Yes, We *Should* Fact-Check Movies About History

Edward Rothstein: “The historian is starting to be perceived as a pedant. And the ‘Gotcha Game’ – as one critic has called efforts to call out film inaccuracies – is being portrayed as a culturally philistine enterprise. … Actually, if these films didn’t make such claims on history, they would get considerably less attention. History, they insist, matters. But some also claim its mantle disingenuously, in order to give authority to their manipulations. Fact-checking is important because it helps disclose what is being changed and why.”