How should the movie Inherit the wind be used in high school English or History classes?

Question

The movie Inherit the wind is riddled with so many inaccurasies that an unsuspecting student will not be able to sort out real form fiction and it characatures the people of the town and Bryant very unfairly. When a teacher uses a show like this which is a major form of historical revisionism, how is it best used. Do teachers know of and point out the errors. I saw a DVD called Inherently Wind by Menton and was amazed how really really off the movie was in unfairly portraying the people and facts. What do you think?

Do history and literature teachers that use it have a profesisonal responsibility to use it as a device to show the historial revisionsism as it is basically a form of propaganda as it sands and would they even have the discernment to know? I owuld love to hear form teachers who use this mivie what they think

Interestingly, both Scopes and Darrow were treated extraordinarly kindly. Brant was a member of the national acadeny of science and head of the Democratic party for 30 years yet portrayed very unkindly. The town folk characatured as bigots and a fictional pastor who cursed his own daughter for speaking up for slopes (who in actuallity never taught evolution and was quite concered he would be found innocent although the ACLU prepped his students to testify they were taught) My guess is teachers are unaware fo how inaccurate the movie is

Answer 1

I'm not a teacher, but I have seen the DVD by David Menton you are referring to. I'm wondering if you picked that up at this past NEA convention? There was a booth there giving it away, I believe.

In any event, it goes to show that if something fits easily into your preconcieved viewpoints, you will blindly allow something to be true and influence your thinking.

Any Hollywood production is out to do one thing; make money, even if the people making the movie have no clue what the American people really want because they think their narrow-minded, wacko-left mindset is the majority of America.

And every once in a while, they are blinded by that mindset and put out an obviously innacurate account if it helps them take a few jabs at people they detest, like Christians.

You would think that people in our educational system would know this, but there are so many things that teachers (and people from all professions) just accept per instruction, without thinking or questioning why, or even if what they are upholding as right and true really is right and true. I think that any teacher that has this movie as part of their curriculum that had an open mind viewed this DVD, they would at least mention the historical innacuracies, and demystify this movie for their students.

Answer 2

Of course, teachers have a professional and moral responsibility to uphold the truth and resist historical revisionism. If Inherit the Wind, or any movie claiming to be historical, is shown, the parts where it deviates from history should be discussed in class. In my 9th grade world history, we even had to pick an "historical" movie and write a term paper about where it differed from actual history. Movies are never made to be historical, they are made to get people to watch them. Any time movies are shown in a classroom setting, it should be to examine their lack of historical foundations, not as a substitute for actually teaching about that period of history.

Answer 3

As former teacher I made use of the film Inherit the Wind.

It applies today as it did in the 1920's. How the minority seek to use their influence up the majority.
The bigots of the 1920's so full of Christian love but showed their hate for anything that was challange to their beliefs.

Answer 4

It's an excellent way to show the general mindset of the time period. It may not be an accurate depiction of the events it portrays but it does a good job conveying the image society wanted to convey.

Answer 5

movies don't belong in these classes fiction u know