A history professor is criticizing the Selma movie for being historically inaccurate.
According to Gary May, who published an essay on The Daily Beast, the movie features numerous historical inaccuracies in the film. Selma centers around Martin Luther King’s 1965 march from Salem to Montgomery, Alabama, has already been criticized by Lyndon B. Johnson about how the president is represented.
May writes in his essay that Ava DuVernay‘s “greatest failure” is “not fulfilling her stated purpose of highlighting Selma’s civil rights movement. Except for a few scenes, we see little of the bravery Selma’s citizens displayed.”
Other “significant errors” May argues is that Bloody Sunday, in which state and local police attacked protestors, was not immediately shown on TV, as the movie illustrates. “Americans had to wait several hours until film of the event reached New York for it to be broadcast,” he writes. May also argues that the movie downplayed the involvement of Selma’s teachers in the protests.
Ultimately, all of the criticism May presents seem really superficial when you really examine the movie and it looks as a marketing stunt for the history professor to promote his 2013 book, Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy.
Oprah Winfrey recently argued that leaders need to step up following the Ferguson and Eric Garner unrest. From TheWrap:
Oprah Winfrey is ready for African-American leadership to step up to the plate in the wake of recent social unrest following the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the choking death of Eric Garner in New York. The media mogul, who also produced and costarred in “Selma,” thinks the ongoing marches and protests are “wonderful,” but she’s searching for more.
“I think what can be gleaned from our film ‘Selma’ is to really take note of the strategic intention required when you want real change. Strategic, peaceful intention when you want real change,” she told People during an interview which also featured her co-star David Oyelowo.
Either way, the new Selma movie is facing more controversy than the historically inaccurate and now banned movie, Exodus: Gods and Kings.
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