I listened to an episode of the Daily Shoah from last week which had Greg Johnson from Counter-Currents and Paul Kersey (who writes at VDARE), on as guests. Part of the discussion focused on a film I had not heard of called Hidden Figures that Kersey has covered here and which was also reviewed at Counter-Currents. I haven’t seen the film or read the source material and as I don’t live in America, or follow the MSM, I was largely shielded from the propaganda promoting it. Just looking at a photo of one of the women the film is based on had me skeptical of the films accuracy. Now this isn’t anything new as films I actually enjoyed such as Braveheart, are far from historically accurate.
The main reason I want to post on this is not merely to add to the criticism but because of something mentioned during the podcast. They rightly point out that while many public figures on the political right will attack a film like the Ghostbusters reboot for it’s pathetic pandering, they will shrink from a strong critique of a film like this. I did a quick search on Breitbart and could find no mention of the film except in Oscar Nominations and I’m willing to bet (without looking), that there’s nothing on NRO.
Yet, as pointed out, this film is even more socially corrosive than Ghostbusters. Even Ghostbusters defenders seem to have given up and the film already seems to be down the memory hole. But a film like this, which make claims of historical truth, will be believed by many people. Not only will it believed but (again as they point out), school-age children are already being taken to see it, lesson plans are ready and it will probably be on the state curriculum for the next school year before the first retail disc is printed. Even if it wasn’t financially successful, it will be seen by many impressionable people. The Ghostbusters reboot will be an occasional punchline.
It doesn’t matter what your politics are, it matters whether or not something is true. The links above at the very least, make what is portrayed in this film appear highly questionable. So more people should be saying something about it and doing their utmost to reject this narrative. Yet the only people that seem to be doing this are the people we’re supposed to ignore. Namely, the deplorable, white supremacists who are literally Hitler.
As someone who has enjoyed history and who wants the story told to be as close to the truth as the evidence allows, the deliberate omission of evidence or embellishments to promote any contemporary cause, has always annoyed me. And I feel the same when my side does it too. Even as a pro-Western fanatic, I don’t get much pleasure reading any history of my civilisation that sticks band-aids over the warts or worse, tries to burn them off. That’s just dishonest.
When you’re dealing with the fragments that survived from the ancients, it is understandable that educated guesses are made and that these be open to debate. But ironically the closer history is to the present, the muddier the path to truth seems to get. I would assume it would be easier given the sheer number of primary documents stored in government offices as well as photographs, archival footage of events and often enough; with people from the time still alive to tell their story. This is sadly, not the case.
As an example that does relate to this film, I still remember how irritated I was when I found out Rosa Parks was an activist. Now this wasn’t a secret or anything to people who know the history of the civil rights movement but it is something often omitted from the history told to the general public. This doesn’t make what she did wrong but trying to create a legend out of her actions, rather than just telling the truth as it is known, is wrong.
The same seems to be true of this film. From what I can see, the women this film is based on were quite remarkable in their own right. Trying to embellish this and make them and their achievements more than they were, ultimately dishonours them. A film based on events certainly needs to take some narrative license but it should remain as close to the truth as possible. Failing that, it should be marketed as fiction in a historical setting. That’s probably too honest for propaganda though. That’s what this is and that’s what more people should be saying.