clubbed senseless, are now being undermined by the successors to Bull Connor in Red states legislatures?
11
When the director stated "I am not interested in making a white savior movie" it comes across as "so I deliberately distorted the truth."
19
History is written by the victors. By getting to make her movie, Ava DuVernay was the victor, and the movie she made is her history. I tell people repeatedly that Hollywood makes the movies it can, not the movies it should. Directors have been screwing up history onscreen to suit storylines ever since the medium was invented. I could write a thick book about it, if someone hasn't already done so.
10
Another sad day for America, as divisive propaganda is intentionally conflated with docudrama. This should keep the blacks in the angry victim mode and voting Democratic. "Creative license" is not be an excuse to rewrite history.
13
It wasn't JFK, it wasn't LBJ and it wasn't Martin Luther King who galvanized the march towards civil and voting rights. It was decades of barely remembered activists toiling daily in the vineyards until the crops grew so high that the so called leaders were propelled to the final actions. It's tiresome to read columns extolling LBJ as some sort of emancipator. He was was a politician in all it's sordid pragmatism. Thousands of everyday folk (Fannie Lou Hamer et al) with nothing left to lose and faith the size of a mustard seed worked on the building, LBJ just moved in and put his name on the door.
19
You're right, Modo.
There is a notion that for a people to be unified they must believe they share a common history. If such a talented film maker as Ms. Du Vernay willfully distorts history to please a black audience, her influence is destructive.
There is a notion that for a people to be unified they must believe they share a common history. If such a talented film maker as Ms. Du Vernay willfully distorts history to please a black audience, her influence is destructive.
12
Thank you Maureen. I hope this slander of LBJ becomes a bigger story and the picture is a complete flop.
14
Given the power of film, the director's lie is an outrage.
I recall one of Dr. King's associates commenting that the only time he saw him cry was when Lyndon Johnson ended his 1965 Voting Rights speech to a joint session of Congress with the words, "We shall overcome."
I recall one of Dr. King's associates commenting that the only time he saw him cry was when Lyndon Johnson ended his 1965 Voting Rights speech to a joint session of Congress with the words, "We shall overcome."
21
This is a phony topic with strong racial undertones. Why isn't anyone talking about the conflict between MLK and Malcom X? Or the conflict between MLK's vs the Student Nonviolent Coordinating. Or any internal black conflict as a people about how to achieve equality. I saw the film. Johnson comes across presidential, thinking about the country, his legacy, and in the end how politics and marching and protesting has an affect. Having to justify that you have written about Lincoln and other films doesn't excuse your subtle cajoling of the director. What about the white screenwriter -- You never mention him. Your whole op-ed smells bad.
19
When I took history I remember learning about primary and secondary sources and how reliable or unreliable they could be. I also remember learning that history can change depending on who is telling the story. History is all about perspective. I had a conversation not too long ago with a white history professor who proceeded to explain to me, an African American, that the Civil War was not about slavery but about states' rights. I was wrong I was told. And I guess so were my grands and great grands who had passed down different stories from ancestors.
What I find so interesting about Maureen's comments and all her acolytes who posted (the first sixteen anyway) is how they all assume the secondary sources they quote somehow got history right. Where is mention of the people who lived through it? From what I've read about the manufactured controversy over this film is that people who lived through it have a different version of events from those who just wrote about it or researched it for a book.
I think it is important to call out this sort of subtle but typical racism that exists in our society and especially in white media. Maureen tries to score her black points by pointing out that she went to see the movie with black teens. Well kudos to you Maureen. Kudos to you. You saw Selma with some black people. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Now it's ok for you to diminish the black version of events, because after all, you saw the movie with some black people.
What I find so interesting about Maureen's comments and all her acolytes who posted (the first sixteen anyway) is how they all assume the secondary sources they quote somehow got history right. Where is mention of the people who lived through it? From what I've read about the manufactured controversy over this film is that people who lived through it have a different version of events from those who just wrote about it or researched it for a book.
I think it is important to call out this sort of subtle but typical racism that exists in our society and especially in white media. Maureen tries to score her black points by pointing out that she went to see the movie with black teens. Well kudos to you Maureen. Kudos to you. You saw Selma with some black people. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Now it's ok for you to diminish the black version of events, because after all, you saw the movie with some black people.
18
If you doubt the objections raised by Califano, I suggest you read for yourself the transcript he references. It's pretty convincing.
1
dowd should hold herself to the same standard of fidelity to the historical record. her past columns, to the exasperation of many readers, typically distorted or ignored presidential history. now that she has reemerged, i hope her columns will be less cavalier and penned with the same integrity she demands from others.
10
Regarding the Oscar snub, it might be relevant that Jack Valenti was the head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for 38 years and much liked in Hollywood (where you can get away with insulting Mohammed and be a hero if you insult Kim Jong-un, but don't mess with Lyndon). Frankly, in this case, my sympathies are with Hollywood; the idea of not wanting a White savior meaning that all Whites must therefore be depicted as opponents is hate speech and I suspect one of the strongest voices in opposition would be Dr. King, had his voice not been stilled by the hatreds of that time.
8
We Texans are extremely proud on LBJ's legacy. Where the Kennedy's were pragmatic - illegally wiretapping MLK, Jr.'s phone calls - Johnson was committed. Distorting his role in the civil rights movement is shallow and irresponsible. LBJ deserves better...
16
Revisionist history from a black racist perspective? It says a lot about that filmmaker, that's for certain, and her white savior comment reeks of anger. To lie on film about a President is just bad form, makes her look irresponsible, uninformed (a huge suspicion on my part), and not at all artistic. The one thing artists don't do is get it wrong, unless getting it wrong is the message. But here, getting the message about LBJ wrong is like saying Columbus discovered America, a colossal pile of propaganda. Ok, don't make him the hero (it wasn't his story so don't focus on him) but why potentially mislead a generation of kids into thinking someone was racist when they weren't? Is it me or is the voice of black rights movement losing its authenticity?
27
DOWD: "The horrific scene of the four schoolgirls killed in the white supremacist bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church stunned the audience. One young man next to me unleashed a string of expletives and admitted that he was scared. When civil rights leaders are clubbed, whipped and trampled by white lawmen as feral white onlookers cheer, the youngsters seemed aghast."
_________________
Of course they were surprised, shocked and "aghast" when they saw the level of vitriol and violence aimed at black people in the 1960's. This is because the Left has been trying to tell young black people lately that things haven't changed much since the 60's and that having to have an ID to vote is akin to Jim Crow laws. The Left has dumbed down and propagandized young black people so thoroughly for political purposes that they don't even recognize relatively accurate recent history when they see it unfold in from of them on the screen.
_________________
Of course they were surprised, shocked and "aghast" when they saw the level of vitriol and violence aimed at black people in the 1960's. This is because the Left has been trying to tell young black people lately that things haven't changed much since the 60's and that having to have an ID to vote is akin to Jim Crow laws. The Left has dumbed down and propagandized young black people so thoroughly for political purposes that they don't even recognize relatively accurate recent history when they see it unfold in from of them on the screen.
9
Speaking of seeing the world through Hollywood glasses, where on earth did this allegation come from?
2
The simple fact of the matter is --
There are many people (myself included) - who are of the opinion that if it were not for his very stubborn and tragic mistakes regarding the war in Viet Nam -- Lyndon Johnson would have gone down in history as the greatest President this country has had since Theodore Roosevelt -
And -
If he was around today - Johnson would swat away people like John Boehner and Chris Christie (and Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio) - like mosquitoes buzzing on a screen door...
There are many people (myself included) - who are of the opinion that if it were not for his very stubborn and tragic mistakes regarding the war in Viet Nam -- Lyndon Johnson would have gone down in history as the greatest President this country has had since Theodore Roosevelt -
And -
If he was around today - Johnson would swat away people like John Boehner and Chris Christie (and Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio) - like mosquitoes buzzing on a screen door...
31
In some respects I agree with you but Johnon's "Great Society" programs have led to another major problem: many people are addicted to life on the government dole. The old adage of "work hard and you will succeed" has gone away because of the belief that the government is going to take care of you from cradle to grave.
I fervently hope this movie doesn't win an Oscar. Such a distortion of history that those kids saw with Ms. Dowd is a disgrace masquerading as 'artistic license'.
13
The NYT sentence of the year so far:
''Artful falsehood is more dangerous than artless falsehood, because fewer people see through it.''
This is exactly what can go so wrong when Hollywood sees dollar signs in ITS version of history. You don't get such a shame when Hasbro is simply peddling toys with noise, or the film is just to bring fantasy charaqcters into the new century.
But a decent man got thoroughly shamed when enough historical fiction was added to the film ''Glory Road'' to cram this round reality into the square peg that became a racial soap opera of white versus black. How much better the film could have been had the director and studio trusted the audience to deal with all the shades of gray in Adolph Rupp's and Don Haskins' time in the spotlight.
But, perhaps the screenwriters had already failed, and the people just had to shoot, cut, & edit the mess they they were handed. Welcome to show bidness.
''Artful falsehood is more dangerous than artless falsehood, because fewer people see through it.''
This is exactly what can go so wrong when Hollywood sees dollar signs in ITS version of history. You don't get such a shame when Hasbro is simply peddling toys with noise, or the film is just to bring fantasy charaqcters into the new century.
But a decent man got thoroughly shamed when enough historical fiction was added to the film ''Glory Road'' to cram this round reality into the square peg that became a racial soap opera of white versus black. How much better the film could have been had the director and studio trusted the audience to deal with all the shades of gray in Adolph Rupp's and Don Haskins' time in the spotlight.
But, perhaps the screenwriters had already failed, and the people just had to shoot, cut, & edit the mess they they were handed. Welcome to show bidness.
4
Well said. Perhaps the first time I've agreed with you.
10
Dowd is right on the money. DuVerney's excuse that she's not a historian, not a documentarian, is no different that the Republicans fronting for the climate warming deniers when they prefaced their remarks, "I'm not a scientist."
52
Any mention of Sen. Everett Dirksen(R-IL) who played a major role in writing and getting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed? Or that the Senate dems ran a filibuster for 54 days to stop the legislation? Yes, even back then democrats said one thing and always did the other!
7
Bravo Ms. Dowd. Well said. The ideologue Ms. DuuVernay, said, "I wasn't interested in making a white savior movie." Her statement labels her as an ideologue. Without whites, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act would not have happened. Ms. DuVernay does a disservice to America by dissing Johnson's role. What a shame.
27
So, Ms. DuVernay wasn't interested in writing about some white savior. What was her dismissive thought about Viola Liuzzo, who left her husband and five children home in Detroit in order to help the Selma march; only to be murdered by KuKluxers for giving a lift in her car to a 19 year old Afro-American right after the Selma march? Perhaps all thought of Mrs. Liuzzo was erased in La DuVernay's mind by the painful snub she received from the Academy by omitting her name from the nomination. After all, Mrs. Liuzzo was just another whitey savior...
19
Viola Lizzo's murder was mentioned in a prominent title at the end of the film. Did you miss that? And the murder of the white priest from Boston indicates that the director was both cognizant and respectful of the role of white supporters. Hell, King changes his mind about the need to march because of the murder of the white priest. No where does this film dismiss the importance of white support -- either morally or politically.
The portrayal of Johnson does strike me as inadequate.
He was indeed balancing many forces simultaneously, while King was focused on one, vital, set, and Johnson was not immune from the prejudices of his time, which seem to have been portrayed accurately.
However, his important legacy could have been conveyed quite succinctly by including a conversation where he admits that what he is pursuing will for the Democrats (and liberals), "lose the south for a generation". It took great moral courage to be willing to accept that as the consequence of advancing justice. For that he should be forever lauded.
The portrayal of Johnson does strike me as inadequate.
He was indeed balancing many forces simultaneously, while King was focused on one, vital, set, and Johnson was not immune from the prejudices of his time, which seem to have been portrayed accurately.
However, his important legacy could have been conveyed quite succinctly by including a conversation where he admits that what he is pursuing will for the Democrats (and liberals), "lose the south for a generation". It took great moral courage to be willing to accept that as the consequence of advancing justice. For that he should be forever lauded.
7
Ms. Dowd: Today you have finally spoken about the historical inaccuracies in the movie. I think we need to step back and see
what has been going on with Mr. Sharpton, Mr. Holder, and of
course our President- When you look to Al Sharpton as an adviser
and see all the lies, and miss -speak that has gone on over the last several years, The movie is just a continuation to distort
history to fit their narrative. Thank you-
what has been going on with Mr. Sharpton, Mr. Holder, and of
course our President- When you look to Al Sharpton as an adviser
and see all the lies, and miss -speak that has gone on over the last several years, The movie is just a continuation to distort
history to fit their narrative. Thank you-
8
Could not agree more. LBJ was misrepresented but The film also did an injustice to MLK due to dialog that was a drone and a lack of enthusiasm that pervaded most of the cast. The Selma to Montgomery March was an historic event that changed the course of US history.
9
I had wanted to see Selma, but I have read in a number of places that it distorts the facts, in a very noxious way. King, as I remember him, was about trying to bridge the racial divide. The film, as reported, seems to try to do just the opposite.
19
It's much worse than Dowd makes it out to be. The reality is that a minority fighting for better conditions only wins by making alliances with those who are more numerous and holding power. The movie sells a heroic lie, something dangerous to all of us.
9
The righteous man! Should the movie be about LBJ?
2
Had it not been for LBJ--had he not lived--the civil rights laws and and the struggle for justice and progress for Afro-Americansfor WOULD have succeeded. He supported and did not prevent what blacks and the huge majority of non-Mason-Dixon Americans wanted to happen and accomplished. But Johnson, in the biggest ways that count, was one of the worst presidents and biggest failures in American history. He fought a disastrous, unnecessary war that killed cruelly and irrationally 1,000,000 Vietnamese plus 70,000 Americans--far more people than died in our Civil War. Those were real souls for whose slaughter LBJ was responsible--that national atrocity is the inconvenient truth we don't like to face. Moreover that filthy war badly changed the USA; it was an immoral disaster whose consequences we are still living out. It's wrong to forget or try to hide away LBJ's responsibility, and see him rationalized as somehow a good president by his rich, powerful pals like Doris Goodwin, Califano, Valenti et al. LBJ's despicable war was directly responsible for the resurgence of the American right win: the huge 1964 democratic victory shows the direction of the country before the fateful decision to send masses of troops to the killing grounds, and the 1968 election and American politics since then shows the effect of his "leadership". Martin Luther King: now there's a hero--remember him--you know the guy who condemned Johnson's war as an evil destroyer of our country?
6
The real falsehood are the lies the left has been telling itself about LBJ for the last 50 years. LBJ was conflicted on the race issue and showed precisely the type of ambiguity in life that is conveyed in "Selma," just like Maureen Dowd is clearly conflicted about sitting in a theater full of black teenagers.
6
Everything I'd ever learned about prejudice and bigotry changed when I saw first hand a group of black students being beaten for sitting at a Woolworth lunch counter. I also saw those feral white onlookers cheering while cops clubbed and punched boys and girls.
I learned to be a bigot and had to learn not to be one. There's no excuse for the filmmaker to change a single moment of those times. Those kids in the movie house with Ms. Dowd "learned" another lie.
There are enough lies and liars walking around Congress today
I learned to be a bigot and had to learn not to be one. There's no excuse for the filmmaker to change a single moment of those times. Those kids in the movie house with Ms. Dowd "learned" another lie.
There are enough lies and liars walking around Congress today
36
The director's protestations that she is neither a historian nor a documentarian are as shallow and insipid as the claims of Republican senators that they are not scientists. If one is going to make a movie about real people's lives, one has no right whatsoever to tell lies about those people. This is Basic Decency 101.
20
No one knew what was in LBJ's mind. What he said, or was recorded saying to MLK or anyone else, is not enough for anyone to say for certain what he would have done about voting rights, absent being pushed hard by MLK and other heroes, who repeatedly laid their lives on the line. LBJ was opaque and devious. As Robert Caro has pointed out, LBJ had a 100% perfect segregationist voting record when he was picked to run with JFK.
LBJ had many good instincts which he kept very well hidden. But when LBJ decided to move, did he ever. He overcame his history of racism, advised America to do the same, and scared the hell out of anyone who opposed him on the Voting Rights Act. The historical controversies about "Selma" are very insignificant compared to the totality of truth captured in every scene. I am very thankful to have seen the film, but more thankful that I lived through the civil rights era, and experienced Martin Luther King as a living man.
LBJ had many good instincts which he kept very well hidden. But when LBJ decided to move, did he ever. He overcame his history of racism, advised America to do the same, and scared the hell out of anyone who opposed him on the Voting Rights Act. The historical controversies about "Selma" are very insignificant compared to the totality of truth captured in every scene. I am very thankful to have seen the film, but more thankful that I lived through the civil rights era, and experienced Martin Luther King as a living man.
19
It used to be that whenever there was any racial sensitivity transgression, the guilty party went on Oprah to cry and grovel for forgiveness. The torch has been passed to Sharpton (Obama's advisor or race relations) and transgressors now have to to go kiss his ring and seek absolution.
5
Johnson as the Senate Majority Leader during Eisenhower's administration would not bring Eisenhower's civil rights legislation to the floor. As president, Johnson was aware that Blacks prior to the enactment of Social Security predominantly voted Republican because it was Republicans that freed Blacks for slavery. Actually, it was Republican senators that helped Johnson get the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed. What Johnson and the southern Democrats did afterwards utilizing government housing plantations in northern states for Blacks caused over five million Blacks to leave the South for federal plantations which proved to be the largest migration of a race in US history. Since Blacks gave up supporting freedom for entitlements, Great Society entitlements like Welfare support 50% of Blacks and the social condition of Blacks such as out-of-wedlock children devolved from 15% to over 70%. And Blacks that graduated from public K-12 schools in the 1950s had the same national scores as Whites. Since the rise of entitlements, Black education is everything but education which is why no matter how Johnson, King etc. are portrayed in Selma, the movie is still more perception than reality and Blacks and Whites have no clue which is which.
3
Your timeline is wrong: the "black migration" took place largely in in the decades BEFORE World War II. The "plantation" housing was a response to the massive red lining and prohibition of blacks from integration into northern cities. We continue to under finance city schools and now the latest thing is to privatize them in the belief that business is a more efficient utilizer of money. In fact, business is just a producer of profit -- with no respect for or need to produce a better educated "product." History is often a this-for-that and not the intentional straight line that people like to think it is. That's why some populations in our nation see a need for photo IDs where no cause has existed and no fraud has been committed. People can convince themselves of all kinds of baloney when they feel the need to stand on the rights of others.
5
I wonder if they have anything in there about the CIA murdering Martin Luther King, and framing James Earl Ray? MLK wanted racial harmony, something
the White house doesn't seem to want.
the White house doesn't seem to want.
A sad irony here is that the current black "leaders" such as Al Sharpton have totally lost their way from what MLK taught and practiced. Where MLK emphasized peaceful protests and becoming integrated into the whole of
American culture, Sharpton promotes violence and a "separatist" culture within the black community. Best way to celebrate MLK's greatness would be to honor his teachings and goals...but that will not happen if Sharpton has any say.
American culture, Sharpton promotes violence and a "separatist" culture within the black community. Best way to celebrate MLK's greatness would be to honor his teachings and goals...but that will not happen if Sharpton has any say.
5
My 94 year young mother stated many times she thought LBJ was so eager to be President that his southern counterparts might try to hurt JFK. If you recall the words of then Texas Gov. Connelly "My God their going to kill us all!"
LBJ was forced to recognize the Civil Rights of black people because of the times and horrific events of the 1960's! No apology needed to anyone! " Selma "is a classic and elegant portrait of a most difficult and ugly period in American history. Let us learn from the past mistakes and move forward!
LBJ was forced to recognize the Civil Rights of black people because of the times and horrific events of the 1960's! No apology needed to anyone! " Selma "is a classic and elegant portrait of a most difficult and ugly period in American history. Let us learn from the past mistakes and move forward!
5
The problem everyone is having with the LBJ portrayal is not that it's inaccurate but that it's entirely too believable. It is very easy to believe that a historical figure revered for his work also made mistakes and struggled. As someone not a as well-versed as Ms. Dowd and the naysayers who would ding DuVernay for artistic license, I didn't see LBJ as a "villain" but as a very human white man in power whose good intentions had to be balanced against his own shortcomings and political goals. His portrayal rang true to me and I thought: Yes, he did the right thing in the end and this is a dramatic telling of how he got there.
We're all a little more grown up and sophisticated than Ms. Dowd wants to allow.
We know that movies are not real, that they are not documentaries. LBJ's legacy is as shiny as it ever was.
We're all a little more grown up and sophisticated than Ms. Dowd wants to allow.
We know that movies are not real, that they are not documentaries. LBJ's legacy is as shiny as it ever was.
98
I believe you have come close to nailing it mattt skirt. I live in the Texas hill country near Johnson's home and have studied his presidency closely. True students of LBJ do not see him through rose colored glasses--he was a mix of good, bad and ugly. But on civil rights he was the good LBJ. That said, he was not portrayed (historically) accurately in the movie on this issue. I get that the director wanted to avoid a "white savior" film but the true relationship of LBJ and King was fascinating in an of itself. Just listen to the tapes. By the end of this fine movie Johnson and the film are adequately redeemed as well they should be. King and LBJ needed and used each other. Both were fallible yet they came together during a time of great peril for the United States.
4
It is startling that the director of a film based on well-documented and remembered historical events behaves as though the historical context is secondary to the art.
Ava DuVernay is 42, so immaturity cannot be the excuse. She managed to put together a movie which accurately conveys much of the horror and drama of the clash with racists in the Deep South, so lack of intelligence cannot be the reason for her decision to demonize Lyndon Johnson.
It is possible there was an arrogance at work by which Ava DuVernay felt her role as filmmaker was more important than being faithful to the subject of the film. A more likely explanation, however, is that DuVernay simply could not figure out how to keep her film interesting without altering history.
Why was there not a more senior person around to help her get through it? Other directors, far more experienced than Ava DuVernay, have foolishly tinkered with history, but libel of an American president who did so much to advance civil rights is outrageous in a movie about the struggle for civil rights.
Ava DuVernay is 42, so immaturity cannot be the excuse. She managed to put together a movie which accurately conveys much of the horror and drama of the clash with racists in the Deep South, so lack of intelligence cannot be the reason for her decision to demonize Lyndon Johnson.
It is possible there was an arrogance at work by which Ava DuVernay felt her role as filmmaker was more important than being faithful to the subject of the film. A more likely explanation, however, is that DuVernay simply could not figure out how to keep her film interesting without altering history.
Why was there not a more senior person around to help her get through it? Other directors, far more experienced than Ava DuVernay, have foolishly tinkered with history, but libel of an American president who did so much to advance civil rights is outrageous in a movie about the struggle for civil rights.
30
After seeing too many so called "historical" drama movies, I quit going because I know it will all be distorted to suit the director's agenda. The fact that Dowd watched the reactions of these impressionable young people to the LBJ distortion speaks for itself. We really don't need egocentric film directors stirring the pot of racial discord while hiding behind their so-called "artistic" license.
21
Schools should be required to show "Eyes on the Prize at least twice during a child's education. Then they might not be so shocked to see the "feral white onlookers" They might even wonder, as I have, what became of those people.
6
They stayed in the South and continued voting Democrat. Democrats retained control of Alabama state government until 2010.
We live in Tea Party central, a suburb of Atlanta where there are fewer than 9% African-Americans. I went on Thursday with my wife to see the movie. We went to the 4:40p showing because it was $5.50 when the regular showings were $9. We hurried, fearing that we would not be able to get a seat. We were the only people in the 200 capacity theater. I took a selfie from up front. Post racial America? Hardly.
11
Saw the movie yesterday in S. Orange, also with a bunch of black Jr. high kids in the audience. One cell phone rang but otherwise I saw no texting and there was no noise. The kid next to me asked at the end if "I remembered" all that. I told him I did and that a med school classmate marched in Selma. I did not tell him that the movie lied about Lyndon Johnson to glorify MLK but it was clear to me that it did. Too bad. Movie had enough drama with out the director finding it necessary to change history and make LBJ, who managed to get the civil rights act passed, into a villain.
9
At the end of the day, this is just a movie, just one source in many for our intelligent young people to weigh as they sift through multiple skewed sources about both LBJ and MLK. It has opened up a valuable, teachable, conversation about legitimate historical sources. All kids are capable of figuring out the truth through reading books, or viewing multiple other sources.
LBJ was a character. Ava DuVernay left a good deal out of the film that could spun the teens perceptions even further down the propaganda hole.
LBJ was a character. Ava DuVernay left a good deal out of the film that could spun the teens perceptions even further down the propaganda hole.
1
"Selma' is a beautiful movie, no second thoughts about that. But it could have been a masterpiece if all the concerned leaders who made history happen were treated with honesty and due respect. Art is art. But artistic license to distort the truth is not justifiable. As a matter of fact,art should follow history not the other way around. Hollywood seems to be honing the art of making films with distorted history. Time for them to pick up the gauntlet to be responsible as their films become history lessons, instead of real books imparting real history.
6
I agree with the director's resistance to yet another civil rights movie with a white savior. But that does not justify her distortion of history. Instead, she simply could have focused on the numerous black heroes and made LBJ an off screen presence.
8
... or the director could have focused on the way in which John F. Kennedy had, in fact, been an obstacle to change in 1961 when the Freedom Riders made their journeys. LBJ had the courage to support civil rights that both John and Bobby Kennedy only reluctantly supported--and only after the violence made international news.
This is constructive criticism, Ms. Dowd, and well earned by the filmmaker. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that those who see the movie will later gain an accurate understanding of LBJ's political courage in backing civil rights advances during the 1960s.
Even worse, the movie may encourage a cynical view that neither American political party cares about the dignity of all individuals. That is obviously false and history shows it.
Even worse, the movie may encourage a cynical view that neither American political party cares about the dignity of all individuals. That is obviously false and history shows it.
9
I Saw the movie. I did not see LBJ as an obstacle at all. I just felt he wanted to concentrate on poverty first. I did not see that as the obstacle. George Wallace was the vile person in this movie and the movement. I know enough about LBJ that he was a true hero. However, history should be taught properly in the public schools so that children will know the truth, whatever that is. How many of us know exactly what is in the hearts and minds of men and women.
4
Ms duVernay's first big-budget film being snubbed for the Oscars is poetic justice for her defamation of LBJ. Pity that the otherwise excellent Mr. Oyelowo has had to pay as well. No worries: we will be seeing more of him in coming awards seasons. Hopefully, with more experience she will earn a Best Director nomination as well.
10
The greater damage is that liberal politics is portrayed as having no effect on the world, the only players are the ones who go to extremes. I was more extreme in those days but now I realize how important being part of the system is for progressive change. The Right is destroying our country because there is no active liberal power in politics anymore, Obama is not a liberal. Johnson was and a few hundred years from now when the real history is known he will be seen as one of the great presidents.....and Ronald Reagan will be on the bottom of that scale because LBJ did make great strides towards the betterment of the human race.
8
Oh come on, people, the gist of most comments is to dump on the rights of artists to create a work of art. As an artist, I am disgusted with the demand I read in these comments for historical accuracy in a work of art. If you want history, produce a documentary of your own version. History, is only relatively more accurate, anyway, due to the fact that a single individual or workgroup picks and chooses its sources and interpretations. Personally, I loved the cathartic experience of being moved to tears during the movie "Selma".
7
Right, what could be more "disgusting" than accuracy? This comment sounds like the Bush administration's denigration of the"reality-based community." The problem with this kind of thinking is that are not multiple "versions" of the facts. What's artistic about manipulating the truth?
4
This column is exactly right about the numerous films "based on a true story" that cause harm by taking wide detours from those true stories. I have begun making it a habit to check online after seeing historical films to find an analysis of the differences between the films and the stories they were purportedly based on. It's pure laziness on the part of producers and directors when they take the short cut of distorting the truth rather than doing a better artistic job of telling the real story.
6
The problem, with the movie and the commenters, is that we do not know our history. Fox and CNN and our terribly ill informed Congress constantly distort the truth.
The problem isn't a left wing or right wing media, the problem is a lack of accountability for truth and honesty.
Science.
History.
Facts.
This are important if for no other reason than it is the truth, the best truth we have. What we do with the truth is another question.
Politics, Media, Entertainment, Twitter, Blogs, - not the truth. remember that.
The problem isn't a left wing or right wing media, the problem is a lack of accountability for truth and honesty.
Science.
History.
Facts.
This are important if for no other reason than it is the truth, the best truth we have. What we do with the truth is another question.
Politics, Media, Entertainment, Twitter, Blogs, - not the truth. remember that.
9
Does Hollywood owe any community Oscar nominations? Rev. Al Sharpton made the predictable comments minutes after the nominations were announced. And while the director of "Selma" flatly states she is not a documentation, she can't distort history in a film that purports to be accurate and escape criticism. Not one civil rights group in the country honors LBJ for his critical role in passing Voters Rights and another programs. Without his leadership, there would have been no legislation at a time when conservative Southern Democrats controlled the Senate. MLK was a great leader but he didn't have one vote.
19
As someone who received her political education while working for a Southern congressman during the Johnson administration, I'm not surprised that DuVernay's interpretation of LBJ is skewered. If you've read Robert Caro's multivolume biography, you know he was one of the most complex personalities EVER in American politics. Bill Moyers makes reference to this in the comments another reader cited. Johnson was a tormented manipulator of people, by turns cruel and incredibly kind. Whether or not he condoned Hoover's sending those tapes to King's wife, Coretta, he had to have known about them. An FBI agent regularly shared them with a group of Southern congressmen in our office while all aides of the feminine persuasion were shooed away. Hoover even went after LBJ's aide Walter Jenkins, so I think the argument can be made the LBJ was reluctant to confront him. The fact remains that much of the protection people of color and the poor received could only have been achieved by someone as politically crafty as LBJ. I wish people would just go see the film (as I have) and trust that the president's legacy speaks for itself.
12
All one has to do is simply compare a great movie like "Lincoln" to Ms. DuVernay's "Selma". In Lincoln, the endless search for 'authenticity' extended to even the sound of the clock in his study and culminated in Daniel Day-Lewis mimic of Lincoln's voice.
Unfortunately "Selma" seems to be more the norm these days. The dumbing down of 'political correctness' seeping into and corroding what could be a compelling story line. You see it in the super hero CIA heroine in "Zero Dark Thirty", who upon further examination turned out to be a composite, and with the latest Senate report, an incompetent bungler pushing the torture envelope.
Or '42', a comic book version of the heroic life of Jackie Robinson shot in the soft glow of an old school Disney movie. The same would apply to 'Unbroken" which has more of 'movie of the week' feel to it, than a compelling saga.
Great movies, like anything in art that is great, have to reflect the complexities of life that will resonate over decades. I suggest after watching a 'Selma', simply watch "Lawrence of Arabia". 50 years later, still compelling and relevant.
Unfortunately "Selma" seems to be more the norm these days. The dumbing down of 'political correctness' seeping into and corroding what could be a compelling story line. You see it in the super hero CIA heroine in "Zero Dark Thirty", who upon further examination turned out to be a composite, and with the latest Senate report, an incompetent bungler pushing the torture envelope.
Or '42', a comic book version of the heroic life of Jackie Robinson shot in the soft glow of an old school Disney movie. The same would apply to 'Unbroken" which has more of 'movie of the week' feel to it, than a compelling saga.
Great movies, like anything in art that is great, have to reflect the complexities of life that will resonate over decades. I suggest after watching a 'Selma', simply watch "Lawrence of Arabia". 50 years later, still compelling and relevant.
13
Hollywood movies are created as a profit scheme. Most are designed for entertainment. History in Hollywood movies is only accidentally addressed by truth.
The Blacks complaint of "lack of diversity" in the Oscar nominations is an artifact of today's police brutality media frenzy.
Black culture has changed since Selma became history. Race relations have not. Black racism has gotten worse. Black culture today has to defend itself as it descends into the depths of ignominy
The Blacks complaint of "lack of diversity" in the Oscar nominations is an artifact of today's police brutality media frenzy.
Black culture has changed since Selma became history. Race relations have not. Black racism has gotten worse. Black culture today has to defend itself as it descends into the depths of ignominy
1
These were two flawed (aren't we all?), but great men. So, why did Ms. DuVernay find it necessary to denigrate one in order to enhance the other?
Dr King's legacy and accomplishments are quite secure. Yet, she could have added even more luster without distorting the role of LBJ.
Other than this distortion, I'm worried about something far more important. There's already enough division between blacks and whites. Many blacks see nefarious motives in anything white people do or say. I believe this mistrust has worsened since the 1960s. This film adds to that level of mistrust.
If Ms. DuVernay had opted for a more balanced portrayal, some younger blacks might now be thinking, "Hey, there may be some decent, powerful white people who actually care about our problems".
I left this movie feeling annoyed at the portrayal. As a white person, I will now view Ms. DuVernay's films with suspicion and mistrust. She has added to racial divisions in this Country.
Dr King's legacy and accomplishments are quite secure. Yet, she could have added even more luster without distorting the role of LBJ.
Other than this distortion, I'm worried about something far more important. There's already enough division between blacks and whites. Many blacks see nefarious motives in anything white people do or say. I believe this mistrust has worsened since the 1960s. This film adds to that level of mistrust.
If Ms. DuVernay had opted for a more balanced portrayal, some younger blacks might now be thinking, "Hey, there may be some decent, powerful white people who actually care about our problems".
I left this movie feeling annoyed at the portrayal. As a white person, I will now view Ms. DuVernay's films with suspicion and mistrust. She has added to racial divisions in this Country.
16
Unfortunately, Americans have been conditioned to think of Hollywood as a source of real history. Watch again "Heartbreak Ridge," a fun film with Clint, but recall that the Cubans present on Grenada were engineers and numbered a vast forty in strength. The "Green Berets" has also outlived its role as a booster of the Vietnam War. The supporters of ignorance in education are served well by Hollywood propaganda, well hidden among the rubbish.
3
The producers of this film should have recognized that if President Johnson did not actively support the civil rights act, none of the others who followed him would have had the guts to take on the white supremacists. And, blacks will still be where they were in the 50's.
4
I read Ms. Dowd's column last night and couldn't stop thinking about it. My concern, is, where is this dismay and shock going to go? Will it inspire the young Black audience to work hard, be proud of themselves, study, go to college? Or to be angry and distrustful at the world in which they live? I suspect the latter.
3
Dowd: "There was no need for DuVernay to diminish L.B.J., given that the Civil Rights Movement would not have advanced without him. Vietnam is enough of a pox on his legacy."
Those of us who lived during that period in our history and were making efforts to be informed know this to be true. Those who have not had that advantage need movies and other sources to help mediate the truth of that time.
With respect to civil rights and social justice, MLK was a hero and a great man; so was LBJ. Both had faults, but both are responsible for bringing needed change to society and advancing justice -- helping to set things aright -- in our nation.
Those of us who lived during that period in our history and were making efforts to be informed know this to be true. Those who have not had that advantage need movies and other sources to help mediate the truth of that time.
With respect to civil rights and social justice, MLK was a hero and a great man; so was LBJ. Both had faults, but both are responsible for bringing needed change to society and advancing justice -- helping to set things aright -- in our nation.
9
Maureen Dowd deserves a prize for this thoughtful commentary, particularly for calling out the Kennedy Administration for foot-dragging on civil rights. Many will remember President Kennedy's difficulty in ever locating the pen whose stroke he had promised would help end housing segregation. In the spring of 1993, as a representative of McGraw-Hill magazines, I attended a Justice Department meeting of publishers where Attorney General Kennedy said he had implored Rev. King to avoid Birmingham. But in the following uproar, Robert Kennedy said, the damage was done and that the publishers now had a patriotic responsibility to support Administration civil rights proposals. Tarring President Johnson unfairly with this kind of reluctance in an influential film wii, for many, distort both President Johnson's and the country's motives in acting against segregation.
7
This movie and its alleged inaccuracies has no real significance. Who will decide to see it or not will be a selective issue. Whether to believe the movie or not, will also be a highly selective process, based on the movie goers predispositions to MLK and the issues he dealt with.
But I'm sure, that if the art is well done, many other faux pax's, (such as accuracy) will be forgiven.
But I'm sure, that if the art is well done, many other faux pax's, (such as accuracy) will be forgiven.
2
Let's not forget that "the historical truth" is not a transparent sequence of events waiting to be read or represented, but is itself already a (white) reading, an interpretation of those events. "It's not just a movie" here serves to lay a claim on black cultural production, to attempt to control the narrative by defining its legitimate boundaries, and to deny the possibility of black self-definition. Why should we always in some (implicit) way assert (white) monopoly on "history", "Truth", "facts", etc.?
4
I really, really enjoyed the movie "Lincoln" and found it inspiring.
I remember being disappointed in the state of Connecticut that its representatives voted "no" on the 13th Amendment.
I was doubly disappointed after the fact to discover that Connecticut actually voted YES on said amendment.
Why do filmmakers do this sort of thing? Totally gratuitous falsehood. It makes no sense to me.
I was very interested in the movie Selma until I hear of its major historical distortions and lies.
I remember being disappointed in the state of Connecticut that its representatives voted "no" on the 13th Amendment.
I was doubly disappointed after the fact to discover that Connecticut actually voted YES on said amendment.
Why do filmmakers do this sort of thing? Totally gratuitous falsehood. It makes no sense to me.
I was very interested in the movie Selma until I hear of its major historical distortions and lies.
9
Considering how much black people went through in this country I consider the small " inaccuracies" or distortions very mild. This is not a documentary.
3
History is often treated as an Etch A Sketch, not just by film makers, but also by journalists, politicians, and even historians. For example, over the decades since Little Big Horn the New York Times has treated General Custer as a great American hero, then as a cowardly and racist killer of Native American women and children, and most recently as simply a bungling, egomaniacal incompetent. The unvarnished evidence about LBJ is that he was both instrumental in advancing the civil rights cause and also prejudiced against black people. So was Abraham Lincoln who is extolled as the Great Emancipator but who also believed that the blacks he had freed should all be deported to someplace in Central America because they would never fit into white America. Thank goodness we have journalists such as Ms. Dowd who consistently remind us to closely examine that which we believe to be true.
6
Artistic license is one thing but to paint LBJ as an obstacle instead of showing him as the genuine champion of civil rights that he was, is flat out defamation and makes the movie Selma an absolutely worthless waste of time. If a person Is going to take on the immense responsibility of representing historical figures they have a profound obligation to do so as fairly and as accurately as possible or their work is meaningless.
9
LBJ and history, and especially Presidential historians can take care of LBJ without much help and influence from MLK. LBJ was on his own trajectory fuelded by events and personality that guided his every breath and heartbeat.
Selma was just another event in the life of MLK who had educated himself and had chosen a strategic method toward Civil Rights. Keeping-in-mind that the legal wheels of change was 1954 and nothing was going to stop MLK after the School desegregation decision. MLK knew that the economic participation of Black citizens was necessary for local governments to operate and he understood the public relations effect of the TV camera. LBJ was simply not the tail that wagged the dog and almost any depiction of him on any given day could have been most anything because time and events were happening instantaneously (for the first time in history). Historically, LBJ was pulled along history's path on the coattail of MLK.
Selma was just another event in the life of MLK who had educated himself and had chosen a strategic method toward Civil Rights. Keeping-in-mind that the legal wheels of change was 1954 and nothing was going to stop MLK after the School desegregation decision. MLK knew that the economic participation of Black citizens was necessary for local governments to operate and he understood the public relations effect of the TV camera. LBJ was simply not the tail that wagged the dog and almost any depiction of him on any given day could have been most anything because time and events were happening instantaneously (for the first time in history). Historically, LBJ was pulled along history's path on the coattail of MLK.
3
As time elapses, the narrative changes. This film is no exception to the rule. Martin Luther King brought about these fundamental changes to America all by himself. For the director and producer this may be OK, but if you are claiming this film o be more than a cinematic endeavor, maybe you need to give LBJ his due for the passage of this legislation. Also keep in mind one year before Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman were murdered, and on the very same day that The March was taking place in Selma, Viola Liuzzo was murdered.
The director and Oprah need to keep in mind those words for which Obama was criticized when referring to the 1%, "You didn't build it all by yourself."
The director and Oprah need to keep in mind those words for which Obama was criticized when referring to the 1%, "You didn't build it all by yourself."
8
Why are all the reviews focusing on the distortion of LBJ's role, and not on the larger message of the movie - that of the courage and struggle of the actual civil rights workers?
I haven't yet seen the movie, but I suspect that Ms. DuVernay needed a dramatic foil for the resistance of the white establishment (the lack of initial support from JFK & RFK, that of the FBI, and of white society at large); that's just the way drama works. You need an identifiable villain to represent all those forces - LBJ was the lucky duck whose turn it was to play that role in the movie.
However, I hope the movie doesn't harp as much on LBJ's role as the critics are focused on. The real story is the courage and perseverance of the actual foot soldiers in the battle, and the heroism of Dr. King and his supporters. It would be a shame if that message got lost to the viewers, especially those who are encountering this history for the first time.
I haven't yet seen the movie, but I suspect that Ms. DuVernay needed a dramatic foil for the resistance of the white establishment (the lack of initial support from JFK & RFK, that of the FBI, and of white society at large); that's just the way drama works. You need an identifiable villain to represent all those forces - LBJ was the lucky duck whose turn it was to play that role in the movie.
However, I hope the movie doesn't harp as much on LBJ's role as the critics are focused on. The real story is the courage and perseverance of the actual foot soldiers in the battle, and the heroism of Dr. King and his supporters. It would be a shame if that message got lost to the viewers, especially those who are encountering this history for the first time.
3
It doesn't. I'm honestly shocked at the response here and elsewhere to how LBJ is depicted in the film, it's like these people saw a completely different movie. I also find it interesting that of all the liberties the director/writers took with the film, this is the only one white folks seem to have an issue with.
4
"Selma" is not "How To Fix Your Car". It is a story.It may be about history, but it's made up.
Based on history, it is still made up in part.
No film, from "Ten Days That Shook The World" to "Apollo 13" is documentary with no added perspective, just as no portrait is life, no photo perfectly reality. That's why we have different lenses, filters, shades.
"Selma" sounds like fact, but is "filtered" through the consciousnesses of its writers, directors, editors, resarchers, actors, and cinematographers. Audiences MUST know or hear this. Kids, especially, trust too much in what they view.
So bring black kids. all kids, to "Selma" and "Roots", and afterwards, talk with them about the differences between this account and what is left out, changed, and wrong-headed.
Movies move us, Maureen is correct -- the closer to factual, recorded history a film seems to be, the more emphasis we must put on the filters used. As in photos, perspective needs discussion. Kids deserve this. Well done, Maureen.
Based on history, it is still made up in part.
No film, from "Ten Days That Shook The World" to "Apollo 13" is documentary with no added perspective, just as no portrait is life, no photo perfectly reality. That's why we have different lenses, filters, shades.
"Selma" sounds like fact, but is "filtered" through the consciousnesses of its writers, directors, editors, resarchers, actors, and cinematographers. Audiences MUST know or hear this. Kids, especially, trust too much in what they view.
So bring black kids. all kids, to "Selma" and "Roots", and afterwards, talk with them about the differences between this account and what is left out, changed, and wrong-headed.
Movies move us, Maureen is correct -- the closer to factual, recorded history a film seems to be, the more emphasis we must put on the filters used. As in photos, perspective needs discussion. Kids deserve this. Well done, Maureen.
9
History is a difficult mistress, especially if tweaked in the name of art, as in Shakespeare's contribution to English nationalism in lionizing Henry V, or as in DuVernay's account of Selma. Whatever pressure King exerted on LBJ, surely the president had to use his charms and skills on Congress?
History is also subject to official manipulation: the Maine; the Gulf of Tonkin incident; and the attack of the USS Liberty. The fact that LBJ didn't run for president (1969) is usually attributed to the Vietnam War, but his decision may have been influenced by his initial reaction to the attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli air and naval units. The killing of 34 Americans needs to be re-examined, together with pressure on LBJ to cover up the incident.
History is also subject to official manipulation: the Maine; the Gulf of Tonkin incident; and the attack of the USS Liberty. The fact that LBJ didn't run for president (1969) is usually attributed to the Vietnam War, but his decision may have been influenced by his initial reaction to the attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli air and naval units. The killing of 34 Americans needs to be re-examined, together with pressure on LBJ to cover up the incident.
3
Long before MoDo's article, I had decided not to see the movie. I've seen the original footage and have heard much eye-witness testimony. I don't need "infotainment" to add to that.
3
It's been awhile since I've agreed with Ms Dowd, but she's right.
For good or ill, Americans now get their education from movies. Whether history, or physics, or biology, or literature. Their science is from Gattaca, Jurassic Park, Twelve Monkeys. Their physics is from Star Trek (not the original, which at least tried for plausibility). And their history, even recent history, will be from movies as well, Inglourious Basterds or Zero Dark Thirty or Selma.
Vietnam, alas, has overshadowed LBJ's legacy, and made him easy to hate - an all-purpose villain. Just as MLK must now be as close to a saint as one can make him. We don't do complex characters any more: MLK must be fitted for spandex and a cape.
For good or ill, Americans now get their education from movies. Whether history, or physics, or biology, or literature. Their science is from Gattaca, Jurassic Park, Twelve Monkeys. Their physics is from Star Trek (not the original, which at least tried for plausibility). And their history, even recent history, will be from movies as well, Inglourious Basterds or Zero Dark Thirty or Selma.
Vietnam, alas, has overshadowed LBJ's legacy, and made him easy to hate - an all-purpose villain. Just as MLK must now be as close to a saint as one can make him. We don't do complex characters any more: MLK must be fitted for spandex and a cape.
8
Let's not forget that "the historical truth" is not a transparent sequence of events waiting to be read or "represented"; it is already a (white) reading, an interpretation of those events. "It's not just a movie here" serves to lay a claim on black cultural production, to control the narrative by delineating its legitimate boundaries, and to deny the possibility of black self-definition. Why should we always in some (implicit) way assert a (white) monopoly on "Truth", "facts", "history", etc.?
7
One would hope that a positive aspect of the rather loud controversy over the portrayal of LBJ in a diminished role in the civil rights movement would be that more people, especially the young who we hope to see learning critical thinking skills and understanding that there is history and there is Hollywood.
Importantly, they will come to perceive why Hollywood does such things, even though DuVernay's distortion makes no sense given her laudable intention to portray MLKjr as the man he was, warts and all. ( But what does a deliberate historical inaccuracy why spoil it by making the president less a person than what it was?) That error served in no way to polish King's legacy.
Don't go to many movies but I did see the well enough done by Hollywood standards, Argo, reasonably faithful to actual events though Canadians will have some valid gripes. As the plane is taking off and the Iranians discover they have been bamboozled some plucky screen writer invents a pickup full of gunmen chasing it down the runway. Expected at that point to see Bruce Willis begin firing at them while holding on with one hand to the tail of the aircraft. I was ready then to get up and walk out. But it was time to anyway.
Importantly, they will come to perceive why Hollywood does such things, even though DuVernay's distortion makes no sense given her laudable intention to portray MLKjr as the man he was, warts and all. ( But what does a deliberate historical inaccuracy why spoil it by making the president less a person than what it was?) That error served in no way to polish King's legacy.
Don't go to many movies but I did see the well enough done by Hollywood standards, Argo, reasonably faithful to actual events though Canadians will have some valid gripes. As the plane is taking off and the Iranians discover they have been bamboozled some plucky screen writer invents a pickup full of gunmen chasing it down the runway. Expected at that point to see Bruce Willis begin firing at them while holding on with one hand to the tail of the aircraft. I was ready then to get up and walk out. But it was time to anyway.
2
The Oscar snub appears to be deserved. Anyone in the arts who argues that history may be distorted is simply wrong. Furthermore, DuVernay's TV appearances border on arrogance.
What comes to mind: during my days as an INS examiner (1974-1996), I coped with a few arrogant and hostile African American officers (Today: DHS). I was aware that they lacked the education (and professional experience), that the rest of us had. So they were given officer status because of Affirmative Action. However, some of them used a federal vehicle for personal use and some of them( 4 in the Denver district, for example) stole from INS, was never revealed until they were fired.
Of course, not all members of a group (e.g., African American) are criminals.
However, nothing excuses hostility that appears to be "reverse racism".
What comes to mind: during my days as an INS examiner (1974-1996), I coped with a few arrogant and hostile African American officers (Today: DHS). I was aware that they lacked the education (and professional experience), that the rest of us had. So they were given officer status because of Affirmative Action. However, some of them used a federal vehicle for personal use and some of them( 4 in the Denver district, for example) stole from INS, was never revealed until they were fired.
Of course, not all members of a group (e.g., African American) are criminals.
However, nothing excuses hostility that appears to be "reverse racism".
4
Thank you Mo, this nearly says it all: "Filmmakers love to talk about their artistic license to distort the truth, even as they bank on the authenticity of their films to boost them at awards season." Were it not for LBJ's commitment to the civil rights cause it is entirely possible that the boldness, and thus the success, of civil rights leaders, would not have materialized the way it did and the outcome could have been far less meaningful than it was. Twisting the historic account similarly will produce an outcome which can prove far less meaningful.
16
After the beatings on the Edmund Pettus Bridge bridge in Selma, and after the murders of the Rev. James Reeb and Mrs. Viola LIuzzo, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a child of segregated Texas and a fixture of the Southern, segregationist component of the Democratic New Deal coalition forged by FDR, went on national TV and intoned the words, "We shall overcome." That heroic statement and the Voting Rights Act that followed are as much a part of LBJ's legacy as his tragic and un-courageous decisions that led to the debacle of Vietnam. There's no reason and no justification for denying it.
19
The film director has introduced a nasty worm of her own hubris into a nearly perfect representation of an important moment in our history., I think. It was one of the finest hours in a tortured, difficult career for LBJ, one that had its bad moments, as well. Everyone who knew him saw he was flawed, but they also knew he was intensely committed to fighting for racial equality and greater economic fairness in this country. That fight was personal for him, and he convinced many a Dixiecrat to respect that fact. He also kept his promises.
Deliberate, gratuitous dishonesty in representing the facts of our history does a disservice to the actors, the producers, and the public. From her statements,
the director seems blithely uninterested in honesty for its own sake, missing how that devalues her own efforts and art. She could have, and should have, done better.
Lyndon Johnson was an imperfect human being. But he does not deserve to have his genuine best efforts erased from history by a petty disregard for truth.
Deliberate, gratuitous dishonesty in representing the facts of our history does a disservice to the actors, the producers, and the public. From her statements,
the director seems blithely uninterested in honesty for its own sake, missing how that devalues her own efforts and art. She could have, and should have, done better.
Lyndon Johnson was an imperfect human being. But he does not deserve to have his genuine best efforts erased from history by a petty disregard for truth.
44
Frankly, I'm less concerned about the portrayal of LBJ -- which didn't make him a villain as much as a sympathetic pragmatic politician -- and some minor historical inaccuracies in "Selma" as much as the overall focus of the movie. The Selma Movement was two years in the making before King arrived on the scene, and it was driven by SNCC and the Dallas County Voters League. I would rather have seen the story unfold over that extended time from from the point of view of the Boynton Family and other local organizers. They are the real story of Selma; King, LBJ and Wallace only drew the spotlights.
116
I too wish LBJ hadn't been misrepresented as barely better than Wallace and Hoover, especially since many of the participants from the march are still alive and the historical record is easily accessible and verifiable.
Still, it was an extraordinary film and it is yet another stain on American history that the Oscar deciders did not deem any of the actors or director worthy of a nomination. (How a film gets nominated for Best Picture without crediting the director, DP, screenwriter or principal actors, I do not understand.)
The tragedy is that for all the drama and "progress" since those days, very little has changed. Voting rights are once again at risk, black lives don't seem to matter and a post-racial society seems totally beyond our reach. Maybe Ms DuVernay had to "re-frame" the facts to communicate that bigger truth.
Still, it was an extraordinary film and it is yet another stain on American history that the Oscar deciders did not deem any of the actors or director worthy of a nomination. (How a film gets nominated for Best Picture without crediting the director, DP, screenwriter or principal actors, I do not understand.)
The tragedy is that for all the drama and "progress" since those days, very little has changed. Voting rights are once again at risk, black lives don't seem to matter and a post-racial society seems totally beyond our reach. Maybe Ms DuVernay had to "re-frame" the facts to communicate that bigger truth.
2
Those of us in our 60s have a difficult enough time dealing with the sad truths of Pesident Johnson's rapid and overwhelming escallation of the Vietnam war and its aftermath.
However, his equally rapid passage of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid alone were truly breath taking.
He did not need to do it by executive fiat.
He had to deal with southern Democrats as well as Republicans to get this legislation passed. He was not above the fray but made alliances with political friends and foes alike. He was not a very smooth orator, but was able to include and lead both sides of the aisle to achieve meaningful legislation owned by both parties, an art (and skill) lost on the current executive in the White House.
He achieved legislatively what President Kennedy was unable to achieve.
Denial by pundents at the Boston Globe as well as those responsible for this movie of Johnson's remarkable domestic legislative achievements are truly bizarre and an unnecessary rewrite of the history which we all experienced.
However, his equally rapid passage of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid alone were truly breath taking.
He did not need to do it by executive fiat.
He had to deal with southern Democrats as well as Republicans to get this legislation passed. He was not above the fray but made alliances with political friends and foes alike. He was not a very smooth orator, but was able to include and lead both sides of the aisle to achieve meaningful legislation owned by both parties, an art (and skill) lost on the current executive in the White House.
He achieved legislatively what President Kennedy was unable to achieve.
Denial by pundents at the Boston Globe as well as those responsible for this movie of Johnson's remarkable domestic legislative achievements are truly bizarre and an unnecessary rewrite of the history which we all experienced.
6
If a majority of young moviegoers will see the portrait of LBJ though this film, they are either intellectually lazy and/or unable to adequately read. The fact that the students were texting during the film, highlights a technological divide which has serious implications for African Americans. There are hundreds of Web sites on LBJ on the internet which can be accessed with a $400 personal computer, and these sites can present a more accurate picture of LBJ and MLK. Unfortunately, a disproportionate number of African Americans use smart phones as their sole access to the Internet. A child going to school without a computer is at a serious disadvantage, unless they go to a library for knowledge. Hollywood films are generally entertainment, they aren't designed to impart real knowledge. Save you money and don't see the film , buy Caro's "Master of the Senate" and/ or "Passage of Power"
to learn about LBJ ,or surf the Internet. I would rather see Lord of the Rings if a director is going to engage in fantasy.
to learn about LBJ ,or surf the Internet. I would rather see Lord of the Rings if a director is going to engage in fantasy.
3
Excellent column, right on. The truth has got to matter. We have too much work left to do to distort it. The future hinges on the truth of the past, and the truth is that MLK and LBJ were co-workers. In King's own words, "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity." - Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
The next movie needs to be called "Montgomery."
The next movie needs to be called "Montgomery."
1
Just saw the movie myself and find myself agreeing with Maureen for a change. MLK was a truly great figure in our history and deserves the holiday that we have set aside in his name. I wish the makers of this film did not think it necessary to diminish the legacy of LBJ to convince us what a transformational figure Dr King was.
Largely because of LBJ's actions, the formerly Solidly Democratic Voting South became Republicans for what probably will be for decades. Long after this aging Boomer is dead, whites in the South will vote Republican. Johnson knew this and predicted this outcome. Despite this, He did what few politicians of this era would do. He did what was right for the country regardless of the political consequences. His political courage in pushing
through reforms like the Voting Rights Act should not have been rewarded by tainting his reputation in the name of poetic license.
Largely because of LBJ's actions, the formerly Solidly Democratic Voting South became Republicans for what probably will be for decades. Long after this aging Boomer is dead, whites in the South will vote Republican. Johnson knew this and predicted this outcome. Despite this, He did what few politicians of this era would do. He did what was right for the country regardless of the political consequences. His political courage in pushing
through reforms like the Voting Rights Act should not have been rewarded by tainting his reputation in the name of poetic license.
1
Given the disgusting treatment of black people for 500 years and the bottom line fact that it was blacks themselves standing up to white oppression that finally started changing things, I have little sympathy for all the "give LBJ his due" chatter. Yes, it probably took a white southern president with forceful skills of persuasion to pass a civil rights act in racist 1960s America but so what?
As the film suggests, his hand was undoubtedly forced by MLK who will always be the real hero on this score. LBJ was a politician and not someone suddenly imbued with saint like qualities of loving compassion. He saw civil rights as a possible legacy for himself and a way to offset increasing public dismay of military escalation in Vietnam (even by 1964).
In addition, there was, and still is, a cloud of suspicion that hangs over him following the convenient (for him) assassination of JFK and the heartless way he treated Jackie and Bobby that day. The bottom line: the real version is probably more complicated but LBJ was no saint. So leave it be PLEASE! There is a time for white people to just stand aside and shut up and Maureen, this is one of them.
As the film suggests, his hand was undoubtedly forced by MLK who will always be the real hero on this score. LBJ was a politician and not someone suddenly imbued with saint like qualities of loving compassion. He saw civil rights as a possible legacy for himself and a way to offset increasing public dismay of military escalation in Vietnam (even by 1964).
In addition, there was, and still is, a cloud of suspicion that hangs over him following the convenient (for him) assassination of JFK and the heartless way he treated Jackie and Bobby that day. The bottom line: the real version is probably more complicated but LBJ was no saint. So leave it be PLEASE! There is a time for white people to just stand aside and shut up and Maureen, this is one of them.
5
It can be argued that Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" is a tragedy, for, as any fool should realize, but for the supernatural appearance of a Guardian Angel, George Bailey kills himself.
I was presented with that counter perspective courtesy of a post-screening discussion of that film, an exercise that a "historical" film like Selma demands of us.
The history of Civil Rights, like all history, is neither black or white, but rather Black AND White. It is gray. It is nuanced, imperfect, multi-leveled and -threaded like the human lead- and supporting-actors whose actions direct it, and the historians who seek to retell or rewrite it.
I fervently hope that the students seeing Selma on Friday are rewarded with a probing examination and discussion of the film, the Civil Rights movement, and the flawed participants involved, warts and all.
LBJ was a politician and a sonuvabitch.
MLK was a preacher/activist and a philanderer.
I was presented with that counter perspective courtesy of a post-screening discussion of that film, an exercise that a "historical" film like Selma demands of us.
The history of Civil Rights, like all history, is neither black or white, but rather Black AND White. It is gray. It is nuanced, imperfect, multi-leveled and -threaded like the human lead- and supporting-actors whose actions direct it, and the historians who seek to retell or rewrite it.
I fervently hope that the students seeing Selma on Friday are rewarded with a probing examination and discussion of the film, the Civil Rights movement, and the flawed participants involved, warts and all.
LBJ was a politician and a sonuvabitch.
MLK was a preacher/activist and a philanderer.
5
The history of the United States that I learned in high school during the 1940's was grossly wrong and slanted to a purified version of what had and was happening. There was no discussion of the separate African American's units in the U.S. Army. It was at home that I learned of Mrs. Roosevelt's praise and pride of flying with a Tuskagee airman. It was at home that I learned about the way treaties made with native Americans, were broken and land seized from them.
I'm suspicious that sugar coating American history is still going on at the elementary school level. It's no wonder a young audience is shocked at scenes in the movie Selma.
I'm suspicious that sugar coating American history is still going on at the elementary school level. It's no wonder a young audience is shocked at scenes in the movie Selma.
6
The truth at best is a partially told story. I was born in the early 50's, am Gay and my senses have always guided me well. I became a (MSW) social worker an spend my entire life in non-profit helping with poverty programs for the poor and the sick. I am extremely proud of my work especially when the program reaches it's goal and helps change the live of others for the better. Living through all the killings in the 60's, especially, JFK,MLK, RFK, stand out in my min. So does Johnson. If not for him the advances that have been made would have not been as far as living in a decade when a Black person is president. Not to mention Medicare & Medicaid, where some of the A.C.A dovetails with Medicaid.
I hope some day there will come a time when 'one' may consider a Gay person eligible for president. 'We' have our own culture and, when someone says "...there were no people of other cultures or minorities that have been nominated for an Oscar...", I wish that would 'openly' include Gays.
As for the likes of Stone, Du Vernay, and other directors who distort true stories for entertainment value, I skip the film. I'll see them later on cable. Meantime, I read books, watch creditable documentaries, serious news, and converse with intelligent people. We must all keep ourselves informed and not be so quick to judge. As I said in the beginning of this comment, things in life are far more complicated so let's do our best.
I hope some day there will come a time when 'one' may consider a Gay person eligible for president. 'We' have our own culture and, when someone says "...there were no people of other cultures or minorities that have been nominated for an Oscar...", I wish that would 'openly' include Gays.
As for the likes of Stone, Du Vernay, and other directors who distort true stories for entertainment value, I skip the film. I'll see them later on cable. Meantime, I read books, watch creditable documentaries, serious news, and converse with intelligent people. We must all keep ourselves informed and not be so quick to judge. As I said in the beginning of this comment, things in life are far more complicated so let's do our best.
7
I agree that this is a fine movie with outstanding performances. And that LBJ does not come off as a great hero, though he is not, I would argue, cast as a villain either. He is portrayed as a clever and manipulative politician (which he was) who does not give the Civil Rights movement a high enough priority on his to-do list. In this latter regard, the film is not fair to LBJ since he seemed to have been deeply dedicated to this cause. Still, I would not say it goes so far as to demonize him.
With films like this, generations of young Americans will learn what life was like for African-Americans in the South pre-1965. DuVernay's masterpiece is a valuable gift for these upcoming generations, though I wonder if the conservative white folks of Alabama will see it this way.
With films like this, generations of young Americans will learn what life was like for African-Americans in the South pre-1965. DuVernay's masterpiece is a valuable gift for these upcoming generations, though I wonder if the conservative white folks of Alabama will see it this way.
3
Great piece, and on the money. LBJ has enough bad baggage - he doesn't need to be denied one of his greatest achievements in an important movie about that historic struggle.
In the early 1970's I took a course in Minority Politics at the Harvard University Extension School - obviously, ANYONE could get in! The professor, Dr. Martin L. Kilson, Jr., a leading black intellectual, was the first African American fully tenured professor at Harvard and a very gifted speaker.
He was very clear in giving LBJ high praise for his efforts, and gave him much more credit for the passing of civil rights legislation than to the Kennedy family. He made it quite clear that the black community owed a great deal of gratitude to LBJ.
He also knew, and emphasized, that the voting booth was the key to social change in America. At that point in time, the changes from these historic events in the 1960's were beginning to be seen. In one class, Dr. Kilson was ebullient from a recent trip to New York City. Driving back to Boston in the late afternoon/early evening, going into Connecticut, he was surrounded in traffic by a lot of middle class blacks - "They were heading to the suburbs!!" he beamed.
In the early 1970's I took a course in Minority Politics at the Harvard University Extension School - obviously, ANYONE could get in! The professor, Dr. Martin L. Kilson, Jr., a leading black intellectual, was the first African American fully tenured professor at Harvard and a very gifted speaker.
He was very clear in giving LBJ high praise for his efforts, and gave him much more credit for the passing of civil rights legislation than to the Kennedy family. He made it quite clear that the black community owed a great deal of gratitude to LBJ.
He also knew, and emphasized, that the voting booth was the key to social change in America. At that point in time, the changes from these historic events in the 1960's were beginning to be seen. In one class, Dr. Kilson was ebullient from a recent trip to New York City. Driving back to Boston in the late afternoon/early evening, going into Connecticut, he was surrounded in traffic by a lot of middle class blacks - "They were heading to the suburbs!!" he beamed.
7
H. Rap Brown ( Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin) once said that when Black people started to get money the currency would be changed and Black people would be told to go dig. In a similar fashion a movie like Selma has to compete for attention with social media and more importantly video games. Ms Dowd may not have to worry to much about young film goers getting bad history from films, since they seem to prefer video games over films. There is no need to pay a premium in a movie theater to see Selma, rent the film on Amazon or I tunes for less. And once again as with music, Black film makers are entering an industry in which it is more difficult to make money given that technology has made the product cheaper.
1
The movie shows the short comings of the role of President of the United States in being able to make history on social change items. Here we are on the eve of the Supreme Court ruling on the civil rights of "others" to marry and have the same benefits as the rest of us and I am sure that of all the items on President Obama's" change" list he did not anticipate this coming as he began the journey his presidency.It appears through the witnessing of people by his side that LBJ did. And he was a political animal who sniffed the making of history in the air but cautiously used his role. I think that the role in the movie was showing that his embracement of equal rights was not as inspired with the same passion as Dr. King leading his people in to real battle and death. To show the heavy heart of King and the weight on his shoulders to succeed there needed to be the contrast of the political mind of LBJ. I think the director did a phenomenal job and used the artistic tools of her trade in ground breaking ways.
4
I am white and old enough to remember and to have followed closely the reporting on the civil rights movements in the 60's. My older siblings participated directly, traveling from New England to North Carolina to join protests and marches. My father ran a summer camp for black kids from NYC throughout out the 50's and early 60's and all of us worked (siblings) or were campers (me) there. We had no special privileges; if anything, my father was stricter on us than other campers.
All that said, I often find myself amazed at how little of the legacy of civil rights has been passed on to black kids of this generation -at least in my conversations with them. I am amazed also that black voting rates are generally low. How can that be? That vote is a source of power that blacks, broadly speaking, have squandered by lack of participation. It was sorely won but it seems the legacy has not been passed on. Too bad. I hope this film changes that a least a little.
All that said, I often find myself amazed at how little of the legacy of civil rights has been passed on to black kids of this generation -at least in my conversations with them. I am amazed also that black voting rates are generally low. How can that be? That vote is a source of power that blacks, broadly speaking, have squandered by lack of participation. It was sorely won but it seems the legacy has not been passed on. Too bad. I hope this film changes that a least a little.
12
The movie is just like the huge statue on the mall: King is King and LBJ is the huge block of granite he's half part of.
The movie is an essential step in the reduction of King to human dimensions, as well as the enshrinement of the mythic King as a symbol of the black victory. The submissive grumbling among white liberals about Johnson succeeds their own consignment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, Rev. William Sloan Coffin, and Sen. Mike Mansfield to absolute historical oblivion.
The liberal problem with setting up LBJ as a racist villian is that it snakes the LBJ Reclamation Project that is part of the overall effort to totally annihilate the Democratic Party's anti-war past and become a warmonger party. LBJ is nearly remade as the Hero of the Great Society and benign Civil Rights godfather- and the Viet Nam War was just some kind of unavoidable natural disaster. (Remembering the Toad Kissinger is still squatting in Goldman-Sachs world with his very own little Nobel Prize is instructive here. Le Duc Tho, the real great man at the talks, refused to accept the capitalist trinket, mystified at what fools would give Henry Kissinger a peace prize. The most glaringly obvious historical facts are easily washed away by a good education. You couldn't name the Vietnamese negotiator in Paris, could you.)
So no LBJ in the stone circle- even as his imperialism is more rehabilitated by the Democratic Party than his civil rights.
The movie is an essential step in the reduction of King to human dimensions, as well as the enshrinement of the mythic King as a symbol of the black victory. The submissive grumbling among white liberals about Johnson succeeds their own consignment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, Rev. William Sloan Coffin, and Sen. Mike Mansfield to absolute historical oblivion.
The liberal problem with setting up LBJ as a racist villian is that it snakes the LBJ Reclamation Project that is part of the overall effort to totally annihilate the Democratic Party's anti-war past and become a warmonger party. LBJ is nearly remade as the Hero of the Great Society and benign Civil Rights godfather- and the Viet Nam War was just some kind of unavoidable natural disaster. (Remembering the Toad Kissinger is still squatting in Goldman-Sachs world with his very own little Nobel Prize is instructive here. Le Duc Tho, the real great man at the talks, refused to accept the capitalist trinket, mystified at what fools would give Henry Kissinger a peace prize. The most glaringly obvious historical facts are easily washed away by a good education. You couldn't name the Vietnamese negotiator in Paris, could you.)
So no LBJ in the stone circle- even as his imperialism is more rehabilitated by the Democratic Party than his civil rights.
3
No film about emotional historical issues is going to be devoid of gross inaccuracies. Perhaps that's due to "artistic license", perhaps to the ignorance -- or biases -- of the filmmaker. While I commend the idea of giving students free tickets to see this, or any other film about an important historical event, it is important that we instill in the viewers an understanding that the filmmaker is not a historian. Because once you introduce the concept of artistic license you are so fully in the realm of fiction as to make a mockery of the idea of using film to teach history. This is for no other reason as that there are no footnotes to a film, no way for scholars to check the source of a scene.
Unfortunately, this is a very difficult concept to instill. But as the majority of any population gets, I believe, its primary understanding of its history through its popular culture, it is imperative, from a historian's point of view, that we pay particular attention when a film does distort history through artistic license, editing, or just downright bias. Otherwise we run the risk, as was the case with the issues of torture in "Zero Dark Thirty", of creating false impressions of the past, but giving real ammunition to those who would distort it for their own reasons.
Unfortunately, this is a very difficult concept to instill. But as the majority of any population gets, I believe, its primary understanding of its history through its popular culture, it is imperative, from a historian's point of view, that we pay particular attention when a film does distort history through artistic license, editing, or just downright bias. Otherwise we run the risk, as was the case with the issues of torture in "Zero Dark Thirty", of creating false impressions of the past, but giving real ammunition to those who would distort it for their own reasons.
52
Ava DuVernay. "I am not a historian."
Mitch McConnell et. al., "I am not a scientist."
Me: Well, there are libraries and Google. There is critical thought.
I keep trying to remember the moment when it became okay, if not an actual badge of honor," to be proud of keeping yourself ignorant.
Mitch McConnell et. al., "I am not a scientist."
Me: Well, there are libraries and Google. There is critical thought.
I keep trying to remember the moment when it became okay, if not an actual badge of honor," to be proud of keeping yourself ignorant.
64
"It was clear that a generation of young moviegoers would now see L.B.J.’s role in civil rights through DuVernay’s lens."
It is for this reason that there are few things more obnoxious than historical revisionism. Disney is probably the leader here ("sanitizing" stories like that of Anastasia et al), but there many other examples.
My suggestion would be that if you are taking your kids to see the film, or they see it and want to discuss it, you gently explain that movies often take "license" with the facts, and that the reality is that LBJ was extremely supportive of both MLK and civil rights.
It is for this reason that there are few things more obnoxious than historical revisionism. Disney is probably the leader here ("sanitizing" stories like that of Anastasia et al), but there many other examples.
My suggestion would be that if you are taking your kids to see the film, or they see it and want to discuss it, you gently explain that movies often take "license" with the facts, and that the reality is that LBJ was extremely supportive of both MLK and civil rights.
12
Maureen-I am so happy so see you on Sun.mornings again.You are right LBJ has enough horror on his legacy,but this man accomplished what no president today could ever do.Don't take that away from him.
20
In 1964 I was nine years old living in Northern La in total Apartheid. My parents took me to many civil rights meetings where they were demanding the vote. I witnessed my grandparents and their generation (the first to truly grow up not a slave) sing ole' negro songs longing for the day to be free. So from my reference point, I would like to define an ally.
Maureen Dowd and other white folks have the term ally mixed up with sympathetic. You see an ally does not tell you to go out in the streets and get your ass kicked by white racists and when the beatings are bad enough, they will then step in. Someone who is sympathetic would say that. An ally would have had federal troops on that bridge the moment it was announced they were marching. A sympathetic politian stands by and watches and recoils at the horror.
Next to Linclon, LBJ was greatest President in history in advancing black freedom. No movie can change that. But like Lincoln, he was a politician who only acted when he felt the time was politically viable. An ally would have been marching on the bridge with King.
Maureen Dowd and other white folks have the term ally mixed up with sympathetic. You see an ally does not tell you to go out in the streets and get your ass kicked by white racists and when the beatings are bad enough, they will then step in. Someone who is sympathetic would say that. An ally would have had federal troops on that bridge the moment it was announced they were marching. A sympathetic politian stands by and watches and recoils at the horror.
Next to Linclon, LBJ was greatest President in history in advancing black freedom. No movie can change that. But like Lincoln, he was a politician who only acted when he felt the time was politically viable. An ally would have been marching on the bridge with King.
30
Very well said, Mr. English.
2
Best comment here. Larry, thanks for widening my perspective with your thoughtful explanation.
2
After listening to Ms. DuVernay on a number of chat shows, I have decided I have enough of a problem with her "version" of history.
As a director and playwright, I thoroughly understand the need for dramatization and artistic license, but Ms. DuVernay's treatment of LBJ as well as the erasure of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel from the march makes me wonder about her intent and her message. In responding to the debate over her vision, the director has been quoted as saying: ""I think everyone sees history through their own lens and I don't begrudge anyone from wanting to see what they want to see. This is what I see. That should be valid. I'm not going to argue history. I could, but I won't."
Well, her view is not terribly valid in light of actual documentation. LBJ was not a reluctant party in this fight; he was a leader. And if some of his motives may have been for political gain, well, that's another issue for discussion. This disappearance of Rabbi Heschel removes the very present participation of a large number of Jewish leaders who supported and marched with Dr. King, actively fighting for civil rights in this nation.
I get the distinct impression Ms DeVernay's version is revisionist rather than artistic in license. And since in the end, it will be the movie that many people will come to see as the functional history of the movement, the film does a great disservice to history and truth.
I'm disappointed. I'd hoped for better.
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
As a director and playwright, I thoroughly understand the need for dramatization and artistic license, but Ms. DuVernay's treatment of LBJ as well as the erasure of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel from the march makes me wonder about her intent and her message. In responding to the debate over her vision, the director has been quoted as saying: ""I think everyone sees history through their own lens and I don't begrudge anyone from wanting to see what they want to see. This is what I see. That should be valid. I'm not going to argue history. I could, but I won't."
Well, her view is not terribly valid in light of actual documentation. LBJ was not a reluctant party in this fight; he was a leader. And if some of his motives may have been for political gain, well, that's another issue for discussion. This disappearance of Rabbi Heschel removes the very present participation of a large number of Jewish leaders who supported and marched with Dr. King, actively fighting for civil rights in this nation.
I get the distinct impression Ms DeVernay's version is revisionist rather than artistic in license. And since in the end, it will be the movie that many people will come to see as the functional history of the movement, the film does a great disservice to history and truth.
I'm disappointed. I'd hoped for better.
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
609
"Selma" neither tears down LBJ nor elevates MLK.
"Selma" is about the extraordinary actions of ordinary people to secure, at the risk of their lives, for some at even the cost of their lives, rights which had already been granted by law - which proved to be insufficient. In that story, even MLK's contribution, while necessary, was not sufficient. Would LBJ, for all his rightly praised convictions and political acumen, have been able to get voting rights legislation to the floor of Congress without Selma, and other Selmas?
We've seen how much laws have secured voting rights in the past. We still see it. Apparently, LJB was also necessary, but not sufficient.
What we should be paying attention to is how the protection of some people's voting rights affect all of our voting rights. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, with at minimum tacit support from then Governor now Presidential candidate Jeb Bush, removed hundreds, if not thousands of legitimate poor, Black and Hispanic voters from the registration roles ahead of the 2000 elections. Not only were the votes of those voters in Florida stolen. The vote of every American who voted for Gore was stolen.
You want historical accuracy? There's your historical accuracy.
Don't worry about what "Selma" doesn't say. Worry about what "Selma" does say. And what "Selma" does say is "Black, Brown or White, you'd better march." While you still can. Because not even LBJ was enough to help you. Even LBJ knew that.
"Selma" is about the extraordinary actions of ordinary people to secure, at the risk of their lives, for some at even the cost of their lives, rights which had already been granted by law - which proved to be insufficient. In that story, even MLK's contribution, while necessary, was not sufficient. Would LBJ, for all his rightly praised convictions and political acumen, have been able to get voting rights legislation to the floor of Congress without Selma, and other Selmas?
We've seen how much laws have secured voting rights in the past. We still see it. Apparently, LJB was also necessary, but not sufficient.
What we should be paying attention to is how the protection of some people's voting rights affect all of our voting rights. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, with at minimum tacit support from then Governor now Presidential candidate Jeb Bush, removed hundreds, if not thousands of legitimate poor, Black and Hispanic voters from the registration roles ahead of the 2000 elections. Not only were the votes of those voters in Florida stolen. The vote of every American who voted for Gore was stolen.
You want historical accuracy? There's your historical accuracy.
Don't worry about what "Selma" doesn't say. Worry about what "Selma" does say. And what "Selma" does say is "Black, Brown or White, you'd better march." While you still can. Because not even LBJ was enough to help you. Even LBJ knew that.
9
You discount the very real strength and presence of black pop culture racism in American life. Much of their belief systems have been cultivated over many generations of hate-filled oral tradition and folklore. That's very hard to compete with even if you do have history on your side.
2
Before he became supporter of civil rights Lyndon Johnson was a segregationist Dixiecrat protégé of Sam Rayburn and Richard Russell. After Lyndon Johnson became a civil rights activist he continued the John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy alliance with J. Edgar Hoover to spy on and harass Dr. King and other civil rights activists.
Black African Americans did most of the leading, bleeding, sweating, crying and dying for their civil rights from the end of Reconstruction to the end of the civil rights era. Black people were a physically identifiable enslaved discriminated against despised disenfranchised socioeconomically politically educationally weak minority.
The Black- Jewish "alliance" was among the elite. While most poor Blacks then and now had to deal with the tiresome condescending paternalism combination of pity and contempt from their Jewish "friends". About 5000 black men, women and children were lynched. The film "Selma" is about and told from the perspective of the Black African American holocaust which happened in America to Americans by Americans. Rabbi Henschel was no Schwerner, Goodman nor Levison.
Blacks died and were wounded fighting in every American war for a country that denied their humanity as persons and their equality for most of it's history. And the unsung Black giants are legion. Edgar Daniel Nixon, Joanne Robinson, Diane Nash, Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, Robert Moses and Fred Gray.
When will the life of Judah P. Benjamin become a film?
Black African Americans did most of the leading, bleeding, sweating, crying and dying for their civil rights from the end of Reconstruction to the end of the civil rights era. Black people were a physically identifiable enslaved discriminated against despised disenfranchised socioeconomically politically educationally weak minority.
The Black- Jewish "alliance" was among the elite. While most poor Blacks then and now had to deal with the tiresome condescending paternalism combination of pity and contempt from their Jewish "friends". About 5000 black men, women and children were lynched. The film "Selma" is about and told from the perspective of the Black African American holocaust which happened in America to Americans by Americans. Rabbi Henschel was no Schwerner, Goodman nor Levison.
Blacks died and were wounded fighting in every American war for a country that denied their humanity as persons and their equality for most of it's history. And the unsung Black giants are legion. Edgar Daniel Nixon, Joanne Robinson, Diane Nash, Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, Robert Moses and Fred Gray.
When will the life of Judah P. Benjamin become a film?
5
King was enough of a "savior" without having to manipulate Johnson's role to try to make him look better. Altering history always diminishes the credibility of the director. It's something DuVernay should have anticipated.
As for the Oscar snub, it was understandable. The most compelling thing about the movie was the story itself. The acting was very good but not Oscar-worthy. It was a strung together depiction of momentous events that could have been used to educate high schoolers if only they had been depicted accurately.
As for the Oscar snub, it was understandable. The most compelling thing about the movie was the story itself. The acting was very good but not Oscar-worthy. It was a strung together depiction of momentous events that could have been used to educate high schoolers if only they had been depicted accurately.
44
It may be difficult, in these days of confrontation politics to recall that once there was cooperation across the aisle and between the races. While lost in the distant past, these instances of cooperation and support are more important to recall than ever because they may inspire public figures from different parties and races in the future to work together constructively.
The story of Dr. King's great success is not diminished by denying he had allies. Nor, would the drama of the movie have been diminished. But, selling a pseudo history that purports to show Dr. King succeeded despite the efforts of others to hinder him may make those from different camps less likely to trust each other sufficiently to work together in the future.
That bi-partisab politics and bi-racial cooperation can produce great and positive change seems to be lost today. What a pity for the future.
The story of Dr. King's great success is not diminished by denying he had allies. Nor, would the drama of the movie have been diminished. But, selling a pseudo history that purports to show Dr. King succeeded despite the efforts of others to hinder him may make those from different camps less likely to trust each other sufficiently to work together in the future.
That bi-partisab politics and bi-racial cooperation can produce great and positive change seems to be lost today. What a pity for the future.
216
Black African Americans did not come to America on a vacation cruise or fleeing tyranny. American was founded and sustained on the violent inhuman inhumane principle of white supremacy.
And after Revolution, Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and Civil Rights there are more Black African Americans relying on welfare for food, education, housing, clothing and medical/healthcare than ever before. There are more Blacks in prison and unemployed than ever.
And despite the fact that a landslide majority of 57% in 2008 and 59% in 2012 of white American voters went McCain/Palin and then Romney/Ryan POTUS Obama won and has ignored and lectured his most loyal long suffering deserving base.
Neither America nor most white Americans are nearly as wonderful and brave nor freedom loving as they continue to delude themselves in to believing. God should bless Black African America.
White America keeps wanting to remake "Tarzan" under different guises. "Selma" is our story. Not his story.
And after Revolution, Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and Civil Rights there are more Black African Americans relying on welfare for food, education, housing, clothing and medical/healthcare than ever before. There are more Blacks in prison and unemployed than ever.
And despite the fact that a landslide majority of 57% in 2008 and 59% in 2012 of white American voters went McCain/Palin and then Romney/Ryan POTUS Obama won and has ignored and lectured his most loyal long suffering deserving base.
Neither America nor most white Americans are nearly as wonderful and brave nor freedom loving as they continue to delude themselves in to believing. God should bless Black African America.
White America keeps wanting to remake "Tarzan" under different guises. "Selma" is our story. Not his story.
4
Ms Dowd is dancing around the issue. This is a film intended to incite racial antagonism among people who are ignorant about history and only know what they are told by mass media.
Without the white male dominated Congress and LBJ the civil rights movement might have had a different and less successful ending.
Blacks are less than 15% of the population but they demand the most attention.
Without the white male dominated Congress and LBJ the civil rights movement might have had a different and less successful ending.
Blacks are less than 15% of the population but they demand the most attention.
53
Hitler said the Jews were the root of all of societies woes. Things have changed, Now that label goes to the "old white men". Apparently chaos is the "new" preferred lifestyle.
2
Why was there a need to lie? To make Martin Luther King, Jr. even greater than he was? To diminish a president who was a white male southerner?
Je suis Charlie.
Je suis Charlie.
138
Unfortunately far too many of us get our history from fiction--how many of us believe that Caesar actually said "e tu Brutus?", but we have heard it so many times from Shakespeare that instinctively we believe this is the truth.
Billie S might be forgiven, writing so many years after events with so little "news coverage", but in a case where the real, and well-documented drama is better than the fictionalised, it makes little sense unless the distortion is what the creatures intended--in which case they are propagandists, not artists.
Billie S might be forgiven, writing so many years after events with so little "news coverage", but in a case where the real, and well-documented drama is better than the fictionalised, it makes little sense unless the distortion is what the creatures intended--in which case they are propagandists, not artists.
39
IMO the film did not succeed as art either. It was too tv-esque and cheesy. I think a Ken Burns approach would have been better. The subject is so good and so inherently dramatic... it was really a surprise to me how flat the film felt.
21
Yup, another white director telling black folks story is just what we need more of. "WE live the stories we tell" and no one needs someone to continually tell their story for them. No one.
3
This might be a great movie -- but I won't go see it. If it distorts the role of LBJ in getting the civil rights act passed - that is not a good thing. People should also know that LBJ went out of his way and broke or bended laws to rescue Jewish people from the Holocaust. The man was not perfect but he did a lot of great and good things. As Maureen Dowd says -- the history speaks for itself, why distort it?
78
As a Vietnam-era vet, I feel the "pox on his legacy" has been nowhere near redemptive enough to give LBJ the benefit of any doubt on anything. His villainy includes the disproportionate deployment of black troops to the front lines of that needless carnage. It seems we have a lot of white apologists who can't take even a little of what our black citizens have been subjected to. Go get 'em black filmmakers!
19
Common belief is that a disproportionate number of blacks were killed in the Vietnam War. Fact: 86% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were black, and 1.2% were other races. Black fatalities amounted to 12 percent of all Americans killed in Southeast Asia, a figure proportional to the number of blacks in the U.S. population at the time and slightly lower than the proportion of blacks in the Army at the close of the war."
Common belief is that the war was fought largely by the poor and uneducated. Fact: Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a slightly elevated risk of dying because they were more likely to be pilots or infantry officers. Vietnam Veterans were the best-educated forces our nation had ever sent into combat. 79% had a high school education or better. http://www.lzcenter.com/Myths%20and%20Facts.html
Table 12 of the US Census Bureau's 1999 Statistical Abstract of the US (on the Internet at: www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec01.pdf) tells us that between 1960 and 1980, Blacks Americans expressed as a percentage of the total US population averaged approximately 11.13%. Of the entire 58,177 who died in Vietnam, including both officers and enlisted men, 86% were Caucasians, 12.5% were black, 1.2% were other races. http://www.deanza.edu/faculty/swensson/essays_mikekelley_myths.html#Myth#6
Common belief is that the war was fought largely by the poor and uneducated. Fact: Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a slightly elevated risk of dying because they were more likely to be pilots or infantry officers. Vietnam Veterans were the best-educated forces our nation had ever sent into combat. 79% had a high school education or better. http://www.lzcenter.com/Myths%20and%20Facts.html
Table 12 of the US Census Bureau's 1999 Statistical Abstract of the US (on the Internet at: www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec01.pdf) tells us that between 1960 and 1980, Blacks Americans expressed as a percentage of the total US population averaged approximately 11.13%. Of the entire 58,177 who died in Vietnam, including both officers and enlisted men, 86% were Caucasians, 12.5% were black, 1.2% were other races. http://www.deanza.edu/faculty/swensson/essays_mikekelley_myths.html#Myth#6
5
I appreciate your thoughtful and factual comment; but, it seems that the white privilege of more likely being an officer, pilot, etc.. can be dangerous. I maintain that, of the grunts who were drafted, blacks were less often seen in rear-echelon sinecures than their demographics would have warranted.
3
Stevensu, you say you are a Vietnam-era vet. Are you an in-country Vietnam vet? There's a difference. I'm both. Most who served in the armed forces during the Vietnam War era did NOT serve in-country.
Why do I caret? It's because those who didn't serve in-country don't really know all that they think they know about it.
In any event, I question your claim that LBJ had anything to do with the race of the troops were assigned to combat, and those who were REMFs. LBJ meddled in lots of things, but during my time there (04/67--04/68 and 05/69 -- 09/69) I observed no such thing.
So, please,either back up your claim with facts -- or withdraw it.
As for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Laws their passage under LBJ's leadership would have been impossible without the votes of the Republicans in the House and Senate. This is almost never mentioned by the legacy media… it doesn't fit "the story"
Why do I caret? It's because those who didn't serve in-country don't really know all that they think they know about it.
In any event, I question your claim that LBJ had anything to do with the race of the troops were assigned to combat, and those who were REMFs. LBJ meddled in lots of things, but during my time there (04/67--04/68 and 05/69 -- 09/69) I observed no such thing.
So, please,either back up your claim with facts -- or withdraw it.
As for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Laws their passage under LBJ's leadership would have been impossible without the votes of the Republicans in the House and Senate. This is almost never mentioned by the legacy media… it doesn't fit "the story"
DuVernay's excuse of "hey, it's just a movie" is pathetic and disgusting. When someone purposely distorts a historical fact or distorts another person's character and actions for book, film or play -- they are, frankly, just liar, a self-serving liar. Perhaps she wasn't nominated as "best director" because people who did the voting recognized that she made a choice to distort history at the expense of the man -- LBJ -- who engineered the passage of the Civil Rights Act about which Martin Luther King could only "dream."
117
If it's 'just a movie' and inaccuracies don't matter, can we re-release Birth of a Nation? It's a whopping good story and a landmark in cinema. And it's not basically inaccurate, in that it does portray an historical event, that is, the founding of the Ku Klux Klan in response to Reconstruction. Sure, it plays a bit with the question of heroes and villains, maybe it's kind of slanted - but it is only a movie, after all.
2
and for the benefit of keeping racial tension at an all time high. It's kind of like yelling fire in a theater. Oh, I forgot. We have freedom of speech (in a way_) without the responsibility.
I have not seen the movie but the events surrounding Civil Rights act of 1964 and 1965 appear to have created an echo in the Gay Rights and the Obama Whitehouse's handling them.
Mr. Obama by all means was not ready, and very reluctant to jump ahead the Country, instead he waited and and then was pushed by the Vice President Biden to endorse the Gay Rights. It never appeared Obama was anti-Gay Rights but it appeared he was waiting some more for the climate to be right for it.
(Frankly I think he was afraid of the black ministers)
However Johnson handled the Congress very well, he never them granted. I guess a good politician knows when the iron is hot and the time is at hand to strike it.
I have, what I think as a more important issue with movie, the actor who plays MLK Jr. does not speak his words, and they are re-written. What a shame! I think whatever the reasons the family believes they have they are sabotaging his legacy; those words are very special, spoken by an orator and a preacher a screenplay writer cannot duplicate them.
Mr. Obama by all means was not ready, and very reluctant to jump ahead the Country, instead he waited and and then was pushed by the Vice President Biden to endorse the Gay Rights. It never appeared Obama was anti-Gay Rights but it appeared he was waiting some more for the climate to be right for it.
(Frankly I think he was afraid of the black ministers)
However Johnson handled the Congress very well, he never them granted. I guess a good politician knows when the iron is hot and the time is at hand to strike it.
I have, what I think as a more important issue with movie, the actor who plays MLK Jr. does not speak his words, and they are re-written. What a shame! I think whatever the reasons the family believes they have they are sabotaging his legacy; those words are very special, spoken by an orator and a preacher a screenplay writer cannot duplicate them.
7
Neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton, for that matter, endorsed gay rights until the gay community held a political/ economic knife to their throats. Until they were forced to do otherwise, they simply avoided or evaded the issue. When confronted with grossly homophobic situations, they just ducked. I do not believe that either one of them are homophobes, but I also cannot accept that they were with the gay community and just waiting until the right moment came along. They both were willing to push the gays under a bus for their own political advantage.
This was definitely NOT the case with LBJ and the civil rights movement. Without him, there would have been no civil rights movement. Face it. LBJ, for all his sins in Vietnam, was the last American president who had real empathy with the disenfranchised in American society. His support of the Civil Rights Movement was at great political risk to himself and his party. Since then, most rights issues have had to be supported by some political advantage.
This was definitely NOT the case with LBJ and the civil rights movement. Without him, there would have been no civil rights movement. Face it. LBJ, for all his sins in Vietnam, was the last American president who had real empathy with the disenfranchised in American society. His support of the Civil Rights Movement was at great political risk to himself and his party. Since then, most rights issues have had to be supported by some political advantage.
7
Bill Moyers, who worked for LBJ during this period, was interviewed on the movie SELMA, and I would recommend his informed and nuanced comments to all-- http://billmoyers.com/2015/01/15/bill-moyers-selma-lbj/ including his conclusion: "So it’s a powerful but flawed film. Go see it, though – it’s good to be reminded of a time when courage on the street is met by a moral response from power."
41
EXACTLY. Perfectly said. When I went to JFK (by the nut-case Oliver Stone), there was a scene where a completely fictitious character created the storyline that Johnson had ordered JFK's murder to more deeply involve us in Vietnam. I heard in that cinema, a couple of women seated in front of me. At that point, one said to the other, "I didn't know that" at which point, I left the movie. It's a good enough story, with a great enough hero like MLK that creating fake enemies is both unnecessary and diminishes the whole project. Shame on the director!
53
Really, really a good post. A breath of fresh air. A sane comment. Kudos
Ms. DuVernay may have miscalculated in her treatment of LBJ. It's now a distraction from how "Selma" is received. Her comments about it are are perplexing as well. My hope is that the movie encourages people to take citizenship seriously and vote.
55
Politics does not make strange bedfellows. Politics IS strange bedfellows. This is the kind of pragmatic lesson that must be taught if social progress is to survive in the face of its many enemies - and if history is not to be defined as something that ended 50 years ago.
6
You sound like Hillary Clinton in South Carolina in 2008 when she basically dissed the blood, pain and indignities by Dr. King and others as they risked their lives to push LBJ Kennedy and others to move forward.Paraphrasing Clinton's words "Dr. King marched, etc. BUT it took a president to sign the civil rights bill. She lost most if not all of the black people who hitherto were not supporting Barack Obama. Whenever you say something positive and then put a "But" after it you have in fact voided the positive. You could ask the question Mo WHY did it take a march dogs, fire hoses etc. before we were granted civil rights? Were not the arguments based on our Constitution enough to move forward and do what is right sooner? I guess no good movement moves forward without bloodshed and horrific deeds.
What you should be writing about is the eerily similarity of events that occurred then with what is occurring today with voting rights and a justice system whose arc of justice still bends towards the white population. Talk about police departments using mug shots of black suspects as target practice. Talk about black and brown kids being arrested in school for acts that typically sends kids to the principal's office ensuring that they will always have an arrest record. Miss DuVernay did nothing different from so many other directors. Remember when they used Angelina Jolie with a darkened skin to portray the wife of Daniel Pearl (a black French woman) who was killed? Give me a break.
What you should be writing about is the eerily similarity of events that occurred then with what is occurring today with voting rights and a justice system whose arc of justice still bends towards the white population. Talk about police departments using mug shots of black suspects as target practice. Talk about black and brown kids being arrested in school for acts that typically sends kids to the principal's office ensuring that they will always have an arrest record. Miss DuVernay did nothing different from so many other directors. Remember when they used Angelina Jolie with a darkened skin to portray the wife of Daniel Pearl (a black French woman) who was killed? Give me a break.
24
The criticism may be valid. But we are lucky that the Selma movie was made, in the first place.
Filmmakers have huge egos, Maureen and they always distort the truth, in one way or another.
Filmmakers have huge egos, Maureen and they always distort the truth, in one way or another.
8
In the interest of historical accuracy, does the movie repeat the awful things King said to the poor white prostitutes he abused the night before his tragic murder?
7
If LBJ wanted to pass a Voting Rights bill since his first day as president, why did it take him two years to get around to it? The reputation of the LBJ "insiders" is tied to LBJ's reputation, so of course they will defend him against "inaccuracies"; they are essentially defending their own legacy, as well. Is it so hard to believe that the most powerful white man in the world at the time was hesitant to pass such equalizing legislation, especially when he was already under fire for the Vietnam War? There are different facets to every historical figure, and I'm sure in the eyes of those people who were actually part of the Civil Rights movement, like King, Lewis, Young and others at Selma, LBJ was taking his sweet time with something they deemed immediately important. The point is, white people are not always the hero (as they are portrayed in Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo and The Imitation Game, all of which Dowd apparently loved), and in the case of the Civil Rights movement, which is still continuing today, white people are certainly not the heroes.
20
"passage to power" by robert caro has a wonderful account of the long, tortuous process of getting civil rights legislation passed. johnson first needed to cut the budget in order to get a budget passed before the civil rights bill cound be considered, because otherwise he couldn't get the budget committee chairman, a key democrat, to even bring up the bill for consideration. looking for budget cuts when you have a progressivr agenda, is a difficult and painful thing to do. then, he needed to work on individual members of congress, using threats, incentives, cajoling, and pork not available to presidents today (sorry maureen, johnson didn't have magic powers or persuasion - times were different). it took a lot of heavy lifting, and offers a fascinating look at how johnson got it done.
2
Leslie, From your comment I don't believe you were around when these events took place-I was. Also I wonder how much you know about how government works. Given the south and the state of race relations at the time to pass this legislation in two years was nothing short of a miracle. LBJ was not under fire about Vietnam at this time. I'm sure President Obama came to the White House all prepared to pass health care legislation. He did it, but the time and effort were significant. And doing something about the sorry state of affordable health care had been discussed for decades. Also without LBJ and a congress he could work with, we seniors would be sitting around sick and without Medicare. It is important that young people get an accurate telling of events. The times, when Selma happened, were difficult and we, all the people, were well served to have a president, a national leader and a congress who, despite their differences, could work together to pass important lasting legislation. For kids not to get this message is a crime against history and the future.
5
Leslie seems to think LBJ could have passed Civil Rights laws all by himself, without skilfully building the coalition to break the Southern filibuster in the Senate. That's delusional and racist.
1
It's difficult to write complicated characters into a screenplay. It takes artistic nerve to trust an audience to pick up nuance. Great movies are hard to write and harder to make. Not so great movies take an easier route; good guys and bad guys, someone to cheer, someone to hiss.
It seems Ms. DuVernay made her choices about her portrayal of LBJ deliberately. It's a shame she felt that was necessary.
It seems Ms. DuVernay made her choices about her portrayal of LBJ deliberately. It's a shame she felt that was necessary.
24
Selma film director, Ava DuVernay, told Gwen Ifill she was not an historian, but a documentarian. This is a false division: historical truth is more often than not empirically rooted in documents. So you cannot call yourself a "documentarian" to justify peddling historical falsehoods which the documents and other evidence would not support.
It is fine that DuVernay didn't want to make a "white savior" film. Black leadership was crucial to the civil rights movement. But at the same time there was no need nor justification to demean Lyndon Johnson's role in advancing civil rights in order to pay tribute to the courage and achievement of African American leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King and his associates in the civil rights movement.
Leading up to the Voting Rights Act, King and Johnson, though they necessarily played different roles, were collaborators in advancing civil rights. At time of a resurgence of racist thinking, we ought to be celebrating that partnership, rather than re-writing history in a way which plays into the hands of the revivalists of racial division.
It is fine that DuVernay didn't want to make a "white savior" film. Black leadership was crucial to the civil rights movement. But at the same time there was no need nor justification to demean Lyndon Johnson's role in advancing civil rights in order to pay tribute to the courage and achievement of African American leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King and his associates in the civil rights movement.
Leading up to the Voting Rights Act, King and Johnson, though they necessarily played different roles, were collaborators in advancing civil rights. At time of a resurgence of racist thinking, we ought to be celebrating that partnership, rather than re-writing history in a way which plays into the hands of the revivalists of racial division.
59
Simply, LBJ was a political realist who never forgot his roots, loved political gaming, and got things done in Washington. I hope his breed is not extinct.
23
We have Bill Clinton, that's it.. The next Dem President, whomever that is, would do well to appoint him to a position of great power and visibility.
Bill Moyers has now come out with his version of events which doesn't jive with Du Vernay's either. Andrew Young and Julian Bond have contradicted her.
It is truly appalling that this director decided to re-write history. As Dowd points out, history is much more interesting than her version.
Nice of Du Vernay to trash the man thanks to whom we have the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., etc., etc., etc. and play into the hands of the right-wing who loathe our last truly liberal President. Shame on her.
It is truly appalling that this director decided to re-write history. As Dowd points out, history is much more interesting than her version.
Nice of Du Vernay to trash the man thanks to whom we have the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., etc., etc., etc. and play into the hands of the right-wing who loathe our last truly liberal President. Shame on her.
55
But she's black and will get away with it. She falls for the all so common - all white people bad, all black people saints malarkey that's so common these days.
2
Black people making a movie from a Black perspective is simply more important than whether they got LBJ right. It's a movie not a documentary and we all know how perfectly they show history. I didn't come out of that movie feeling that LBJ was a villain. And I did come out of the movie feeling that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man, not a myth. Hooray for that, his suffering and that of his people all the more painful to recognize.
176
what rubbish. what patronising rubbish. to even begin to deconstruct your "Black perspective," comment would take volumes. The director made her movie, from her perspective and choices. Was she influenced by the fact that she has lived in the world as a black woman, undoubtedly...but to call it from a Black perspective means that she has spoken for all black people. That is at once an undue burden and a myth.
1
Nothing is more important than getting the facts right.
2
Personally, I think it's just plain wrong to portray LBJ incoorectly.
Too many people will leave the theater with a terribly flawed image of Johnson's part in the civil rights movement.
It will be their reality.
Too many people will leave the theater with a terribly flawed image of Johnson's part in the civil rights movement.
It will be their reality.
29
Sorry, no big deal to me. MLK is the story.
4
There are many sources from which to learn our nation's history; Hollywood isn't one.
27
The irony of movies about historical subject matter is that most people will learn more than they did in school. And, they will learn history incorrectly, distorted and shaped so that a good movie could be made (which is not to take away from the power of this particular film). Movies are strong teachers, but often teach the wrong lessons.
Also, the role of white folks in the struggles of black folks has ALWAYS been controversial. If you look at photographs of the earliest mass protests against racism and segregation, you will see many white faces. As the movement matured through the late 1960s, those white faces were not so much in evidence. While white people played an absolutely vital role as participants and contributors, it became bad form to have them in the forefront. Those under 40 and younger now probably have no idea the important role that whites played.
The director was not incorrect to turn away from a "white savior film", because too often whites have been placed at the center of the historical narrative. Too often, it is made to appear that nothing would have happened without whites. Where is the proper balance, though? A balance that shows supportive role of whites without taking away from the raw courage of people like Con. John Lewis, jailed over 50 times and whacked over the head at Selma with injuries that resound in his being to this day? History is a job for historians, but drama fights back against facts, seeking escape and entertainment.
Doug Terry
Also, the role of white folks in the struggles of black folks has ALWAYS been controversial. If you look at photographs of the earliest mass protests against racism and segregation, you will see many white faces. As the movement matured through the late 1960s, those white faces were not so much in evidence. While white people played an absolutely vital role as participants and contributors, it became bad form to have them in the forefront. Those under 40 and younger now probably have no idea the important role that whites played.
The director was not incorrect to turn away from a "white savior film", because too often whites have been placed at the center of the historical narrative. Too often, it is made to appear that nothing would have happened without whites. Where is the proper balance, though? A balance that shows supportive role of whites without taking away from the raw courage of people like Con. John Lewis, jailed over 50 times and whacked over the head at Selma with injuries that resound in his being to this day? History is a job for historians, but drama fights back against facts, seeking escape and entertainment.
Doug Terry
15
So Maureen Dowd, who denigrates President Obama whenever she has the opportunity has chosen to fight for LBJ instead of Dr. King on the eve of the latter's holiday (his actual birthday was this past Thursday).
Would LBJ have chosen to sign the Voting Rights Act -- would there BE a Voting Rights Act without Black (and White) protest? I doubt it.
Can we have ONE movie in which we (Blacks and people of color) can celebrate our own? Lord knows the Oscars may as well be presented on a white piece of paper being that the top award nominees are all White.
Would LBJ have chosen to sign the Voting Rights Act -- would there BE a Voting Rights Act without Black (and White) protest? I doubt it.
Can we have ONE movie in which we (Blacks and people of color) can celebrate our own? Lord knows the Oscars may as well be presented on a white piece of paper being that the top award nominees are all White.
20
If you are indeed for the character and not just for the color of a person's skin, you might better honor the memory of Martin Luther King, not by denigrating or diminishing what Lyndon Johnson did. What King and the protesters did was to make the public case for the political one. Protest was necessary but not sufficient. Without LBJ the voting rights act and the other civil rights laws would never have happened. Both King An d Johnson were necessary. What's wrong with that?
2
So much of American history has been forgotten that we are in danger of forgetting who we are. I cheer for historical movies like Selma and Lincoln. I applaud the producers who make them. I hope more of them are coming our way.
That being said, it was an editorial mistake to malign LBJ when he clearly had his heart and soul invested in creating a "Great Society", a mission that surely needs to be resurrected.
What would be far worse for me would be if the Koch brothers started making movies.
That being said, it was an editorial mistake to malign LBJ when he clearly had his heart and soul invested in creating a "Great Society", a mission that surely needs to be resurrected.
What would be far worse for me would be if the Koch brothers started making movies.
21
Thank you for your honest appraisal of this film. Those of us who are old enough to remember this era can tolerate a little poetic license. The teenagers you mention in the theater, however, will assume this is an accurate historicsl representation. I hope the shameless twisting of the facts concerning LBJ is a dealbreaker for an Oscar win.
28
Would greatly appreciate Bill Moyer's opinion of SELMA.
6
As I would love to hear what Doris Kearns Goodwin thinks. The problem with so many historical films is that they fail to show the complexity od great leaders, both good and bad or even just mediocre. Facts are easy to duplicate: murders, racial violence, the anger and resolve of the oppressed.
But the nuances, strengths and weaknesses of real flesh and blood men who left thir mark on history? Not so much which is why we are debating the veracity and intent of this film.
But the nuances, strengths and weaknesses of real flesh and blood men who left thir mark on history? Not so much which is why we are debating the veracity and intent of this film.
1
Poor President Johnson. It's bad enough that he will be forever castigated (and rightly so) for his real life role in the Vietnam debacle. But after being accused by Oliver Stone of conspiring to kill Kennedy in his movie "JFK", I thought Hollywood was through with whipping poor old Lyndon. Not quite, it turns out. He can't catch a break even when it comes to something extremely positive & something that he personally took enormous political risks over in order to get accomplished......from his own Party no less!
Geez......Hollywood is a tough crowd to please.
Geez......Hollywood is a tough crowd to please.
22
Not hard to figure out why it takes an entire NYT article to explain why not to lie about history, since that is SOP when the actors are of the other stripe.
8
When I actually saw the movie LBJ wasn't as demonized as the reviewers had indicated. Part of the problem may have been the actor's interpretation. He looked and acted more like Richard Nixon than LBJ. Despite the LBJ problem it's a very powerful movie very much worth watching. It's hard to fathom that people like Jimmie Lee Jackson, James Reeb, Viola Liuzzo, Medgar Evers, those 4 little girls and so many others were just brutally and viciously murdered, with the murderers often getting away with it. Sometimes it's difficult to recognize heroism in every day life. These were all true American heroes, much more deserving of medals than the likes of George Tenet.
25
Did you forget Goodman, schwerner and chaney?
4
The sad truth about our American history is that it so quickly forgotten, and then rewritten to suit the purposes of whoever is writing it, which usually involves people lacking the personal experience, or direct involvement with the matter. This is not the case with "SELMA".... That said, the real "problems" with the film doesn't have as much to do with its portrayals of LBJ, the white racist supremacists who bombed churches, or even a symbolic (White) Priest from the North who joined the struggle, only to be kicked to death for his altruistic efforts.
The problem lies with the fact the America still hasn't aligned itself with a racist historical past, which brought about the need for a March on Selma in the first place.
To counter Ms. Dowd's cinematic adventure in Washington, D.C.-- I would like to state that I saw "Selma" here in New York City on Christmas Day to a packed house of ALL races and ages, where the only audible sounds were sobs (yes, including mine) at the scenes reminiscent of the brutality enacted against participants of the early Civil Rights movement. Those who wish to differ, should go to the straight to the U.S. History books, or better yet, GOOGLE.
The film didn't need to emphasize the violence involved. IT WAS REAL!
History should be seen and acknowledged for what it is, no matter how painful. If not, there is all too easily the possibility that it will be repeated again.
And that is just what seems to be what is happening now. EVERWHERE.
The problem lies with the fact the America still hasn't aligned itself with a racist historical past, which brought about the need for a March on Selma in the first place.
To counter Ms. Dowd's cinematic adventure in Washington, D.C.-- I would like to state that I saw "Selma" here in New York City on Christmas Day to a packed house of ALL races and ages, where the only audible sounds were sobs (yes, including mine) at the scenes reminiscent of the brutality enacted against participants of the early Civil Rights movement. Those who wish to differ, should go to the straight to the U.S. History books, or better yet, GOOGLE.
The film didn't need to emphasize the violence involved. IT WAS REAL!
History should be seen and acknowledged for what it is, no matter how painful. If not, there is all too easily the possibility that it will be repeated again.
And that is just what seems to be what is happening now. EVERWHERE.
144
Thank you for standing for a truth that sometimes escapes history....LBJ wasn't just pushed into civil rights; he embraced them, and made them happen. He was AS important as Dr. Martin Luther King, Neither would have prevailed without the other. The Democrats have paid the price over the years with the total loss of the south, but it was a price worth paying. How ironic that the Party of Lincoln now stands in the way of civil rights.
28
For once I agree with Maureen completely.
Giving Johnson his due would not have resulted in"making a white-savior movie.” Like other momentous turns in our history, not least of them ending slavey and winning the Civil War, both the white and the black roles were essential. Today as well, there will be no significant change in police behavior unless and until significant numbers of whites also decide that Black Lives Matter.
Giving Johnson his due would not have resulted in"making a white-savior movie.” Like other momentous turns in our history, not least of them ending slavey and winning the Civil War, both the white and the black roles were essential. Today as well, there will be no significant change in police behavior unless and until significant numbers of whites also decide that Black Lives Matter.
15
Yes Lyndon Johnson used his political clout to get Civil Rights legislation past. That is part of his rightful legacy. However, those who would not give up their seats on busses, who sat in at lunch counters, who endured fire hoses and dogs being turned on them, who dared enroll in the University of Alabama, who marched over a bridge in Selma, and wrote "A Letter from a Birmingham Jail" were the real heroes who brought about Civil Rights legislation. Martin Luther King, Jr., and countless others who joined him, risked their very lives for this cause. The victory belongs to the blacks who stood up for their Constitutional Rights, and while some white people did help in their cause, the victory was won by the brave blacks who dared to challenge an entrenched white society. I know, I lived in Alabama during that time. It is the state of my birth. I am not proud of its role in this phase of history. Yes, I am white. Ms. DuVernay was right to downplay President Johnson's role.
174
DuVernay didn't merely downplay LBJ's role; she falsified the historical narrative to make him appear a villain. She is open about her reason for doing this, saying “I wasn’t interested in making a white-savior movie." In other words, she did it because LBJ was white. She could have portrayed the black marchers and black civil rights leaders as the real heroes of Selma without defaming LBJ. Heaven knows there no shortage of real-life white racists who actually opposed the march.
4
"...while some white people did help in their cause, the victory was won by the brave blacks who dared to challenge an entrenched white society."
They would not have gotten access to the halls of power had they alienated those inside. Give the white people credit -- it was those with power/numbers whom the "brave blacks" were appealing to, not alienating. (See Obama, Barack.) Lady director would have gotten more props had she not distorted the truth. Why do that?
They would not have gotten access to the halls of power had they alienated those inside. Give the white people credit -- it was those with power/numbers whom the "brave blacks" were appealing to, not alienating. (See Obama, Barack.) Lady director would have gotten more props had she not distorted the truth. Why do that?
1
You say the director "was right to downplay President Johnson's role" but provide no reasoning whatsoever to back your conclusion other than admitting that you feel personally responsible as a white person for all the any crimes perpetrated against blacks by whites in the past. I see no reason - and certainly no compelling reason - why the foremost white participant in the civil rights movement should have to have his legacy tarnished in order to celebrate the even braver and more vital work by blacks themselves. In short, what you wrote just doesn't make sense to me.
2
“This is art; this is a movie; this is a film,” DuVernay said. “I’m not a historian. I’m not a documentarian.”
--------------------------------------------9:25
The Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will are consider Art films.
Saying "this is Art" does not absolve the film maker from the untrue content of the film. It's dangerous.
40
“This is art; this is a movie; this is a film,” DuVernay said. “I’m not a historian. I’m not a documentarian.”
Wrong. I have not seen the film yet, but this is supposed to be based on real people and real events. Sometimes, characters are conflated to aid storytelling, but there must be some effort to respect the truth as well. It will be a shame if audiences accept this as an accurate portrayal of this time. DuVernay owes everyone an apology.
Wrong. I have not seen the film yet, but this is supposed to be based on real people and real events. Sometimes, characters are conflated to aid storytelling, but there must be some effort to respect the truth as well. It will be a shame if audiences accept this as an accurate portrayal of this time. DuVernay owes everyone an apology.
18
As a Texan, I was proud of Lyndon Johnson's stand on civil rights. The brutality of the past, the courage of those who resisted on the ground, is a story that is sadly all too relevant today. It must be told, again and again. But to demean Johnson's role is to starve a sense of community and shared purpose among all Americans - children today should be reminded that working together, we can achieve great things.
5
Isn't it telling that liberals are never worried when the person falsely portrayed is a conservative...but when it's a liberal icon, then it's a pity that this is how kids will see the person.
Love it when they get a taste of Hollywood's historical "re-imagining".
Love it when they get a taste of Hollywood's historical "re-imagining".
8
Isn't it even more telling that right-wingers are always looking at everything through their phony partisan persecution complex.
5
So give us some examples of conservatives who have been falsely portrayed. Who are we supposed to pity? What historical "re-imagining" so offends you?
3
Selma is a searing look at the ugly face of American racism in the 1960s. The Johnson Administration certainly took its sweet time before dispatching Federal troops to stop the brutal violence inflicted on non-violent African Americans by Georgia State Police. The politics behind who did what when are a moot point in my opinion. What is important is Americans owning up to this disgraceful period of our history. Selma achieves this and deserves the Oscar.
14
I've thought about "Selma" for a couple weeks now and have trolled the net for articles about the LBJ portrayal. You are the first writer to put into words my own thoughts on this: "It was clear that a generation of young moviegoers would now see L.B.J.’s role in civil rights through DuVernay’s lens." "Selma's" LBJ portrayal will become de facto history for generations. It is already happening. How many people do any of us know have read the LBJ, MLK and civil rights written histories? In my circle, I can't think of a single one (myself excepted). Even for me it is getting harder and harder to read these dense books. It is one thing to simplify history as movies inevitably must do, and for good reason. It is another to unjustly relegate a critical character to second class citizenship until the next big movie comes out - another 50 years?
25
I'm not sure what is unrealistic about demonstrating the tone that would have been displayed by a white Texan in the sixties talking to a southern black man under any or all circumstances. Can you really imagine that it would not have been laced with the history of three centuries of slavery and segregation? Johnson was an honorable man, but even honorable men can be honestly displayed with the character, mannerisms, and temperment of their culture. And yes, 50 years later, it would be almost as hard for us to watch as the horror of Birmingham.
I'll stand with DuVernay for making the attempt.
I'll stand with DuVernay for making the attempt.
12
There is no need to "imagine" with respect to LBJ, Ellen. There is extensive historical evidence documenting that LBJ was an absolutely vital force for good - for the right side - in the civil rights movement. That you feel the need to suggest that no white Texas liberal could ever treat blacks with respect is a sign of your own racism - thanks so much for sharing it with us. Disclosure: I am a white Texan liberal.
5
Well said. I will pass on Selma in the theaters. Shame on those, especially the director and producer of Selma who distort the Johnson/Humphrey efforts and courage on civil rights.
14
Right on! Unfortunately, many people get their history from movies. Robert Caro, no fan of LBJ, respects President Johnson's contribution and support of the Voting Rights Act as detailed in his four volume work on the late president. Caro carefully gives credit to Johnson for his initial civil rights legislation in 1957 that was weakened by the Southern senatorial block and finally a meaningful Civil Rights voting act that was guided through Congress by Johnson in 1965. Johnson had full support of all Black civil rights leaders including King,
Abernathy and Roy Wilkins. To not depict this historical truth is short sighted. Because of that misjudgment, I am passing on this movie.
Abernathy and Roy Wilkins. To not depict this historical truth is short sighted. Because of that misjudgment, I am passing on this movie.
19
Growing up in the South at the same time, we have to understand that Presidents are creatures of their era. President Lyndon B. Johnson was vilified for his stewardship of the civil and voting rights in the South. Tapes of his conversations with segregationist Southern senators provide evidence that he was a leader for civil rights.
An article posted on the Politico website points out the legacy of President Barrack Obama on civil rights for gay men and lesbians. While many see him as unnecessarily reluctant to take the lead on gay rights, he now seems to embrace the advances in gay rights during his administration. Opponents can only slow the progress of civil rights, but they cannot stop the march of history.
An article posted on the Politico website points out the legacy of President Barrack Obama on civil rights for gay men and lesbians. While many see him as unnecessarily reluctant to take the lead on gay rights, he now seems to embrace the advances in gay rights during his administration. Opponents can only slow the progress of civil rights, but they cannot stop the march of history.
7
When I was a kid, we enjoyed cowboys and Indians movies. The cowboys were always the good guys, and white, and so much like Dad. The Indians were portrayed as evil, and their continual violent attempts to wrest away our property were duly handled by our authorities, whether the Texas Rangers or the U.S. Army.
Later, in my twenties, I watched a film called "Little Big Man," which told that same story from a bleaker perspective, that of the people who were truly dispossessed and massacred when they resisted the Manifest Destiny forced upon them by the same people I had been raised to believe were good and fair.
When I heard about Wounded Knee and the mass hangings of Native Americans in Minnesota, I was mad enough that should a film be made that vilified any of us, even those of us who cared but not enough to act on behalf of the original settlers harried from Georgia to Oklahoma and elsewhere herded into what were essentially concentration camps, I would not have objected.
Having read much about LBJ's decisions to fight on behalf of African Americans who hadn't the political base to fight the power on their own behalf, I can only imagine that that tortured Texan who mired our country in a pointless war while forfeiting the South to the Republicans who would not forswear racism might be in a forgiving mood to see himself so portrayed.
He was willing to be called a Judas by his own Southern white constituency. He's faced worse.
Later, in my twenties, I watched a film called "Little Big Man," which told that same story from a bleaker perspective, that of the people who were truly dispossessed and massacred when they resisted the Manifest Destiny forced upon them by the same people I had been raised to believe were good and fair.
When I heard about Wounded Knee and the mass hangings of Native Americans in Minnesota, I was mad enough that should a film be made that vilified any of us, even those of us who cared but not enough to act on behalf of the original settlers harried from Georgia to Oklahoma and elsewhere herded into what were essentially concentration camps, I would not have objected.
Having read much about LBJ's decisions to fight on behalf of African Americans who hadn't the political base to fight the power on their own behalf, I can only imagine that that tortured Texan who mired our country in a pointless war while forfeiting the South to the Republicans who would not forswear racism might be in a forgiving mood to see himself so portrayed.
He was willing to be called a Judas by his own Southern white constituency. He's faced worse.
13
“I wasn’t interested in making a white-savior movie,” she said.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Shame on you, Ava. How does it help to distort history (granted you are not a historian or a documentarian as asserted by you) by portraying Johnson as the 'Dr. Evil" he was not?
The visceral reaction of blacks in the theater to scenes to white on black violence and to Mrs. King's cringing to her 'husband's' infidelity shows that Ava failed to live up to her obligation to be a responsible movie-maker.
After all, Selma IS history, for crying out loud.
The snub by the Academy is well-earned.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Shame on you, Ava. How does it help to distort history (granted you are not a historian or a documentarian as asserted by you) by portraying Johnson as the 'Dr. Evil" he was not?
The visceral reaction of blacks in the theater to scenes to white on black violence and to Mrs. King's cringing to her 'husband's' infidelity shows that Ava failed to live up to her obligation to be a responsible movie-maker.
After all, Selma IS history, for crying out loud.
The snub by the Academy is well-earned.
29
There are many lenses with which to look at the US's dismal timeline of racism and civil rights, the lamest being "just move on" usually from someone least affected by racism in their own life. Maureen writes with balance; something much needed in coming together. Hope students also watch Tuskegee Airmen, The Scottsboro Boys, The Butler and other documentaries tracing this long, sad trajectory and build a base of knowledge beyond one textbook or one comment.
5
It's curious that O'Dowd spends so much time bemoaning the downplay of LBJ and not the sanctioned, institutionalized white supremacist violence that the direct action worked against. She falls victim to the core message of the film: that social change movements are not the result of individuals but of collective action, negotiations, and conflict. It's also 'curious' that she positions herself as savant of what young Black viewers might learn from this film. This is, at best, tone-deaf, and at worst, arrogant.
In short: this is yet one more white liberal who literally cannot see art or change because it does not star a white person.
In short: this is yet one more white liberal who literally cannot see art or change because it does not star a white person.
17
Right -- There is this rush to rehabilitate LBJ, probably by the same people who used to say "how many kids did you kill today" about Vietnam in the 60s.
God forbid that in a movie about Black and White, the Black is seen as more saintly.
God forbid that in a movie about Black and White, the Black is seen as more saintly.
9
"God forbid that in a movie about Black and White, the Black is seen as more saintly." No, God forbid that the historical facts be dealt with honestly by the film maker. Seems many are falling for the director's idea of all white people bad, all black people saints. Thanks to her, there will be a lot of uninformed, ignorant ideas of the civil rights era. But that's okay, right?
3
I'm surprised that it took so long for Ms. Dowd to see the movie. The Best Actor categories had 10 legitimate contenders. Would it have been better if Oyelowo got in, but the movie itself didn't get into BP? It's a good movie, but not as great as its subject matter. I think that the nomination of the song "Glory" is more problematic than the LBJ portrayal; its lyrics perpetuate the "hands up" in Ferguson myth.
8
I was just thinking that often in a film which speaks about the civil rights era, the white people are shown in broad strokes: the rich white Southern idiot, the poor white idiot, and then there's often a single white old lady who has the wisdom which others don't. It's the same with how African American were portrayed in films in the past. It would be nice if these characters were more nuanced.
8
With this column, Maureen Dowd is fully back in her element. Spot on!
12
As a African American living in the south the movie reminded me how far we came and how far we still have yet to go. "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."--MLK Jr.
14
Keep demanding, but somebody has to do the planning, strategy, and "brain work".
1
This is ridiculous. Selma is is a B movie at best and just because it covers an important topic doesn't mean it should get an Oscar.
The year when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry both won Oscars, and deservedly so, did that mean that whites or Asians or native Americans were snubbed?
The year when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry both won Oscars, and deservedly so, did that mean that whites or Asians or native Americans were snubbed?
17
The movie “Gandhi” by Richard Attenborough received substantial criticism for historical inaccuracies. But notwithstanding, the move was a great film on a great person.
Successful filmmakers try to convey the spirit and meaning of their character. Dr. King would always be a difficult person to capture and portray on film as he was multi-faceted and multi-dimensional. He had his faults … his womanizing.
But let’s face it: He was a great and endearing leader and mover of people. His speeches are memorable and still have meaning to this day. Though not involved in politics he was forced to deal with the politicians of his day: the good, the bad and the ugly. And on the latter there were, and still are many.
He succeeded in his own way and he won the hearts of millions for helping to bring about change in civil rights legislation. He won the respect not only in the U.S. but throughout the world. Nelson Mandela revered Dr. King as many South Africans still do.
Though his life was cut short, he will be remembered for his impact on people.
Dr. King still has an impact on many who want to work for change to this day. Though, discrimination still exists, his legacy and good work still lives on.
Dr. King is still alive in the hearts of all those who want change. Do you want change ???
Successful filmmakers try to convey the spirit and meaning of their character. Dr. King would always be a difficult person to capture and portray on film as he was multi-faceted and multi-dimensional. He had his faults … his womanizing.
But let’s face it: He was a great and endearing leader and mover of people. His speeches are memorable and still have meaning to this day. Though not involved in politics he was forced to deal with the politicians of his day: the good, the bad and the ugly. And on the latter there were, and still are many.
He succeeded in his own way and he won the hearts of millions for helping to bring about change in civil rights legislation. He won the respect not only in the U.S. but throughout the world. Nelson Mandela revered Dr. King as many South Africans still do.
Though his life was cut short, he will be remembered for his impact on people.
Dr. King still has an impact on many who want to work for change to this day. Though, discrimination still exists, his legacy and good work still lives on.
Dr. King is still alive in the hearts of all those who want change. Do you want change ???
69
Before Gandhi, Mandela and King became saints they were barnyard rooster serial adultery absentee husbands fighting for the civil rights of others while being distant physically and emotionally from their kids as fathers only in the name of biology.
Their humanity puts them within our reach. While their saintliness gives us an excuse.
My favorite most beloved Jesus wonders who men are saying he is, while being doubting and fearful in the Garden at Gethsemane and crying out in wonder at being forsaken by his Father before giving up the ghost on the cross at Golgotha.
Their humanity puts them within our reach. While their saintliness gives us an excuse.
My favorite most beloved Jesus wonders who men are saying he is, while being doubting and fearful in the Garden at Gethsemane and crying out in wonder at being forsaken by his Father before giving up the ghost on the cross at Golgotha.
1
I saw the film when it opened on a Friday in Dallas. It was a 1:00 showing and about 2/3 full. I had brought my college class. We didn't get much chance to talk after the film, but Monday they were ablaze with questions. So that's the good work of the film. At least it is recovering a past that few too many Americans either remember, care to remember or are too young to know about. My God, Americans talking curiously and interestingly about out national past. Imagine that! Oliver Stone played faster and looser with LBJ by a long shot. But yes, the treatment of LBJ was inaccurate. It is not for no reason that many African Americans looked to the Federal Government for protection, leadership and partnership during the resistance of Southern racist governments. More annoying to me is that they really got LBJ's accent wrong. The man in the movie didn't even sound like a Texan!
16
Yes, when the racist Democrats were doing their thing in the South, black people looked to Republicans who fought the racists every step of the way. Too bad the racist Dems sneaked their way into the picture, fooling people into believing the racist Dems were the saviors.
1
DuVernay was under no obligation to make another white savior movie but she had plenty of options other than to make a villain out of a man who did as much for civil rights in America as Lyndon Johnson. This ruins it for me whatever merits the film might have.
32
Same here. I've read enough reviews of it, I won't waste my money on it.
2
The reason the black teenagers were so shocked by whites attacking blacks is because they've never seen this kind of violent behavior. Well, at least not white on black.
14
Fact: without LBJ in the Oval Office there would be NO Voting Rights Act, despite MLK Jr. heroic actions. A complicated man and master politician, LBJ, was well aware of the effort needed to get the Civil Rights legislation through Congress. Vietnam became his albatross but his achievements with anti-poverty and civil rights cannot be diminished.
37
Fact-based arguments, such as this one presented by Ms. Dowd about Ava DuVernay's portrayal of Lyndon Johnson's role in the civil rights movement in the movie "Selma", are bound to fail because the motivation behind Ms. DuVernay's version of political history is not about historical accuracy, but is meant to generate anger among blacks regarding their lower status in America. Her movie is artful, emotionally-based propaganda.
In the jargon of the day, the movie "Selma" says 'the Man', as personified by LBJ, wanted to keep blacks down, not help them. One problem in the 1960s' black power movement, which existed as part of the struggle for civil rights, is that anger distorted its understanding of effective strategies for social change. Power struggles between African-American leaders about political tactics brought the civil rights movement to a halt.
These civil rights conflicts continue today, in more subdued forms. Ms. DuVernay's movie "Selma" is part of a nascent, modern, black power movement, but our culture has changed in the past 40 years, and her message will find only limited power to motivate blacks to action. Black empowerment now is much more about 'selling out' one's talents in a consumer-based marketplace than it is about fighting those in power. This is considered acceptable. Rappers and sports stars have excelled at it.
Another problem is that the movie "Selma" will generate backlash among whites. Ms. Dowd's op-ed is evidence of this backlash.
15
The movie-makers creed: never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
12
Kudos to Ms. Dowd for calling out the filmmaker for artistic malpractice.
LBJ's commitment to Civil Rights and equal opportunity were forged in the crucible of a one-room schoolhouse for "Mexican" kids in South Texas. As a young teacher, he saw firsthand the terrible limitations imposed by the twin evils of racism and poverty.
Lyndon Johnson: the right man in the right place at the right time. He knew winning legislatively would cost the Democrats the Southern States, but employed all his Congressional horse-trading and formidable personal skills to pass landmark bills for minorities. LBJ initiated the 20th C. restructuring of civil rights and integration of blacks and browns into his Great Society.
We owe a debt to LBJ which can only be repaid by active support for equal treatment and full participation in democratic process by all. He should be honored and remembered for his signature achievements.
Let's hope truth is stronger than fiction.
LBJ's commitment to Civil Rights and equal opportunity were forged in the crucible of a one-room schoolhouse for "Mexican" kids in South Texas. As a young teacher, he saw firsthand the terrible limitations imposed by the twin evils of racism and poverty.
Lyndon Johnson: the right man in the right place at the right time. He knew winning legislatively would cost the Democrats the Southern States, but employed all his Congressional horse-trading and formidable personal skills to pass landmark bills for minorities. LBJ initiated the 20th C. restructuring of civil rights and integration of blacks and browns into his Great Society.
We owe a debt to LBJ which can only be repaid by active support for equal treatment and full participation in democratic process by all. He should be honored and remembered for his signature achievements.
Let's hope truth is stronger than fiction.
28
Spot on, MoDo! LBJ was key in turning MLK's efforts into both policy and law. In fact the interracial marriage of President Obama's parents was prohibited in fourteen states under anti-miscegenation laws until-----1967!
12
History (and presidents) are a great deal more complex than the movies, esp Selma, are able or willing to represent. LBJ, according to Robert Caro's comprehensive biographies, had the political skills and the will to move the stalled civil rights legislation JFK had proposed but which was stalled due to a combination of Southern Democrat intransigence and the arrogant inept manner the Kennedy legislative team decided that a budget bill had to come before civil rights. LBJ would have been one of our greatest presidents for his civil rights laws but for Vietnam. He would have been great if he had only passed one law, Medicare, but for Vietnam.
And while it is fair to hold him responsible for continuing the war, let's not forget who started it. Eisenhower sent "advisors.' Kennedy took over and by allowing the coup agaist Diem, he Americanized a civil war.
LBJ's great failing was his insecurity that led him to over-estimate the judgment of his advisors, the Harvard trained, McGeorge Bundy and the slippery McNamara. Ultimately the buck stops on LBJ's desk but like several presidents, he listened too well to people with better educations but with instincts inferior to his own.
And while it is fair to hold him responsible for continuing the war, let's not forget who started it. Eisenhower sent "advisors.' Kennedy took over and by allowing the coup agaist Diem, he Americanized a civil war.
LBJ's great failing was his insecurity that led him to over-estimate the judgment of his advisors, the Harvard trained, McGeorge Bundy and the slippery McNamara. Ultimately the buck stops on LBJ's desk but like several presidents, he listened too well to people with better educations but with instincts inferior to his own.
13
"I wasn't interested in making a white savior movie"
How about making an honest movie. Martin Luther King needs no embellishments. His greatness has been established in history. His speeches will echo in our minds forever. We have a day named after him for a reason.
How about making an honest movie. Martin Luther King needs no embellishments. His greatness has been established in history. His speeches will echo in our minds forever. We have a day named after him for a reason.
28
A wonderful lens for Ms. Dowdt to share with us, in a theater with real people, not some hollywood screener. Folks who paper over the film's lapse with the prompt that people will go and study the history for themselves and unearth a more accurate read seem to be cobbling a workaround for the film's shortcoming. Rather than the Two Camps we so easily become, maybe better to listen to the clear minded Bill Moyers who was at the White House working for LBJ in so much of this era. His take, "So it’s a powerful but flawed film. Go see it, though – it’s good to be reminded of a time when courage on the street is met by a moral response from power"
8
How about just an unbiased documentary with actual footage and audio...with the message: civil rights are a serious responsibility, not a lucrative exploitation opportunity?
6
"But the director’s talent makes her distortion of L.B.J. more egregious."
You gotta be kidding me. Each word, each preposition of Ms. Dowd's is worth a good 10,000 of my full comment posts in terms of sway on reader opinions and so her lament of such a thing is deeply troubling. Let us start with the fact that Dick Cheney is now a folk hero for millions of hard-line conservatives in this country. The idea that creative license regarding LBJ, who has plenty of sins on his record, in a "hollywood" movie could merit mention compared to the manipulation of truth by just one high level politician is the very apotheosis of artlessness and naivety. Broad swaths of American get their news from the Daily Show...for Dr. King's sake, there are more important misconceptions to worry about then how a long-dead prez is depicted in a film.
You gotta be kidding me. Each word, each preposition of Ms. Dowd's is worth a good 10,000 of my full comment posts in terms of sway on reader opinions and so her lament of such a thing is deeply troubling. Let us start with the fact that Dick Cheney is now a folk hero for millions of hard-line conservatives in this country. The idea that creative license regarding LBJ, who has plenty of sins on his record, in a "hollywood" movie could merit mention compared to the manipulation of truth by just one high level politician is the very apotheosis of artlessness and naivety. Broad swaths of American get their news from the Daily Show...for Dr. King's sake, there are more important misconceptions to worry about then how a long-dead prez is depicted in a film.
8
Yes, like the misconception about the civil rights movement as a movement supported by Democrats. In reality, Democrats fought against civil rights and subverted those efforts to keep the black people as a political tool.
Indeed, in my mind DuVernay also diminishes King by diminishing Johnson. How much better would it have been to show King striding among Giants as an equal?
17
“I wasn’t interested in making a white-savior movie,”
Would she be OK if another artist would have taken artistic liberties to diminish twist and reverse the history regarding MLK?
Would she be OK if another artist would have taken artistic liberties to diminish twist and reverse the history regarding MLK?
15
Reading, discussing and viewing popular history is a good thing in a society that tends to ignore the importance of our country's past. Professional historians relentlessly strive for accuracy and the truth in their work and tend to look askance at popular interpretations of history. "Are your statements true and accurate based on your research. Are you injecting your personal opinion and bias to make your points rather than interpreting the facts as they are?" These are just two of the several key questions asked by academic advisers, editors, and subject matter experts when reviewing an historical piece. The fact that we are watching and discussing "Selma" is healthy since it encourages viewers to learn more about this important period of American History from a popular or professional point of view. I always remember discussing movies with friends where one would hold forth on a particular point from the film and another voice would retort, "Well, that is not entirely accurate because it was discovered that.........." The beauty of historical research and films like "Selma" is that viewers will want to know more and will dive deeper into the subject.
62
Have not seen the movie, may very well not as I am sick of the poliitication of everything, now movies, sports, music, etc, Not surprising there are lies in this, the radical left can not rely on truth, so they make things up. Like Michael Brown hands up, the cops are the bad guys, there is no Islamic terror, lies about obamacare, Benghazi. etc. and yes some on the so called " right do it too, but that does not condone others doing it. did i read they did not want to make " a white hero", I guess they never read MLK's dream speech, i thought we were to look at character, not complexion, but that must be in the sequel? Who gives two rips about the academy awards. Next they will have a Black academy awards, like the black Miss America. the black caucus, the black this the black that, but then if you are non black, you can not ever notice complexion. The left cries racism so often, it is a meaningless word. If MLK was half the man we Believe him to be, and he was, he would be appalled and embarrassed at this. Hey you leftists, most conservatives got the memo, we care about individuals, not groups or complexion, about time you guys/girls on the left joined us. does racism exists sure it does. All this whining diminishes true racism, which this whining proves racism is color blind
7
I'm puzzled by the director's choice to not acknowledge Pres. Johnson's role in passing Civil Rights legislation. I haven't seen the movie, but I've read that she not only doesn't give LBJ the credit he deserves, but presents him as an obstacle.
Does she really believe he didn't have a positive impact? Did she wish to give more credit to King? Or did she just have a desire to present a history, however innaccurate, that is more to her liking?
Whatever her motivation, it's unfortunate. LBJ's contribution to the passage of Civil Rights laws was not a minor part of the story. Millions of people will learn more about this era from "Selma" than any other source. We all know movie makers take poetic license when portraying historical events, but that's usually to simplify a complex story without changing the essence of what happened. That's not the case here.
History, like science, changes as we learn more. Absolute "truth" is hard to know. But truth should be the goal, and should not be subverted when telling a story as important as Selma - especially when, as with LBJ's role, we have a pretty good idea of what that truth is.
Does she really believe he didn't have a positive impact? Did she wish to give more credit to King? Or did she just have a desire to present a history, however innaccurate, that is more to her liking?
Whatever her motivation, it's unfortunate. LBJ's contribution to the passage of Civil Rights laws was not a minor part of the story. Millions of people will learn more about this era from "Selma" than any other source. We all know movie makers take poetic license when portraying historical events, but that's usually to simplify a complex story without changing the essence of what happened. That's not the case here.
History, like science, changes as we learn more. Absolute "truth" is hard to know. But truth should be the goal, and should not be subverted when telling a story as important as Selma - especially when, as with LBJ's role, we have a pretty good idea of what that truth is.
10
I haven't seen the movie, but it sounds like DuVernay was certainly guilty of stereotyping, even to the extent of severely rewriting a serious chapter in recent history, in order to emphasize a point: that many whites behaved abominably to blacks. She had plenty of villains to choose from; Johnson wasn't one of them, though.
11
The director is neither historian or artist, he is a propagandist.
8
On the one hand, I'm glad to think about how kids in theaters across the land viewing this movie will become even more familiar with what those brave ones who walked before them endured & sacrificed so they could today walk in freedom. On the other hand, it makes me sad to realize they also came away with a skewed view of the president who allied with MLK to help his dream to progress. My concern is that maybe the kids will now also project the emotions conjured up by the LBJ portrayal onto other non-whites and, if so, to my mind that just keeps the fires of division burning. A great film by DuVernay but also, a missed opportunity to generate some empathy.
3
Facts, who needs them when a political agenda is being driven?
Sounds like missing -or- incorrect facts in Selma, is equivalent to "hands up, don't shoot" in Ferguson?
Neither happened, but truth doesn't matter when trying to rile up the mobs.
PS
Oprah slandered a white shop girl in Switzerland in front of another one of her racial movies. Truth didnt matter there either.
Sounds like missing -or- incorrect facts in Selma, is equivalent to "hands up, don't shoot" in Ferguson?
Neither happened, but truth doesn't matter when trying to rile up the mobs.
PS
Oprah slandered a white shop girl in Switzerland in front of another one of her racial movies. Truth didnt matter there either.
5
DuVernay didn’t want a white-savior movie? What was her purpose? Art?
Artists select and reject various elements to create an impression, an impact. If she means LBJ is given too much historical credit, and King not ---what planet does she live on? King is revered, one of the heroes of our history.
Many whites were ‘on the fence’ in 1963, nurturing racial illusions. The B. of Rights was still divisive in the land of the free. While schools proudly taught all kids how our Bill of Rights made us a beacon of world freedom and set us apart from the dictatorships. But we had fought the Nazis with racially segregated troops in the recent past. Our own govt could not apply our Constitution to give 1st class citizenship to those deemed innately, racially inferior.
LBJ lost the South and we ended up with the later RW GOP takeover of politics. They strategized with racial resentments, and pulled the Dems rightward. Reagan felt Ok starting his campaign in the town where the notorious murder of the 3 civil rights workers occurred, which had LBJ addressed on TV. But instead of mourning it, he spoke of states rights to a white audience, sending a message.
No convictions for decades for murders, with high state official cover up. Injustice morphs.
We’re now churned with protests against biased and violent policing. Some whites are on the fence or pro police, no matter what. How will the movie on this civil rights mvmt be portrayed in the future? Will it be ‘art’ or truth?
Artists select and reject various elements to create an impression, an impact. If she means LBJ is given too much historical credit, and King not ---what planet does she live on? King is revered, one of the heroes of our history.
Many whites were ‘on the fence’ in 1963, nurturing racial illusions. The B. of Rights was still divisive in the land of the free. While schools proudly taught all kids how our Bill of Rights made us a beacon of world freedom and set us apart from the dictatorships. But we had fought the Nazis with racially segregated troops in the recent past. Our own govt could not apply our Constitution to give 1st class citizenship to those deemed innately, racially inferior.
LBJ lost the South and we ended up with the later RW GOP takeover of politics. They strategized with racial resentments, and pulled the Dems rightward. Reagan felt Ok starting his campaign in the town where the notorious murder of the 3 civil rights workers occurred, which had LBJ addressed on TV. But instead of mourning it, he spoke of states rights to a white audience, sending a message.
No convictions for decades for murders, with high state official cover up. Injustice morphs.
We’re now churned with protests against biased and violent policing. Some whites are on the fence or pro police, no matter what. How will the movie on this civil rights mvmt be portrayed in the future? Will it be ‘art’ or truth?
133
I agree with you, Maureen, 100%. I'm aghast that films based on true stories so often stray from the truth. I'm not talking about a little aggrandizement here and there, or something not true but true enough to have been true.
Because today's culture makes movie watching far more meaningful and memorable than dry, dusty US history classes, directors of historical films certainly need to do a more adequate job. Otherwise, an entire generation who didn't come of age during the tumultuous 60s, will take their lessons from Hollywood.
And this is a shame. You're right in stating that history is far more interesting than many of its modern day retellings. The best films or TV series I've seen in the past 10 years are those that got their stories largely right--from to Dallas Buyers' Club and 12 Years a Slave to Band of Brothers and John Adams.
Debasing the accomplishments of a white president to build up the achievements of a fallen black civil rights Leader is no way to honor Dr. King. Distortion of history is already a huge problem in our great racial divide, without adding insult to injury in a film.
Because today's culture makes movie watching far more meaningful and memorable than dry, dusty US history classes, directors of historical films certainly need to do a more adequate job. Otherwise, an entire generation who didn't come of age during the tumultuous 60s, will take their lessons from Hollywood.
And this is a shame. You're right in stating that history is far more interesting than many of its modern day retellings. The best films or TV series I've seen in the past 10 years are those that got their stories largely right--from to Dallas Buyers' Club and 12 Years a Slave to Band of Brothers and John Adams.
Debasing the accomplishments of a white president to build up the achievements of a fallen black civil rights Leader is no way to honor Dr. King. Distortion of history is already a huge problem in our great racial divide, without adding insult to injury in a film.
20
I normally find the type of argument I'm about to propose unsatisfying in the context of race in the US because the playing field is so tilted. But in the arts, and especially where the arts portray historical events, I believe it is valid. And I also believe that it *matters* to portray events as important to today's politics and events as accurately as possible. To do otherwise is irresponsible and a disservice to all concerned. Here is my argument: I wonder what Ms. DuVernay's response would be if it were Dr. King whose actions and attitudes were being misrepresented? Would she accept the same rationale? If she would then I would have to disagree with her twice.
14
Good Job Ms. Dowd, I think your absolutely right, And just for the record, I rarely agree with Ms. Dowd. A great movie but all wrong on Johnson.
9
"On matters of race — America’s original sin — there is an even higher responsibility to be accurate." I look forward to Ms. Dowd's future columns addressing the long history, beginning with "Birth of a Nation," of the film industry distorting not just the history of race in America but the very humanity of African Americans. But I assume, instead, she will remain more concerned with the legacy of LBJ.
7
Such movies as Oliver Stone's JFK and Selma are viewed as absolute truth by too many Americans ignorant of their own history. "If it wasn't true, they couldn't say it" is a typical, clueless response.
You are absolutely right, Maureen__all historical movies take license, but DuVernay simply took a cheap, dishonest shot at LBJ, soiling the memory of a man who, along with Abraham Lincoln, did more to advance the rights of African-Americans than any president in history. Shame on her.
www.newyorkgritty.net
You are absolutely right, Maureen__all historical movies take license, but DuVernay simply took a cheap, dishonest shot at LBJ, soiling the memory of a man who, along with Abraham Lincoln, did more to advance the rights of African-Americans than any president in history. Shame on her.
www.newyorkgritty.net
16
I enjoyed this counterpoint, which does a stronger job of anchoring its critique in historical research and sources:
http://fair.org/blog/2015/01/08/its-critics-of-selma-who-are-distorting-...
http://fair.org/blog/2015/01/08/its-critics-of-selma-who-are-distorting-...
1
Andrew Young indicates that the movie is about 90% factual, but all the talk about the LBJ portrayal makes this seem like a movie about Blacks for Blacks. As such, the message is going out to a much more limited audience than could have benefited from an expanded view to include some of the major contributions by many non-Black Americans. Knowingly putting false words in a real person's mouth is bad art. Creating a false image by dragging someone down to elevate your Hero does no justice to Blacks and detracts from the feeling that this is real. Most Blacks that see the movie will believe what has been shown is entirely historic and that the majority of non-Blacks in our Country were anti-Black. Truthfully, that is the message the Director wants to send.
14
While a historical film must honor the truth, it also must deviate from it for dramatic purposes. Dowd gets it all wrong when she suggests that LBJ is presented as a villain in Selma - he's presented as the imperfect human being he was, who ultimately did the right thing. How can you even call LBJ the villain when George Wallace is presented as the real obstacle to Civil Rights in the film? It's pretty clear that Dowd wasn't paying much attention to the movie in the first place.
8
"While a historical film must honor the truth, it also must deviate from it for dramatic purposes."
Presenting an axiomatic falsehood as the premise of your theory invalidates everything you have to say. It needn't deviate from the truth. In fact if it is going to be of any value, it should adhere to it as closely as possible.
White filmmakers, like Stone, have twisted history to fit their aesthetic temperaments. It's reprehensible, for gullible people fall for their tripe believing it is the truth.
Now we have an Afro American filmmaker who distorts the truth to enhance MLK's value and force in the progress of rights for the blacks. It's not a new paradigm. Just as reprehensible.
Presenting an axiomatic falsehood as the premise of your theory invalidates everything you have to say. It needn't deviate from the truth. In fact if it is going to be of any value, it should adhere to it as closely as possible.
White filmmakers, like Stone, have twisted history to fit their aesthetic temperaments. It's reprehensible, for gullible people fall for their tripe believing it is the truth.
Now we have an Afro American filmmaker who distorts the truth to enhance MLK's value and force in the progress of rights for the blacks. It's not a new paradigm. Just as reprehensible.
5
I hear your point about accuracy and while I generally agree, having LBJ be a more skeptical supporter for civil rights raised the dramatic tension much more and also placed more importance on the leadership of black people. Think about it a bit. If LBJ is just agreeing with everything and being a nice guy to MLK and the movement, it just looks like MLK is doing HIS bidding and carrying out LBJs agenda. There was no way to portray King's and the black leadership's ownership of the black agenda through portraying them as just obedient servants to LBJ's priorities. Also, no real damage was done to LBJ through this dramatic license... this movie ends up with him on the right side of history. Please -- all those of you who criticize DuVernay's approach -- think about how to film it the way you want it without making LBJ the center of this movement and de facto, of the movie. Ms. DuVernay was absolutely right -- and I am and will always be a big LBJ fan.
4
Re: "Not Just a Movie," Maureen Dowd's Op-Ed column on "Selma," directed
by Ava DuVernay.
When I first wrote about the directorial errors in the film centering on
Lyndon B. Jonson's role in it, immediately after "Selma" was first released, I suggested that unlike Tony Kushner, who refused to apologize for his errors of omission and commission in his screenplay for "Abraham Lincoln," Ms. DuVernay, gracefully do so. As Maureen Dowd, in her fair review, says, DuVernay's directorial debut is a success and showing LBJ and MLK as complementing each other rather than contending would only make "Selma" better.
"Selma" will become a permanent item in the education of all American children, especially at high school level, in the future. The DVD version
of "Selma" should be totally error-free. I would, therefore, suggest that, to set the record straight, the producers of "Selma" announce at the outset where it, inadvertently, departs from history. Doing so will, I strongly believe, would add inches to Ava DuVernay's integrity as a film director, besides showing President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. collaborating with each other in correcting some if not all racial injustices in America. It will also reinforce the truth that whites and African Americans need to cooperate and collaborate with one another to make the country color blind before the end of the 21str century, if not earlier.
by Ava DuVernay.
When I first wrote about the directorial errors in the film centering on
Lyndon B. Jonson's role in it, immediately after "Selma" was first released, I suggested that unlike Tony Kushner, who refused to apologize for his errors of omission and commission in his screenplay for "Abraham Lincoln," Ms. DuVernay, gracefully do so. As Maureen Dowd, in her fair review, says, DuVernay's directorial debut is a success and showing LBJ and MLK as complementing each other rather than contending would only make "Selma" better.
"Selma" will become a permanent item in the education of all American children, especially at high school level, in the future. The DVD version
of "Selma" should be totally error-free. I would, therefore, suggest that, to set the record straight, the producers of "Selma" announce at the outset where it, inadvertently, departs from history. Doing so will, I strongly believe, would add inches to Ava DuVernay's integrity as a film director, besides showing President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. collaborating with each other in correcting some if not all racial injustices in America. It will also reinforce the truth that whites and African Americans need to cooperate and collaborate with one another to make the country color blind before the end of the 21str century, if not earlier.
7
I'm so upset about the misrepresentation of LBJ in this movie (by all accounts) and by the casual way it's being dismissed ("just a movie") that I can't go see the film.
11
I definitely must--as I think we all should--see "Selma." LBJ, as you note, has Vietnam as his historical albatross and doesn't need anymore baggage. He was courageous, especially as a Southerner, advancing the cause of civil rights that he knew would lead to the racist backlash initiated by Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater that has now produced a solid ultraconservative white Republican, Tea Party south. Hopefully, this movie will serve to energize this new generation of the need and the costs of moving civil rights to a new level to curb police racism that has lead to the tragic deaths of black men for, at most, minor crimes in Ferguson, Missouri; New York; Cleveland; Los Angeles and elsewhere. If "Selma" can produce that level of social activism, it can be forgiven the infidelity of its characterization of LBJ.
Only a hack ideologue would try to defend the president who passed laws that destroyed the African American family unit. LBJ created the permanent urban ghetto culture. And I won't even mention Viet Nam.
3
A few thoughts:
1. I saw the movie Selma, and found LBJ depicted not as a villain, but as a POLITICIAN. To me, he seemed sympathetic to King, but had other priorities, having recently passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. George Wallace was King's adversary in the movie, not LBJ.
2. Lincoln, JFK, Argo, The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, and many other movies have come under fire as "historically inaccurate", but not with this much scrutiny. People are angry that a black female director dared to exercise a director's prerogative--something white male directors do all the time.
3. Dowd says "It was clear that a generation of young moviegoers would now see L.B.J.’s role in civil rights through DuVernay’s lens. And that's a shame." No, it isn't a shame. Those same black teens may have seen Lincoln through Spielbergs' lens--a lens which didn't even include Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman. A film with no acknowledgement of black efforts to end slavery. In her analysis of some of these films, has Dowd ever suggested that it was a "shame" to see the film through those directors' lenses? I think not.
There is much more I could say about this editorial (e.g., the tapes--did King know he was being recorded, or was this like the other times he was recorded without his knowledge?), LBJ's known racism, use of the n-word, etc.
Suffice it to say this: the movie Selma was made and the world will get to see it. That, in itself, is a victory.
1. I saw the movie Selma, and found LBJ depicted not as a villain, but as a POLITICIAN. To me, he seemed sympathetic to King, but had other priorities, having recently passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. George Wallace was King's adversary in the movie, not LBJ.
2. Lincoln, JFK, Argo, The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, and many other movies have come under fire as "historically inaccurate", but not with this much scrutiny. People are angry that a black female director dared to exercise a director's prerogative--something white male directors do all the time.
3. Dowd says "It was clear that a generation of young moviegoers would now see L.B.J.’s role in civil rights through DuVernay’s lens. And that's a shame." No, it isn't a shame. Those same black teens may have seen Lincoln through Spielbergs' lens--a lens which didn't even include Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman. A film with no acknowledgement of black efforts to end slavery. In her analysis of some of these films, has Dowd ever suggested that it was a "shame" to see the film through those directors' lenses? I think not.
There is much more I could say about this editorial (e.g., the tapes--did King know he was being recorded, or was this like the other times he was recorded without his knowledge?), LBJ's known racism, use of the n-word, etc.
Suffice it to say this: the movie Selma was made and the world will get to see it. That, in itself, is a victory.
393
You sound angry, sophy.
Why so hostile at wanting historical truth presented as truth, no propaganda needed?
Is it necessary to overcorrect to balance out those omissions in filmmaking you mentioned? Do we continue to pay with American history, into the future, to make up for Hollywood's sins?
There's a difference between a classroom blackboard and a Hollywood movie screen, most people still know. Take care not to confuse the two.
Why so hostile at wanting historical truth presented as truth, no propaganda needed?
Is it necessary to overcorrect to balance out those omissions in filmmaking you mentioned? Do we continue to pay with American history, into the future, to make up for Hollywood's sins?
There's a difference between a classroom blackboard and a Hollywood movie screen, most people still know. Take care not to confuse the two.
6
You lost me when you accused LBJ of being a racist.
Isn't Dvernay the real racist? Wasn't DuVernay a racist when she said she didn’t want to make white-savior movie? To me that is racisim - she decided how to protray a character in a movie based on their race & nothing else. Think about it - if Obama were the President at that time, would his protrayl be different? Of course it would.
As to LBJ being a racist. Consider that as President, he pushed through the first Civil Rights act and the Voting Rights act. The proof is in the pudding.
Isn't Dvernay the real racist? Wasn't DuVernay a racist when she said she didn’t want to make white-savior movie? To me that is racisim - she decided how to protray a character in a movie based on their race & nothing else. Think about it - if Obama were the President at that time, would his protrayl be different? Of course it would.
As to LBJ being a racist. Consider that as President, he pushed through the first Civil Rights act and the Voting Rights act. The proof is in the pudding.
4
Thank you for pointing out the fallacious, and historically incorrect depiction of white FBI agents as pro-civil rights ‘heroes’ in “Mississippi Burning” when the opposite was largely the case. Hoover, I believe ordered his agents to sit on the sidelines and look the other way while the true heroes of this movement were threatened, abused, beaten, and even murdered. This is one of the few times I've seen anyone calling out this film as well as “Cry Freedom” on their explicitly racist distortion of the facts. As a young girl, I struggled to grasp why the FBI good guys were not. The beginnings of my skepticism towards government, Hollywood and the media and how history is recorded began then. I often don’t agree with you but am glad you keep questioning and pointing out the slippage between what you see pushed as reality/truth and what you think and believe to be true.
3
So is Ms Doud saying that LBJ was no racist and was nothing but helpful to MKL? Is that really true, or are we looking at another fake view of history, but more friendly to the communist/progressive party?
2
Haven't we had enough of the tired "white people bad, black people good" mythology? If you don't want to portray a story with a "white savior", don't pick a factual story with a "white story". I know the black aggrievement film genre is popular and previously thought to be an automatic Oscars sweep, but it is not very courageous when any counterbalance to that heavy bias would be deemed racist at its very inception.
And please, dispense with the anti-Texas/anti-Southern/anti-religious bigotry. I'm sure it makes you feel quite proud of yourselves, but it just shows your own deep ignorance. I'd pick someone from Texas over one from Mass. any day, especially seeing as how Boston is famous for its racism.
And please, dispense with the anti-Texas/anti-Southern/anti-religious bigotry. I'm sure it makes you feel quite proud of yourselves, but it just shows your own deep ignorance. I'd pick someone from Texas over one from Mass. any day, especially seeing as how Boston is famous for its racism.
7
Almost always, the book is better than the movie. I hope the students will read Taylor Branch's 3 book history of the King years. The 3 books are Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire and At Canaan's Edge. The history is more accurate and the writing is excellent.
6
Excellent choices, but it takes more energy for people to read and think in nuanced ways than to watch a movie while being entertained, emotionally inspired, and believing it must be true.
1
I did read them and I agree that they are outstanding. The problem is that most students might be disturbed by some of what Mr. Branch has to say about Dr. King. History should never be hagiography. Leave that nonsense to the limpets who swim in the wake of every great man. Dr. King is dangerously close to being an untouchable figure who never did anything that wasn't noble, (see Plagiarizing Portions of Your Doctoral Thesis), and never did anything that was remotely seedy, (see Cheating on Coretta). Dr.King was a man with a man's faults and appetites, but none of this takes away from his greatness, (and I don't throw that term around loosely). In addition to Mr Branch's trilogy, I'd suggest also reading Robert Caro's seemingly endless biography of Lyndon Johnson. Taken together you might begin to understand the demons that drove both men. You'll come away from the experience with a more nuanced appreciation for both men, certainly more nuanced than Ms. DuVernay's depiction. of them.
The director obviously intended to inflame racial hatred with this movie, right in line with what the Obama Administration has been doing for sox years.
7
It is unfortunate that everything has to add villains under the guise of artistic license. Most of the young people watching the movie will take it as gospel, because of Oprah, without realizing how many white people suffered to help blacks get the rights they deserve and earned fighting for America. It seems Oprah just helps charlatans like Al Sharpton get rich by making Selma into another phony Ferguson.
14
False narratives from filmmakers does an injustice to the truth. Things are bad enough in America that we don't need to lie in order to strengthen a position.
11
“I wasn’t interested in making a white-savior movie,” she said.
I, for one Thank her for not doing so. Where are these thoughts of LBJ made to look like a villain coming from? IMHO,the movie portrayed him as a President with much on his plate, and conflicting decisions to make.
The hero riding in on his white horse to save everyone narrative does not have to be reflected in every passage in history and also every subsequent movie.
Ms DuVernay's vision and version of her truth has every right to be
told , just like any storyteller before her.
Let this story be recorded through this lens now.
Future film makers will retell their version of this part of History where there will be no MLK , no march as matter of fact this event may not have happened.
I, for one Thank her for not doing so. Where are these thoughts of LBJ made to look like a villain coming from? IMHO,the movie portrayed him as a President with much on his plate, and conflicting decisions to make.
The hero riding in on his white horse to save everyone narrative does not have to be reflected in every passage in history and also every subsequent movie.
Ms DuVernay's vision and version of her truth has every right to be
told , just like any storyteller before her.
Let this story be recorded through this lens now.
Future film makers will retell their version of this part of History where there will be no MLK , no march as matter of fact this event may not have happened.
6
We unfortunately live in an age where history is learned through film (and flawed ones at that) and not books. Who can argue that our collective knowledge of the history of the Second World War largely comes from film? And it is mostly the European theater of that war, which is why "Unbroken" is unusual in that it deals with Japanese cruelty rather than German. And even at that it is the Western Front and not the genocidal Russian Front that is portrayed.
Unbroken is a great book and made the New York Times best seller list for several years. But given the size of our U.S. population it was still a book that was largely unread. Perhaps the film will change that but it is doubtful.
Unbroken is a great book and made the New York Times best seller list for several years. But given the size of our U.S. population it was still a book that was largely unread. Perhaps the film will change that but it is doubtful.
76
Learning history through films? That's news to the thousands of high schools and universities where students go every day to actually learn about history; by reading books.
3
Lies and fabrication and fiction are also known in books and magazines and newspapers.
History is not science nor truth nor objective. History is myth and interpretation and opinion and perspective. Deciding which "facts" to report and how to report them is an editorial decision.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all saw and heard it different. Paul did not see or hear it at all. And they were saints.
History is not science nor truth nor objective. History is myth and interpretation and opinion and perspective. Deciding which "facts" to report and how to report them is an editorial decision.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all saw and heard it different. Paul did not see or hear it at all. And they were saints.
6
If Maureen's movie-mates were representative, then it's interesting that the parents and grandparents of black kids didn't better prepare them for the horrific reality of Jim Crow. My generation saw a lot of it in real time as the TV networks began televising some of what was happening as the south violently resisted the civil rights movement; and of course, we saw a level of casual racism in our own northern white communities that would be unthinkable today.
In a very real sense it's tremendously encouraging to someone my age that black kids are astonished at what was commonplace fifty years ago in much of the south: shows how far we've come.
But the kids shouldn't be outraged at LBJ's paternalism, which actually wasn't that but monumental arrogance; and an arrogance that was practiced with anyone, white, brown or black, man in the street or the powerful. But for all his arrogance his sympathy for the poor and downtrodden and commitment to changing their lives of for the better was legitimate. I have serious ideological problems with LBJ's Great Society because it wasn't well-conceived and because it largely didn't work, at immense cost. But there can't be serious doubt about the man's motivations.
For what he actually did accomplish, LBJ would have been regarded as one of our greatest presidents, but for Vietnam. And the ignorance of those kids about how it really was in the Jim Crow south can be laid at the feet of the man who gave them the innocence to be ignorant.
In a very real sense it's tremendously encouraging to someone my age that black kids are astonished at what was commonplace fifty years ago in much of the south: shows how far we've come.
But the kids shouldn't be outraged at LBJ's paternalism, which actually wasn't that but monumental arrogance; and an arrogance that was practiced with anyone, white, brown or black, man in the street or the powerful. But for all his arrogance his sympathy for the poor and downtrodden and commitment to changing their lives of for the better was legitimate. I have serious ideological problems with LBJ's Great Society because it wasn't well-conceived and because it largely didn't work, at immense cost. But there can't be serious doubt about the man's motivations.
For what he actually did accomplish, LBJ would have been regarded as one of our greatest presidents, but for Vietnam. And the ignorance of those kids about how it really was in the Jim Crow south can be laid at the feet of the man who gave them the innocence to be ignorant.
13
Well, to producers, distributors and associated interested persons, it apparently is still just a movie; at least that is the pecking order, marketing first! not that there's anything wrong with marketing per se.
But we are dealing with a chronicling of history - and fidelity to history is the cement of civilization. Note that the difference between one man's opinion of spin and a propaganda tool can at time be only a matter of scale; what goes for passionately stated opinion in a barbershop on a Saturday morning does not go as merely someone's position when the scale of the communication of that very same opinion is massive and the recipient thereof unknown and this this case more vulnerable to the inaccuracy.
Thus, that fidelity to history shouldn't be scuttled just because notions now in vogue among the young and the undereducated/underexperienced of "white privilege" or other cultural trend is the current MO. (modus operandi; not Missouri!)
Though I haven't seen the flic; if Maureen is right in her assessment/characterization of literary license taken, then are we not then purposefully dragged back to a time before LBJ's epiphany envisioning, promoting and enacting both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
Though we can argue whether Johnson's War of Poverty stunted as opposed to promoted racial and economic progress, misleading literary license here ultimately sustains nothing other that the grievance industry.
But we are dealing with a chronicling of history - and fidelity to history is the cement of civilization. Note that the difference between one man's opinion of spin and a propaganda tool can at time be only a matter of scale; what goes for passionately stated opinion in a barbershop on a Saturday morning does not go as merely someone's position when the scale of the communication of that very same opinion is massive and the recipient thereof unknown and this this case more vulnerable to the inaccuracy.
Thus, that fidelity to history shouldn't be scuttled just because notions now in vogue among the young and the undereducated/underexperienced of "white privilege" or other cultural trend is the current MO. (modus operandi; not Missouri!)
Though I haven't seen the flic; if Maureen is right in her assessment/characterization of literary license taken, then are we not then purposefully dragged back to a time before LBJ's epiphany envisioning, promoting and enacting both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
Though we can argue whether Johnson's War of Poverty stunted as opposed to promoted racial and economic progress, misleading literary license here ultimately sustains nothing other that the grievance industry.
4
Irresponsible film making. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the W.H. to see if anyone has the guts to point out to Oprah she funded a movie that denigrates a President that had her people in mind from day one in office. I don't expect an honest review from this president or his aides.
11
That's funny, because I don't recall seeing Maureen Dowd write an op-ed about the Exodus movie, which falsely portrays the ancestry of the Egyptians and the Israelite during that time.
12
Professor, why would anyone write an op-ed piece calling a piece of fiction more fictitious then people think it should be?
2
Amen to another insightful piece.
2
Given the silly Hollywood distortion of LBJ (who was a hero for civil rights) this movie won't get my money. - This movie is in the historical fiction genre. Any halfway decent historical fiction does not change the fundamental truths of events.
9
Perversely, the criticism of the historical errors in this film are bringing out the truth about Johnson who, without the tragedy of Vietnam might have been one of the greats.
11
In comparing the story of Johnson's attempt to make every other president "look like a pauper when it comes to civil rights, how would Dowd view the historic impact of President Obama.
While criticizing the president for most of the past six years, I wonder what Dowd thinks of how Michelle Obama as First Lady in 2011 went to Target incognito and was asked to find a store clerk by a customer or how the president as a freshly minted graduate of Harvard Law and wearing a tux was asked to go get a car in the lot.
Instead of sitting in a darkened movie theater, perhaps it would be good to figure how far we have to go in improving race relations in the United States..
While criticizing the president for most of the past six years, I wonder what Dowd thinks of how Michelle Obama as First Lady in 2011 went to Target incognito and was asked to find a store clerk by a customer or how the president as a freshly minted graduate of Harvard Law and wearing a tux was asked to go get a car in the lot.
Instead of sitting in a darkened movie theater, perhaps it would be good to figure how far we have to go in improving race relations in the United States..
7
Ms. Dowd is correct! That time had more real drama than any movie can portray. Why sully the reputation of a powerful man who wished to help? While, I'm sure the movie is well done, I will skip it. Have seen too many 'true life' movies that have taken such liberties.
7
I just don't understand all the whining from the LBJ camp. Yes, yes ... he was a peripheral force, but I am quite sure if his advocacy of civil and voting rights had carried a political/electoral cost he would have had the civil rights movement on hold until the last two years of his presidency. William Lloyd Garrison or Henry Ward Beecher he wasn't.
And don't forget that he freely and casually used the 'n-word' all through his life.
And don't forget that he freely and casually used the 'n-word' all through his life.
8
Are you one of those who criticizes Mark Twain for using the "n-word" in his books? It was a different time, my friend. The fact that you make the "political/electoral cost" a hypothetical is rather revealing. But actually, there WAS a political/electoral cost, and it exists all the more today. I live in one of the southern states that the Voting Rights Act applied to, until gutted by the Republican controlled Supreme Court. In real life, not in the movie, Johnson lamented the fact that "I have lost the South for the Democratic Party." North Carolina has a Republican governor and a Republican controlled legislature, and one of the harshest "voter ID" laws in the land. LBJ stained his legacy with Vietnam, true, but his staunch support for the civil rights movement should not be twisted, even for "artistic truth."
3
Judging a historical figure of a half-century ago by the standards of today is never a good idea. A good many people casually used the N word during the late 1950s. Now rappers throw it around with impunity, seemingly unaware of the the baggage the term carries.
2
What a sorry state of affairs world we encourage teachers to take their students to a misleading propaganda film. These times call for civility and understanding and this is not the time to be villifying the President who was responsible for passing the Voting Rights Act. Giving credit to white heroes such as Governor Leroy Collins and President Lyndon Johnson for their very courageous stands is a needed lesson, especially in this time of racial fomemt. And maybe some needs to mention the thousands of whte soldiers who died anong with their black counterparts in the war to end slavery.
308
Take a look at the history of the Attorney General of Alabama during Wallace's terms, Richmond Flowers, Sr. He was another white man who paid a price for supporting the end of segregation.
3
President Johnson was in no way vilified in the film. He was portrayed as a political, and history will support that portrayal. His speech before congress portrayed his role properly positioned for historical purposes.
Do you really believe that the FBI ran open loop on King. That policy was top down with denyability.
Do you really believe that the FBI ran open loop on King. That policy was top down with denyability.
2
I believe that when Johnson passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, he historically mentioned something like, "There goes the South forever," in terms of Democratic victory." He was right, of course, and nonetheless, was willing to do it. That is courage.
5
“I wasn’t interested in making a white-savior movie,” says it all. Far too often that is the case, a movie reinforces the idea that somehow without whites blacks are "incapable".
Tragically, Pres. Johnson is one of the most underrated and vilified (Vietnam) president's in history. It is a travesty that the statement made about not having a "white savior" is a result of systemic racial angst. An effort to disprove what is readily expected in a race conscious society; white hero's, black subordinates. As always racism has benefitted only those who exploit it. The common man, either black or white have suffered due to its deleterious nature, stultifying social reasoning...
Tragically, Pres. Johnson is one of the most underrated and vilified (Vietnam) president's in history. It is a travesty that the statement made about not having a "white savior" is a result of systemic racial angst. An effort to disprove what is readily expected in a race conscious society; white hero's, black subordinates. As always racism has benefitted only those who exploit it. The common man, either black or white have suffered due to its deleterious nature, stultifying social reasoning...
6
Thanks, Maureen, for speaking on this issue. Addressing race issues does bot call for distorting the truth. Many non-blacks have been and are genuinely concerned about the race problems.
7
That's the problem with any movie based on historical events: important things are left out while other important things are distorted to avoid confusing an audience or simply to add drama. I actually prefer fictional movies to those based on real people and events because I can never be sure with the latter when I'm getting an inaccurate version of reality or being subtly manipulated. From everything I've read, LBJ gets undeserved poor treatment in this movie which makes me hesitate to fork over ten bucks to see it.
9
Well put. Accuracy is only important to Hollywood when they want to shock someone. Otherwise, it's an annoyance.
9
It's unfortunate that what appears to be an otherwise outstanding film sought to besmirch Lyndon Johnson's achievements in securing passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. Most of Selma's viewers will know little or nothing of the history of the era, and the film would be stronger if accurate. I doubt that Dr. King would appreciate the inaccuracy.
25
Hollywood writers and those who guide them seem to be constitutionally incapable of rendering truth. Usually, they can't see how dramatic it can be. They can't see how honesty has its own power. They must have handsome actors, beautiful sets and scenery, phony science when the real thing would be even better, large apartments for families in poverty, unreally excessive emotion, fake moments of inspired genius, and five distortions after those. I leave it to the readers to pick out the individual movies that have each one of these faults.
I sometimes think that Hollywood people live in a bubble of hyperemotionalism and lose contact with the real world -- real politics, real science, real feelings, real education, real art. (Such an original thought.) And I often regret that a movie with good qualities is spoiled by unhelpful artifice.
Of course that doesn't include documentarians, many of whom can indeed see the drama in real life, and that's what makes them good at their work. And fortunately, there are occasionally some great exceptions among the feature films.
I sometimes think that Hollywood people live in a bubble of hyperemotionalism and lose contact with the real world -- real politics, real science, real feelings, real education, real art. (Such an original thought.) And I often regret that a movie with good qualities is spoiled by unhelpful artifice.
Of course that doesn't include documentarians, many of whom can indeed see the drama in real life, and that's what makes them good at their work. And fortunately, there are occasionally some great exceptions among the feature films.
7
I haven't seen the movie, but hope that young people and others of all races and ages will somehow leave it with an understanding that America, notwithstanding its many faults, was even in the time of Selma the best hope of the world and still is.
13
What on earth drove “DuVernay to diminish L.B.J.” in “Selma” is baffling? It would help if the definitive authority on LBJ, biographer Robert Caro, weighed in? In fact, Mr. Caro is currently working on LBJ Volume 5, which covers the period starting in 1965. His exhaustive research might shed some light on the relationship between LBJ and MLK and what transpired on the road leading to Selma and the Voting Rights Act?
22
It seems no State Troopers were interviewed for this film. Demonizing them makes this tale too morally easy for the filmgoer. From my own grandfather who was on the bridge with MLK, as a State Trooper: The Troopers initially saw themselves as being assigned to protect the gathering protestors from Sheriff Davis and vigilantes; George C. Wallace even then had larger political ambitions and did not want Alabama to be tarred. However over several days as the gathering crowd waited for MLK, that same crowd increasingly baited, usually via rocks and insults, the State Troopers assigned to protect them. By the time MLK arrived, the Troopers were personally angry, not at a race of people but at this particular group who seemed to be bussed in from elsewhere. On the bridge, the State Troopers over-reacted to a provocation .. but they were really reacting to several days of what they perceived as abuse and inexplicable ingratitude. That all said .. my grandfather was mortified, along with his peers, at their own loss of control. He did not defend it in the least, and we believe his mortification over their loss of self-control professionalism in the eyes of the world helped lead to his early heart failure. They really felt they had let Alabama down. But per Dowd, real history provides texture and a real sense of tragedy .. and also makes it more difficult for the filmgoer to make the easy calls, that justice and doing the right thing is HARD.
20
So did Ms DuVernay must have told the writer of the screenplay to CHANGE the facts? Why would she do that? How woul an accurate LBJ portrayal take away from the film? And then, when asked about it on a PR tour, she had nothing but snarky answers.
That may be the reason for the snub of Best Director...her attitude. The other snubs...don't have any idea. But this is LIBERAL Hollywood who did not vote for these actors and director. NOT Conservative racists, as they are constantly being portrayed.
That may be the reason for the snub of Best Director...her attitude. The other snubs...don't have any idea. But this is LIBERAL Hollywood who did not vote for these actors and director. NOT Conservative racists, as they are constantly being portrayed.
15
So this is just what we need now. An inane director making the white President (who actually worked with MLK to support civil rights legislation) the bad guy despite the fact that this is inaccurate. She then uses the excuse that the historical truth was not what she wanted "her movie" to show so she altered the story. Just what we need, the younger generation of Blacks thinking that LBJ was trying to hurt the movement instead of help it. Got to make the white President look bad! Lets raise the animosity level between the races even more - using lies instead of the true story. Kind of sounds like an Al Sharpton move! Thanks so much, Ms DuVernay. I will take a pass on seeing your movie and watch the documentaries available on PBS that show the real story of the Civil Rights Movement. I hope that your movie does not win Best Picture - what a travesty that would be! Glad you were not nominated for Best Director.
56
If film directors want to present fiction, then they should write an original story about a fight for civil rights (not necessarily _the_ fight for civil rights) and film it. At the end of such films, they can add, "Any resemblance to real people, events and places is purely coincidental." They can still make their points and present themes that resonate with real people in real places. You can also embroider wildly when there is no accurate historical record of what went on. It's hard to know exactly what Cleopatra said to Marc Antony and Julius Caesar or where each was sitting when she said it. So we accept the fact that what we see on the stage or screen is how it could have been, but not necessarily was, because frankly, it doesn't make much difference today how it was. Since we have not put our problems with the relationships between various ethnic groups in our country behind us, though, accuracy in this area, neither sugarcoating nor condemning for the benefit of one group or person or another, should be a pretty significant goal for any director. If that's not your goal, then you have to be clear that you are presenting the story as you, the director, imagine it, not necessarily the way it really was or how people who were there remember it. I gather this director made her film _look accurate_, being careful about which details were presented and how, without insisting that those details actually be accurate, in a film that is obviously about recent history.
3
See the movie. Dowds eyes are a distorting filter. Remember she is is herself a distorter of first class talent. The picture is moving, and Johnson is one of the good guys.
4
As always, Maureen is right on the money. There are those of us who remember what happened then, and those who will learn about it only through this film.
19
Uh, I remember what happened then, and I think this film is powerful, significant and the film is right on the money. I think Miss Dowd is way off base, in typical white privilege, let's re-write history to make the white man the hero. Typical, and sad really. It's film - not a documentary. Get over your supremacy on history.
4
As always?
1
Thanks Maureen for the entrance of TRUTH into the debate! So many times today an egregious lie is floated that co-opts and hijacks a beautiful piece of the tapestry of history sullying all those involved and leaving the seekers of truth shortchanged! Thanks for your courage!!
18
Ms. Dowd never lacks courage nor daring. She is up to the task of taking on bold endeavors, and she has done it once again.
2
I agree completely. DuVernay has done a disservice to all the people who are too young to remember what happened. In the process she has done a disservice to the country and to Martin Luther King Jr.
52
People who get their "history" from Hollywood movies are destined to be ignorant of the truth and reality for decades…
39
It is certain that if a movie were made about Martin Luther King, Jr. that presented him in a distorted light, the excuse of "it's not a documentary" or "it's art," would never be accepted for even a second. This isn't some minor detail changed to make a more dramatic scene.
41
Finally, something by Ms Dowd that is rational. The director was not nominated likely because her art did not make the cut. The actual story was twisted beyond belief, beyond artistic license. And the press skewers the Academy for bypassing her as best director. The truth shall set us all free. It may be the film as theater just didn't make it. Sad, as it was an opportunity to triumph, and ended being a discussion about affirmative action toward directors who are just not good enough.
The other actors who were bypassed may also be reeling as they may be her collateral damage.
I avoid most so called historical docudrama movies for this very reason: they don't tell the truth.
I trust some directors. She hasn't earned my trust.
The other actors who were bypassed may also be reeling as they may be her collateral damage.
I avoid most so called historical docudrama movies for this very reason: they don't tell the truth.
I trust some directors. She hasn't earned my trust.
20
A movie about Jesus doesn't mean it must be nominated for an Oscar. Selma, a wholly relavant historic event doesn't mean it deserves nomination. As the president of the acdemy (a black female) explained:
"only directors can suggest best director nominees and only actors can nominate actors. But the entire academy membership can submit suggestions for best picture. "There is not one central body or group of people that sit around the table and come up with nominations," she said. "It really is a peer-to-peer process."
So the peers of Selma found it wanting, and the creators of Selma are seeking affirmative action for a participation trophy.
"only directors can suggest best director nominees and only actors can nominate actors. But the entire academy membership can submit suggestions for best picture. "There is not one central body or group of people that sit around the table and come up with nominations," she said. "It really is a peer-to-peer process."
So the peers of Selma found it wanting, and the creators of Selma are seeking affirmative action for a participation trophy.
12
Exactly . There are certain facts that should not be manipulated; and there was certainly no reason to do so in this instance--given the historical importance of this event and the ample documentation on it--written and alive. Also, I found Ms. Duvarnay ' s cavalier attitude about her distortion of these facts disappointing.
However, I appreciate her passion and commitment to to this story and the intimate insights and human dimensions she brought to it through her directing. I very much look forward to her next film about our people and our struggle--then and now. Our stories are unlimited and are just waiting for someone of Ms. Duvarnay ' s talents to bring them to life on the big screen.
However, I appreciate her passion and commitment to to this story and the intimate insights and human dimensions she brought to it through her directing. I very much look forward to her next film about our people and our struggle--then and now. Our stories are unlimited and are just waiting for someone of Ms. Duvarnay ' s talents to bring them to life on the big screen.
12
This is a fair assessment, to which I would only add, a little bit of poison can go a long way to do damage down the road.
8
If the statements of LBJ on the taped conversation were not true, or disingenuous, etc., I am sure King would have called LBJ on it or corrected him. Such as, "you were hesitant before, what changed your mind?," or something similar. There being no such statement or reaction by King, you have to side with LBJ being exactly as the tape documents. Perhaps DuVernay's statement about not wanting to make a white saviour movie explains the shading more than any references to history.
8
A movie such as this will be widely seen and for viewers such as the ones at the showing Maureen attended, it will probably influence their perception of this bit of history. Thus, it should be accurate.
Also, LBJ's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was a strong figure in moving civil rights forward.
Also, LBJ's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was a strong figure in moving civil rights forward.
19
I don't believe LBJ should be so defended by white older journalists and political hands who are stepping in front of the artists who made this movie to proclaim, "Not true, I was there." The fear that young black people will forge a truth that makes sense to them and must be corrected is paternalistic and entitled. Other movies can and will and already have been made which will correct, and probably distort, the historical record. The truth is that there was reluctance to passing a civil rights bill by powerful white men in Washington. Kennedy and LBJ will have to take their hits just as those who continually defile MLK's name. And, why is this the first Hollywood movie about MLK, after all these years? We have seen endless Kennedy portrayals. This movie is not here to praise LBJ, neither is it here to bury him.
21
Fregan, as an African American who was 17 years old when MLK died I must tell you that truth is important. Firstly, don't patronize African Americans by saying that we will "accept truth" that makes sense to us. Anyone who reads information about LBJ or MLK during that period will know that the movie distorts LBJ's commitment to voting rights for African Americas. When a film director does not tell the truth there are basically two reason for not being truthful : 1) the director does not really know the history, or 2) the director is intentionally distorts the truth. if you are going to criticize white men for not backing voting rights for African Americans, then make sure your criticizing the right people. Otherwise, people who know the history will assume that you are either ignorant or a liar.
As far as defiling MLK, there were many African Americans who didn't feel that he was speaking to them. While I could greatly appreciate the fight for voting and civil rights in the South, as a Black resident of NYC, I wasn't faced with legal segregation, the lack of education and economic power were more relevant. Malcolm X was a more relevant figure for me, especially after he embraced orthodox Islam. Malcolm once said : " America's greatest crime against the black man was not slavery or lynching, but that he was taught to wear a mask of self-hate and self-doubt." That is an issue which MLK never really dealt with.
As far as defiling MLK, there were many African Americans who didn't feel that he was speaking to them. While I could greatly appreciate the fight for voting and civil rights in the South, as a Black resident of NYC, I wasn't faced with legal segregation, the lack of education and economic power were more relevant. Malcolm X was a more relevant figure for me, especially after he embraced orthodox Islam. Malcolm once said : " America's greatest crime against the black man was not slavery or lynching, but that he was taught to wear a mask of self-hate and self-doubt." That is an issue which MLK never really dealt with.
8
It is the first MLK film because MLK's children have blocked the many attempts through legal action. They also frightened the director off of using MLK's actual words, which likely cost her some credibilty. That is the only reason.
3
Well said! I'm white, and I was there - and, the movie is profound - and very well made.
8
Awww, Ms. Dowd, sadly, you can't see the forest for the trees. But I assume you'll follow your movie critique this week with how 'American Sniper' and 'Imitation Game' also embellish and edit the truth to fit within a 2-hour window of drama. Sure, the portrayal of Johnson could have been more sympathetic; if it weren't for Vietnam he would get more of the credit he deserves for sticking his political neck out to do, what in his conscience, was right.
But why emphasize in your column this point and neglect to point out that the movie as a whole is excellent, quite superior to several recent Oscar winners when judged as a cinematic artistry. Why couldn't you wonder more why this incredibly timely film--50 years later and the violence borne of prejudice is just more nuanced in its application--got this heavy dose of truth serum applied to it when others seem to be given a free pass under the label of artistic license.
Shame on you for misusing your power of shaping opinions to focus on the trees and not the forest. It will be a film that withstands the harshest test of all, the test of time. It is extremely difficult to portray an historical era and/or event that many people still alive recall. This film nails it, and you couldn't make that point; it's about the civil rights movement, when good overcame evil.
But why emphasize in your column this point and neglect to point out that the movie as a whole is excellent, quite superior to several recent Oscar winners when judged as a cinematic artistry. Why couldn't you wonder more why this incredibly timely film--50 years later and the violence borne of prejudice is just more nuanced in its application--got this heavy dose of truth serum applied to it when others seem to be given a free pass under the label of artistic license.
Shame on you for misusing your power of shaping opinions to focus on the trees and not the forest. It will be a film that withstands the harshest test of all, the test of time. It is extremely difficult to portray an historical era and/or event that many people still alive recall. This film nails it, and you couldn't make that point; it's about the civil rights movement, when good overcame evil.
21
"I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
~MLK~
Own it people!
~MLK~
Own it people!
16
The makers of this film used the same old tired democrat party tactics of appealing to the heart, not of the brain, and manipulate it to their advantage. Whether their propaganda is true or false doesn't matter. The truth is, they need racism in order to advance their agendas coupled with a nodding acquaintance of the truth. The issue will never be resolved as long as they can keep it alive by stoking the fires of racism. This movie seems to have succeeded. Mission accomplished. I would ask them to compare America then to what America is today. If they still aren't satisfied they can look to the leaders they keep re-electing year after year. Is it any wonder that no wealth is redistributed but only the misery. It is any wonder that the only thing accomplished by this movie is to continue to keep those students in the dark. Truth is light....
8
In reading a 'Memo' from the White House earlier, it made this American somber to see that only 16% of Americans at this time rate Education as one of their concerns.
2
A few thoughts:
1. I saw the movie Selma, and found LBJ depicted not as a villain, but as a POLITICIAN. To me, he seemed sympathetic to King, but had other priorities, after having recently passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. George Wallace was King's adversary in the movie, not LBJ.
2. Lincoln, JFK, Argo, The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, and many other movies have come under fire as "historically inaccurate." Why so much hoopla over Selma? Ah, because a black, female director dared to exercise a director's prerogative. The anger is that she dared to exercise the same power as white male directors. Good for her.
3. Dowd says "It was clear that a generation of young moviegoers would now see L.B.J.’s role in civil rights through DuVernay’s lens. And that's a shame." No, it isn't a shame. Those same black teens may have seen Lincoln through Spielbergs' lens--a lens which didn't even include Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman. Those teens would see a movie about Lincoln which had virtually no acknowledgement of black efforts to end slavery. Dowd, of course, has no problem with that--or at least not enough of one to write about it.
There is much more I could say about this editorial (the tapes--did King know he was being recorded, or was this like the other times he was recorded without his knowledge?), but it will suffice to say this: the movie Selma was made and the world will get to see it.
Nothing else matters.
1. I saw the movie Selma, and found LBJ depicted not as a villain, but as a POLITICIAN. To me, he seemed sympathetic to King, but had other priorities, after having recently passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. George Wallace was King's adversary in the movie, not LBJ.
2. Lincoln, JFK, Argo, The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, and many other movies have come under fire as "historically inaccurate." Why so much hoopla over Selma? Ah, because a black, female director dared to exercise a director's prerogative. The anger is that she dared to exercise the same power as white male directors. Good for her.
3. Dowd says "It was clear that a generation of young moviegoers would now see L.B.J.’s role in civil rights through DuVernay’s lens. And that's a shame." No, it isn't a shame. Those same black teens may have seen Lincoln through Spielbergs' lens--a lens which didn't even include Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman. Those teens would see a movie about Lincoln which had virtually no acknowledgement of black efforts to end slavery. Dowd, of course, has no problem with that--or at least not enough of one to write about it.
There is much more I could say about this editorial (the tapes--did King know he was being recorded, or was this like the other times he was recorded without his knowledge?), but it will suffice to say this: the movie Selma was made and the world will get to see it.
Nothing else matters.
33
Somebody should tell these kids, black and otherwise, that movies are a particularly bad way to learn history. The best way to learn things is to read about them, but that's not always possible, given the attention spans of many young folks. Instead of a movie like Selma, teachers would be well advised to use a resource such as the excellent PBS production 'Eyes on the Prize' to get kids interested in the civil rights movement.
5
The historical inaccuracies of Lincoln were indeed the subject of criticism and the writer of the screenplay was forced to defend his decision to unfairly depict the Connecticut delegation as voting against the 13th Amendment when, in fact, they unanimously supported it.
Such poetic license adds nothing to the story other than to diminish it's authenticity unnecessarily.
You're pooh-poohing a significant disservice to someone's legacy instead of voicing regret that the significant achievement that is Selma unfortunately missteps in regards to Johnson's true role and viewpoint in the events.
It's a blemish on the film , not on Johnson's record.
Such poetic license adds nothing to the story other than to diminish it's authenticity unnecessarily.
You're pooh-poohing a significant disservice to someone's legacy instead of voicing regret that the significant achievement that is Selma unfortunately missteps in regards to Johnson's true role and viewpoint in the events.
It's a blemish on the film , not on Johnson's record.
1
Oscar voting has begun--was a copy of this editorial sent to executives at Sony Pictures for review prior to publication?
1
Even if everything Dowd says about the historical record on Johnson and King is correct, this is a small piece of a big movie. Why focus on this aspect, when there is so much that's so beautiful and valuable in "Selma"? Fine movies like "Selma" are few and far between. It is even rarer when one is actually directed and acted by a mostly-black cast. Yet, on the rare occasions when a top-flight movie is actually created by an African-American team, white pundits invariably find some tangential issue to hone in on and pick the movie apart. This most famously happened with some of Spike Lee's truly great movies like "Do The Right Thing." (Meanwhile, so many coarse and empty-headed films are given a thumbs up.) It forces me to ask my own folks the question: White people, why do we feel so threatened?
21
My own folks, to the best of my ability, includes everyone. Sure, my family is a special collection, but I really do believe that one humanity thing. I loved Do the Right Thing, but more recently, Spike Lee didn't. He tweeted Zimmerman's address, which was a call to violence if ever there was one. But your point seems to be that we should let people tell history anyway they want, if black. Not gonna happen and not good for anyone in the long run if we want to be living on common ground, with some sort of common truth to build upon. One last point, Dowd is hardly a pundit.
3
Why was this bogus history and insult to the civil rights movement nominated?
12
i applaud ms. du varney's passion but if you "are not an historian" than do not try to portray historical material. the story of the pettus bridge is epic, so much of the american narrative to glean, great information to impart.
10
Ms. Staitz,
Perhaps because young students going on an outing to the movies are more of a humanitarian mind than interested in becoming historians.
Perhaps because young students going on an outing to the movies are more of a humanitarian mind than interested in becoming historians.
1
Gwen Ifill dismissed the slanted depiction of LBJ on Face the Nation, pointing out it's a movie, not a documentary, but if the movie had been slanted the other way and minimized King's role, I'm sure she would have complained, and rightly so.
20
Ms. DuVernay's, "I'm not a historian." line weakens her defense - she was rewriting history, wasn't she? So she was pretending to be a historian, and now says "I'm not a historian" as a defense.
Moviemakers and writers need to take liberties with real events to make it more dramatic and also to fill in for personal interactions which would never have been recorded. Fair enough, but to make a fake conflict between these two men for dramatic effect is counterproductive.
It is not about the race issue - for me at least, since I am neither black nor white and was born in 1966, after these events - it is about misleading people. Young Americans, of whatever pigmentation, need to understand that they inherit the good and the bad from their predecessors and leave as legacies good and bad things to their successors. These stories are a way of reminding all of us of our inheritance, and to purposely distort it is wrong and unhealthy.
That said, hope the movie is good, and hope by responding to its portrayal of various people of that time we enlighten more people of what really happened and how it has transformed our lives and our world.
Moviemakers and writers need to take liberties with real events to make it more dramatic and also to fill in for personal interactions which would never have been recorded. Fair enough, but to make a fake conflict between these two men for dramatic effect is counterproductive.
It is not about the race issue - for me at least, since I am neither black nor white and was born in 1966, after these events - it is about misleading people. Young Americans, of whatever pigmentation, need to understand that they inherit the good and the bad from their predecessors and leave as legacies good and bad things to their successors. These stories are a way of reminding all of us of our inheritance, and to purposely distort it is wrong and unhealthy.
That said, hope the movie is good, and hope by responding to its portrayal of various people of that time we enlighten more people of what really happened and how it has transformed our lives and our world.
289
Sekhar Sundaram,
While there is plenty of validity with what you have to relay, It sounds like an honorable attempt on the part of the director to get the message across to young minds and our future generation, and may be of far more import than another class lesson. One might add that Humanity takes precedence over History.
While there is plenty of validity with what you have to relay, It sounds like an honorable attempt on the part of the director to get the message across to young minds and our future generation, and may be of far more import than another class lesson. One might add that Humanity takes precedence over History.
1
Ms. Dowd, you act as if you didn't see the second half of the film . . . When LBJ tells George Wallace he's on the wrong side of history as well as the LBJ's speech ending with "We Shall Overcome" . . . I wonder where these moments in "Selma" stood in your mind as you wrote this incomplete op-ed. While I thought DuVernay could have dramatized LBJ's desire to pass the Voting Rights Act more clearly and excised J. Edgar Hoover / LBJ scene . . . You mislead us by claiming Selma presents LBJ as a "faux villain" - essentially committing the same crime you accuse DuVernay of making.
23
Despite her impressive achievement, Ms. DuVernay misses the point and undercuts her own credibility when she says things such as "I am not a historian" and "I'm not a documentarian" and "I wasn't interested in making a white-savior movie." Because it also means that, concerning the most crucial interpersonal dynamic, she wasn't a truth-teller, either.
America's story is not, as her words imply, a zero-sum game in which for every person exalted, another must be diminished. Artistic compression always carries the risk of distortion, but what can't -- or shouldn't -- be sacrificed are the essential truths.
Only this director knows why she felt the need to misrepresent President Johnson's role, and the answers she offers shed no meaningful light. Both the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and LBJ showed a heroic commitment to social justice in the crucible that "Selma" depicts, and it's hard to understand why the facts themselves weren't deemed good enough for this movie to avoid an asterisk.
America's story is not, as her words imply, a zero-sum game in which for every person exalted, another must be diminished. Artistic compression always carries the risk of distortion, but what can't -- or shouldn't -- be sacrificed are the essential truths.
Only this director knows why she felt the need to misrepresent President Johnson's role, and the answers she offers shed no meaningful light. Both the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and LBJ showed a heroic commitment to social justice in the crucible that "Selma" depicts, and it's hard to understand why the facts themselves weren't deemed good enough for this movie to avoid an asterisk.
159
I think the big "O" (President Obama) should get a big "O" (Oscar) for his "role" in the big "O" (Oval Office) ... meandering political columns have a way of losing the plot (don't they Ms. Dowd?).
Wha's'bin going on in the Middle East during your "vacation?"
"Not just a movie." What about straight-talking about "realties" for a fresh change of pace and balance?
You've got the power of the pen. And the Irish gift of cutting wayward men to the bone. Once in a while in the West.
Wha's'bin going on in the Middle East during your "vacation?"
"Not just a movie." What about straight-talking about "realties" for a fresh change of pace and balance?
You've got the power of the pen. And the Irish gift of cutting wayward men to the bone. Once in a while in the West.
3
For once, Dowd gets it right. Selma is a fanciful view of history, actually
shmistory.
There are people alive who were there and were on the inside.
No LBJ no voting rights, no civil rights no nothinig. Instead of
watching the movie, read Robert Caro's books.
shmistory.
There are people alive who were there and were on the inside.
No LBJ no voting rights, no civil rights no nothinig. Instead of
watching the movie, read Robert Caro's books.
30
DuVernay didn't have the "guts" to tell the truth about the MLK wiretaps; that they were requested by J. Edgar Hoover and approved by Attorney General Robert Kennedy, because Hoover has the embarrassing goods on both Jack and Bobby.
DuVernay thought LBJ was a safe white villain. She dare not attack the royal family from Boston.
There is a reason she didn't get an Oscar nomination for Best Director.
Oliver Stone hasn't, either.
DuVernay thought LBJ was a safe white villain. She dare not attack the royal family from Boston.
There is a reason she didn't get an Oscar nomination for Best Director.
Oliver Stone hasn't, either.
30
Actually, Oliver Stone has two Academy Awards as best director -- for "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July." And he was nominated two more times -- for "Nixon" and "JFK." Which makes a total of four nominations in that category alone.
"Platoon," of course, also won the Oscar for best picture.
In addition, Mr. Stone won an Oscar as a screenwriter for "Midnight Express" and was nominated for five others in that category -- for "Platoon," Salvador,""Born on the Fourth of July," "Nixon" and "JFK."
So, as Ms. Dowd takes care to point out, getting the essential facts straight is important.
"Platoon," of course, also won the Oscar for best picture.
In addition, Mr. Stone won an Oscar as a screenwriter for "Midnight Express" and was nominated for five others in that category -- for "Platoon," Salvador,""Born on the Fourth of July," "Nixon" and "JFK."
So, as Ms. Dowd takes care to point out, getting the essential facts straight is important.
3
No serious historian would discount Lyndon Johnson's arm-twisting participation in the passage of 1964's Civil Rights Act... nor Hubert Humphrey's tireless optimism on its behalf... nor Everett Dirksen's decision to "do the right thing." Just as any history must include Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X and Ralph Ellison. And James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. And Rosa Parks. Marian Anderson, and Pauli Murray.
Every single piece of this puzzle was important. Without any of them, we do not have a complete picture of what happened. While I understand the urge to erase the "white-savior" image... it took saviors, both black and white - including John Kennedy, who also made the ultimate sacrifice - to make it happen. It makes me very sad children of color are being propagandized, too... just as white children have been, and at the same price: intolerance, and an unrealistic expectation that anyone can "go it alone." We are all part of the Big Picture... we are One.
Every single piece of this puzzle was important. Without any of them, we do not have a complete picture of what happened. While I understand the urge to erase the "white-savior" image... it took saviors, both black and white - including John Kennedy, who also made the ultimate sacrifice - to make it happen. It makes me very sad children of color are being propagandized, too... just as white children have been, and at the same price: intolerance, and an unrealistic expectation that anyone can "go it alone." We are all part of the Big Picture... we are One.
111
Hollywood is becoming increasingly egocentric, because almost all historical movies these days twist the truth. There are lots of examples, and the worst one recently was the movie claiming that torture was effective in the Middle East. Few members of the public were told otherwise.
If someone is going to make a historical movie or even a biopic, get the details right. Thinking that "facts don't matter" in search of their art is just a teeny bit better than Dick Cheney's version.
If someone is going to make a historical movie or even a biopic, get the details right. Thinking that "facts don't matter" in search of their art is just a teeny bit better than Dick Cheney's version.
169
Amen to Mark Roddy. Filmmakers are probably the worst examples in modern culture of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too. They capitalize on important world events and figures, then place themselves above those towering figures as "artists" who can fiddle with the stories they've appropriated. Most often, by the way, their versions of history are less subtle, less true, less dramatic than the ones we judge to be true (or at least truer) from careful readings of history. After all, moviemakers are, consciously or not, bound by the conventions of moviemaking.
6
Maureen, the fact is that most Americans learn their history from movies and television.
Most Americans, for instance, have no idea that the villain of Mel Gibson's "The Patriot", Banastre Tarleton, isn't killed in the battle that serves as the film's climax, but instead goes back to England at the end of the war and becomes a member of Parliament. He, in fact, outlives the entire American revolutionary generation.
Most people assume that what they're seeing in an historically based film has to be close to the truth - or else it wouldn't be presented that way on screen.
I'd argue that in a country where celluloid images are routinely mistaken for reality, filmmakers should feel an obligation to at least give an accurate impression of how events actually went, even if creative license needs to be taken.
When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he is quoted by Bill Moyers as having handed the South to the Republican Party for a generation - and yet he did it anyway. Given that he had yet to stand for election as President, I'd argue that his leadership qualifies as an authentic profile in courage.
Most Americans, for instance, have no idea that the villain of Mel Gibson's "The Patriot", Banastre Tarleton, isn't killed in the battle that serves as the film's climax, but instead goes back to England at the end of the war and becomes a member of Parliament. He, in fact, outlives the entire American revolutionary generation.
Most people assume that what they're seeing in an historically based film has to be close to the truth - or else it wouldn't be presented that way on screen.
I'd argue that in a country where celluloid images are routinely mistaken for reality, filmmakers should feel an obligation to at least give an accurate impression of how events actually went, even if creative license needs to be taken.
When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he is quoted by Bill Moyers as having handed the South to the Republican Party for a generation - and yet he did it anyway. Given that he had yet to stand for election as President, I'd argue that his leadership qualifies as an authentic profile in courage.
462
No way. The Republicans ushered in the Civil Rights Act, which Democrats overwhelmingly voted against (except Johnson). It was an era of George Wallace and Lester Maddox, both Democrats, reigning supreme in the south. Al Gore, Sr., Robert Byrd, and a majority of other Democrats in Congress voted squarely against the Civil Rights Act. And, it was several years later that the south turned Republican. Racism was not the reason why, economics was.
2
That leadership was made clear on the PBS American Experience series piece about the year 1964, described there as a watershed year in this country. It was reared last night; I just had seen "Selma" a couple of nights before. There was contrast, yes, but also an interesting meshing of points of view. The whole is probably a sum of those parts.
1
Obama's brand managers want to take LBJ down. The comparisons of the real LBJ to the real Obama hurt the Obama brand.
You would think it is worth reporting. It is not like the NYT lacks knowledge. .
But DC as the Kremlin or the Imperial Court is more fun and gives the corporate media with access a competitive advantage and creates a barrier to entry. Ain't capitalism great? Movie makers proudly say, yeah, so I lied. I am an artist on the make. Brand managers smirk. .
You would think it is worth reporting. It is not like the NYT lacks knowledge. .
But DC as the Kremlin or the Imperial Court is more fun and gives the corporate media with access a competitive advantage and creates a barrier to entry. Ain't capitalism great? Movie makers proudly say, yeah, so I lied. I am an artist on the make. Brand managers smirk. .
22
Oh, it's Obama's fault! Priceless. I wondered how long it would take for someone to come up with this.
38
I was wrong. The comparisons specifically in regard to this issue including a recent book and column in this paper are only coincidental.
2
A director who doesn't know that the writer has got it wrong on major issues is not much of a director. In any case, this director has made it clear that she does know that LBJ is being libeled. She uses the familiar maneuver of selling it as documentary to increase its impact and then claiming it is fiction when caught circulating falsehoods. Philip Noyce, an Australian director well known in the US and the director of "Rabbit Proof Fence", an Australian parallel on race relations, employed the same tactic.
6
Why is it that Ms. Duvernay is the one who's presumed to be responsible for this movie's historical inaccuracies? The screenplay was written by a Caucasian named Paul Webb who, by the way, wasn't nominated for an Oscar either. I agree that this otherwise terrific and (unfortunately) necessary film could have dramatized the era effectively without mislabeling LBJ as the villain of the piece. On the other hand, moviemakers have committed much greater sins than this in the name of art, and, despite their reliance on outright lies, movies like The Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will remain aesthetic and dramatic masterworks.
40
Ms. Du Vernay has stated repeatedly that she re-wrote the screenplay and Webb declined to allow her to share a credit. She said the screenplay was written too much from LBJ's point of view to her taste. She introduced all the errors it would seem.
10
I believe Ms. DuVernay rewrote Webb's screenplay. However, that info needs verification. Triumph of the Will and Birth of a Nation are recognized as racist and fascist. Selma will forever slight Johnson in the area of his greatest contribution to American life, without that slight being obvious to the average American.
4
The Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will may "remain aesthetic and dramatic masterworks" but they are also considered to be heinous, racist propaganda films, and rightly so. Sins like racism and Nazism in the name of art make for the worst kind of sins, and the worst kind of art.
3
This column is too mild.
Imagine for artistic drama, King had been portrayed as a man who was too cowardly to march and had been forced to do so with threats of exposing his affairs--or him doing it simply because someone paid.
Such a treatment of King might have been great drama, but would have been a lie. And the film could not have opened. The same people who cheer this Selma distortion would have violent demonstrations so no one could see the reverse Selma distortion. The repulsive racism of this film is as bad as open and overt anti-black racism.
The lack of diversity in the awards is the predictable counterrevolution, and, unfortunately, it is necessary. It is not a coincidence that the nominations came almost that the same day as Penn State and Paterno got their wins restored (certainly a restoration of historical fact) and that Duke had to back away from its crazy noisy call for Muslim prayers to the kind of secular Muslim activists found at Duke. Enough is enough. Thank God Snyder is standing firm on the Redskins.
Imagine for artistic drama, King had been portrayed as a man who was too cowardly to march and had been forced to do so with threats of exposing his affairs--or him doing it simply because someone paid.
Such a treatment of King might have been great drama, but would have been a lie. And the film could not have opened. The same people who cheer this Selma distortion would have violent demonstrations so no one could see the reverse Selma distortion. The repulsive racism of this film is as bad as open and overt anti-black racism.
The lack of diversity in the awards is the predictable counterrevolution, and, unfortunately, it is necessary. It is not a coincidence that the nominations came almost that the same day as Penn State and Paterno got their wins restored (certainly a restoration of historical fact) and that Duke had to back away from its crazy noisy call for Muslim prayers to the kind of secular Muslim activists found at Duke. Enough is enough. Thank God Snyder is standing firm on the Redskins.
47
"The repulsive racism of this film is as bad as open and overt anti-black racism."
The civil rights movement was about blacks, by blacks, for blacks. Yes, some whites helped out and without LBJ and other white leaders, it would have taken quite a bit longer for things to happen.
But to call a movie racist because it's all about blacks is racist. Can't stand not being a part of it? Deal!
The civil rights movement was about blacks, by blacks, for blacks. Yes, some whites helped out and without LBJ and other white leaders, it would have taken quite a bit longer for things to happen.
But to call a movie racist because it's all about blacks is racist. Can't stand not being a part of it? Deal!
22
"The “Hey, it’s just a movie” excuse doesn’t wash. Filmmakers love to talk about their artistic license to distort the truth, even as they bank on the authenticity of their films"
That is a recurrent problem. Oliver Stone did the same thing quite a few times.
Pretending to be history while deliberately not being history is wrong. It can do real harm because of the distortion of understanding spread through the culture. The audience of moviegoers it reaches includes many who will never read the real history, never know differently.
However, for the movie Selma, the parts about which it is correct, true history and powerfully so, are far more important. To get something important wrong is especially unfortunate where so much is so powerfully right, but what is so powerfully right is far more important in this case.
Everything in life has tradeoffs, and this one is a huge net positive.
That is a recurrent problem. Oliver Stone did the same thing quite a few times.
Pretending to be history while deliberately not being history is wrong. It can do real harm because of the distortion of understanding spread through the culture. The audience of moviegoers it reaches includes many who will never read the real history, never know differently.
However, for the movie Selma, the parts about which it is correct, true history and powerfully so, are far more important. To get something important wrong is especially unfortunate where so much is so powerfully right, but what is so powerfully right is far more important in this case.
Everything in life has tradeoffs, and this one is a huge net positive.
63
Precisely. I find a lot of the criticism that have been leveled reductionist in nature.
18
it may also be that the film is compressing the long evolution of johnson's views into one short period. as a senator he was responsible for watering down previous civil rights legislation so as to make it almost meaningless.
4
"Everything in life has tradeoffs, and this one is a huge net positive."
Really Mark?? That kind of thinking excuses every bias, and bias in the service of confronting bias weakens the entire enterprise.
No, not all whites are guilty of egregious racism, and portraying LBJ inaccurately helps perpetuates that unfortunate myth to a population that DESREVES to know the truth... for all our sakes...
Really Mark?? That kind of thinking excuses every bias, and bias in the service of confronting bias weakens the entire enterprise.
No, not all whites are guilty of egregious racism, and portraying LBJ inaccurately helps perpetuates that unfortunate myth to a population that DESREVES to know the truth... for all our sakes...
6
I agree with Ms. Dowd, completely.
Martin Luther King Jr. stands so tall, all by himself. What he did to advance the cause of civil rights was so remarkable, LBJ's legacy in that same endeavor could never diminish it.
"Selma" is a truly wonderful movie but it could have offered a greater teaching moment. We're such a divided country today - by politics, race, ethnicity, class and income inequality - we often seem to be at each others throats, instead of working together to solve problems, as they did. It would have been nice to see more of that.
MLK & LBJ worked together to address the greatest stain on American history and they did what no other president and civil rights leader in the 20th Century had probably ever imagined could be accomplished because they joined forces. All young Americans would have benefitted from this knowledge, especially at a time when voting rights are again under attack. Both recognized that moderate whites had to be part of their coalition if they were to be successful. We seem to have forgotten that lesson and it would have been nice to be reminded of that, too.
History has moments when just the right leaders walk the earth at the same time and greatness is achieved. It seems almost serendipitous. FDR and Churchill, Mandela and De Klerk and MLK and LBJ were such leaders. None are diminished when we credit each of them for their contributions and we are all better off when we understand the history that drove those partnerships.
Martin Luther King Jr. stands so tall, all by himself. What he did to advance the cause of civil rights was so remarkable, LBJ's legacy in that same endeavor could never diminish it.
"Selma" is a truly wonderful movie but it could have offered a greater teaching moment. We're such a divided country today - by politics, race, ethnicity, class and income inequality - we often seem to be at each others throats, instead of working together to solve problems, as they did. It would have been nice to see more of that.
MLK & LBJ worked together to address the greatest stain on American history and they did what no other president and civil rights leader in the 20th Century had probably ever imagined could be accomplished because they joined forces. All young Americans would have benefitted from this knowledge, especially at a time when voting rights are again under attack. Both recognized that moderate whites had to be part of their coalition if they were to be successful. We seem to have forgotten that lesson and it would have been nice to be reminded of that, too.
History has moments when just the right leaders walk the earth at the same time and greatness is achieved. It seems almost serendipitous. FDR and Churchill, Mandela and De Klerk and MLK and LBJ were such leaders. None are diminished when we credit each of them for their contributions and we are all better off when we understand the history that drove those partnerships.
365
Mary - always like your comments :)
1
Had I read this I would not have felt the need to make my previous "reply".
Right ON!
Right ON!
1
I'm with Maureen on LBJ,
With Caro's bio I'm okay,
A shame to vilify
His good deeds, a mean try,
On this issue I felt dismay.
With Caro's bio I'm okay,
A shame to vilify
His good deeds, a mean try,
On this issue I felt dismay.
194
I saw ''Selma'' in a theater near Trenton. The audience was similarly shocked by the scenes of white on black savagery they may never have known about had this movie not been made.
It is the first attempt to tell part of the King story in a major movie, 50 years later and too late to deter recent voter suppression legislation (including far away from the solid South) and SCOTUS gutting the very Voting Rights Act that followed the Selma demonstrations and march.
How could it have taken 50 years to start telling this story?
While I understand the unhappiness of the Johnson insiders, the bigger story is that that without Dr. King, we seem to have forgotten all about the path to justice for all that he and his movement risked their lives to build.
It is the first attempt to tell part of the King story in a major movie, 50 years later and too late to deter recent voter suppression legislation (including far away from the solid South) and SCOTUS gutting the very Voting Rights Act that followed the Selma demonstrations and march.
How could it have taken 50 years to start telling this story?
While I understand the unhappiness of the Johnson insiders, the bigger story is that that without Dr. King, we seem to have forgotten all about the path to justice for all that he and his movement risked their lives to build.
132
I agree with half and disagree with the other half of your post.
I don't think there is a dearth of white on black violence imagery for public consumption. We have actual archival video of almost everything depicted in the movie. To it's credit "Selma" does a good job of making this visceral.
I was one of those people who was wondering how we are letting the current voter suppressionists get away with what they are doing. Pity "Selma" didn't come out a few years earlier when it could have been used as a weapon.
Re "how could it have taken 50 years ..." It hasn't taken 50 years. We have 40 years of rich, illuminating written works on the subject matter. Unfortunately, as far as how popular history propagates, movies will trump 1000 page books. This is why the movie is unfair to LBJ. As Maureen says, it is "clear that a generation of young moviegoers would now see L.B.J.’s role in civil rights through DuVernay’s lens."
I don't think there is a dearth of white on black violence imagery for public consumption. We have actual archival video of almost everything depicted in the movie. To it's credit "Selma" does a good job of making this visceral.
I was one of those people who was wondering how we are letting the current voter suppressionists get away with what they are doing. Pity "Selma" didn't come out a few years earlier when it could have been used as a weapon.
Re "how could it have taken 50 years ..." It hasn't taken 50 years. We have 40 years of rich, illuminating written works on the subject matter. Unfortunately, as far as how popular history propagates, movies will trump 1000 page books. This is why the movie is unfair to LBJ. As Maureen says, it is "clear that a generation of young moviegoers would now see L.B.J.’s role in civil rights through DuVernay’s lens."
11
It's hard to demean Johnson too much. He used the civil rights movement and "great society" to secure black people to the democrat plantation indefinitely. Johnson directly commented that these would secure the black vote for 200 years.
2
You seem to be saying that King did it all by himself--I doubt that there are many who buy that at all.
Bit players and co-star also deserve credit, not distain.
Bit players and co-star also deserve credit, not distain.
5
There are situations when creative license are okay but this isn't. Even if it is a movie, MLK and LBJ are strangers to the teenagers these days. It is like history books sanctioned in Texas and other revisionist states, conjuring drama out of history can be distortion at least and derisive in the time when racial strife is rearing its ugly head
448
with the movie, MLK and LBJ will not any longer be strangers to the teenagers who see it; but rather that which they will now believe is the relationship between MLK and LBJ will be fiction. better left strangers than misinformed.
14
People get things factually wrong in court cases, in history books for general audiences, in newspapers, in political talking points -- those are at least some of the contexts I've noticed it and been troubled by the consequences. With regard to movies that may appear to some to be more pledged to accuracy than they are, I'm not even sure a large disclaimer before and after the film would help -- images have a way of sticking in people's minds. We say the answer to problematic speech is more speech, so maybe we should take "Selma" as an opportunity to make Civil Rights history more front and center in education, so that school kids can critique the movie from a sound foundation, as well as enjoy the picture.
122
inaccurate 'history' as a result of legitimate differences of opinion has long been part of film making. However, intentional distortion of the facts should not be acceptable because it becomes propaganda rather than truly informative.
Raising a generation of black Americans who are indoctrinated with false beliefs doesn't really do much good for anyone.
Whatever LBJ's actual contribution was, there was no need to prevaricate about it to protect Dr. King's contribution to American society - was his miraculous ability to foster a peaceful climate in which real change could occur.
As for the charge of racism regarding Selma and the Academy Awards .... remind us, who were winners in 2014?
Raising a generation of black Americans who are indoctrinated with false beliefs doesn't really do much good for anyone.
Whatever LBJ's actual contribution was, there was no need to prevaricate about it to protect Dr. King's contribution to American society - was his miraculous ability to foster a peaceful climate in which real change could occur.
As for the charge of racism regarding Selma and the Academy Awards .... remind us, who were winners in 2014?
5
@Diana Moses: Please see my response to Rima Regas. When a historical film is historically inaccurate, we should see it as an opportunity to make that subject in history more "front and center in education"? Really? Wouldn't it be better if film makers made historically accurate films in the first place?
13
No disclaimer would be necessary if the filmmaker would simply not distort the truth in the first place.
6
Well said, Mo - there were enough villains and few enough heroes that every shred of moral character and fiber that was evinced should be given full credit. LBJ deceived us on Vietnam, but with Joe Califano's version of events, and with numerous others still around who would have had personal knowledge of LBJ's feelings as well as actions, there's no need for a Hollywood treatment of the truth.
Those still around, with knowledge of LBJ's mind-set and leanings would seem to include both his daughters.
Political courage, and political accomplishment are rare enough these days that we can afford no iota of minimizing.
Those still around, with knowledge of LBJ's mind-set and leanings would seem to include both his daughters.
Political courage, and political accomplishment are rare enough these days that we can afford no iota of minimizing.
462
DuVernay's downplay of L.B.J. is unfortunate. It's because of King, Johnson and countless others who worked together to demand civil rights that we have made the imperfect progress we have made as a society. Without the efforts of these people in the past we wouldn't have the same vocabulary of rights and freedoms that we have today. Thanks to them, we detect the subtle language that is used by the social retrogrades, and we feel the pressure that they exert to try to drag us back to that shameful time in our history. Movies are not real life, and may take liberties for dramatic purposes. But the real story is dramatic enough, and it's not acceptable to put words in Johnson's mouth that he did not say, and express views that he did not hold.
Having lived through that time it made me recall how far we have come, how overt were the insults and how unyielding was the opposition. I think of this every time I hear people apologizing for homophobia, or fundamentalist religious views that hide behind "religious freedom," or any other prejudices that allows one group of people to castigate another for no other reason than how they're made. The calls to "be patient" are pointless--we would still be living in that dismal past if Rosa Parks had quietly changed seats. There was no chance of people changing their views if laws had not been made to demand that they change. President Johnson and Dr. King knew that, and it's important that their contributions be fully recognized.
Having lived through that time it made me recall how far we have come, how overt were the insults and how unyielding was the opposition. I think of this every time I hear people apologizing for homophobia, or fundamentalist religious views that hide behind "religious freedom," or any other prejudices that allows one group of people to castigate another for no other reason than how they're made. The calls to "be patient" are pointless--we would still be living in that dismal past if Rosa Parks had quietly changed seats. There was no chance of people changing their views if laws had not been made to demand that they change. President Johnson and Dr. King knew that, and it's important that their contributions be fully recognized.
628
I'll have those n's voting Democrat for the next 200 years might have had something to do with the play-down of LBJ. Libs love the plantation he built, they just don't want to say it so loud.
1
While Dr. King was a great man, I've always given more credit to LBJ, who believed, in the end, that civil rights were important enough to eventually kill the Democratic Party in the south -- they became Republicans not so much for real conviction but in revenge for Democrats' support of equal rights for African Americans.
Moreover, King was frozen forever in greatness only in part for his acts but also for his assassination. How effective has Jesse Jackson been over the past forty years or so -- most of his productive life? In the sixties with transformative legislation we quickly achieved a plateau of accomplishment in law, that over the intervening years has largely baked into the consciousness and acceptance of most Americans. But once the transformation took place, Gandhis were no longer really needed so acutely.
Moreover, King was frozen forever in greatness only in part for his acts but also for his assassination. How effective has Jesse Jackson been over the past forty years or so -- most of his productive life? In the sixties with transformative legislation we quickly achieved a plateau of accomplishment in law, that over the intervening years has largely baked into the consciousness and acceptance of most Americans. But once the transformation took place, Gandhis were no longer really needed so acutely.
2
How was this comment allowed?
8
No. It isn't just a movie. Kids and adults will come out of it with lots of food for thought. The kids will, hopefully, continue to study MLK throughout their lifetimes and continue to form their opinions, just like we all did after watching Oliver Stone's work.
The fact that it has Ms. Dowd all concerned about historical accuracy means Selma is doing its job. She's thinking about things. Maybe, next time, she'll be calling for more humanities to be taught in our schools. That, in my opinion, is the best antidote for movies that aren't 100% adherent to history.
The fact that it has Ms. Dowd all concerned about historical accuracy means Selma is doing its job. She's thinking about things. Maybe, next time, she'll be calling for more humanities to be taught in our schools. That, in my opinion, is the best antidote for movies that aren't 100% adherent to history.
320
LeVar Burton's crowdfunded presentation of MLK story time can be viewed on Professor Mark Anthony Neal''s blog.
http://newblackman.blogspot.com/2015/01/levar-burtons-reading-rainbow-pr...
http://newblackman.blogspot.com/2015/01/levar-burtons-reading-rainbow-pr...
17
For another perspective on the movie, I highly recommend reading "Selma through my father's eyes: 'What did these people die for?'" by Heather Barmore.
http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/jan/16/selma-through-my-fathers-e...
http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/jan/16/selma-through-my-fathers-e...
7
I wonder why liberals love to give LBJ sole credit for the civil rights laws that were passed? Even though dems controlled congress it took nearly 80% of republicans to vote for them or they would have died on the vine. Only 27% of democrats voted for them. Why not point out democrats that were affiliated with the KKK? (Robert Byrd) Anyway, just curious.
9