Actual Historians, Reel Movies

July 14, 2023 7:44 AM

Historians at the Movies is a community building and public history project run by Jason Herbert, Ph.D. Started as a social media Sunday movie watch party in 2018, HATM celebrates its 5th anniversary this weekend with a viewing of Titantic.

The inaugural movie watch was National Treasure, and you can revisit that discussion via wakelet or twitter. #HATM discussion starts every Sunday night at 8 pm EST on Twitter. (This paragraph includes the only twitter links in this post. If you don't click on these links, you will not be directed to any twitter content.)

Herbert's philosophy is that all movies are history movies in some way, as reflected in this article about the best historical films of the 2010s and this post from Herbert's substack on how the movies are chosen and some movies they haven't done yet.

If historians chatting about movies sounds like your jam, but you understandably cannot abide Twitter, there's also a podcast (apple podcasts/buzzfeed rss). In the first episode, Herbert discusses Marvel's Black Panther and Wakanda Forever with Walter D. Greason, scholar of economic history, suburbanization and one of the editors of the Wakanda Syllabus. (The Wakanda Syllabus, previously) The latest episode is a discussion of Live by Night with Dr. Sarah McNamara, core faculty in the Latina/o/x & Mexican American Studies Program at Texas A&M University and author of the recent Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South.

posted by the primroses were over (6 comments total)

I debated posting about this, because it's not really possible to discuss the project without discussing Twitter, and I don't disagree with the reasons people have for objecting to Twitter content. Mods, feel free to delete if this draws a bunch of flags or grar.

The podcast discussions are really interesting, and tend to involve a lot of discussion about the role of historians in public discussions as well as the dreadful state of higher Ed in Florida, since Herbert is based there.

Hoping they eventually do both Barbie and Oppenheimer.
posted by the primroses were over at 8:39 AM on July 14, 2023

I'm glad you posted this, the primroses were over, even though I may not actually get to check out any of the content - I'm not on Twitter, and the podcasts look interesting but there are no transcripts, which would be nice as a way to skim.

But this sounds like a really interesting project, and I'm glad to know about it - maybe it's something I can come back to when I have more time for podcasts.

Thanks for sharing this with us!
posted by kristi at 11:56 AM on July 14, 2023

I’ve been looking for a new podcast or two; thanks for this! Seems impossible to follow the discussions on Twitter, so I’m looking forward to giving it a listen.
posted by nubs at 6:36 PM on July 14, 2023

HATM participant and historian Ariella Baker-Archer put together a Spotify playlist of the most listened to songs from each movie that has been viewed for a Sunday watch party, excepting a few whose soundtracks aren't available on Spotify.

Recent CBC article on historical films, and how they are the most prevalent and often the most convincing sources of historical information consumed by the general public. Among those interviewed for the article is Kim Nelson, film scholar and author of the upcoming book Making History Move: Constructing a Historiophoty for the Historical Film.
posted by the primroses were over at 2:32 PM on July 15, 2023

Oh man I think this is a great opportunity to link one of my favorite essays, “The Borgias” vs. “Borgia: Faith and Fear” (accuracy in historical fiction) by Ada Palmer, which is all about the compromises made when creating historical media between accurate portrayals and audience understanding.

For me, though, I have learned to relax and let it go.

I remember the turning point moment. I was watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my roommates, and it went into a backstory flashback set in high medieval Germany. “Why are you sighing?” one asked, noticing that I’d laid back and deflated rather gloomily. I answered: “She’s not of sufficiently high social status to have domesticated rabbits in Northern Europe in that century. But I guess it’s not fair to press a point since the research on that hasn’t been published yet.”

posted by foxfirefey at 11:03 PM on July 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

That is a really good essay, thanks for sharing foxfirefey. Very interesting discussion of how historicity can be alienating to modern audiences and how to use that in service of the narrative.

I liked this bit on the tension between communication and accuracy:

I recently had to costume some Vikings, and was lent a pair of extremely nice period Viking pants which had bold white and orange stripes about two inches wide. I know enough to realize how perfect they were, and that both the expense of the dye and the purity of the white would mark them as the pants of an important man, but that if someone walked on stage in them the whole audience would think: “Why is that Viking wearing clown pants?” Which do you want, to communicate with the audience, or to be accurate?

posted by the primroses were over at 6:11 AM on July 16, 2023