Historical accuracy is not The Patriot’s strong suit. Benjamin Martin, the film’s hero, is ostensibly based on an actual Revolutionary War hero named Francis Marion, who in real life was also a slaveholder and perpetrator of atrocities in the French and Indian War. While the film alludes to Martin’s extreme brutality against French and Cherokee fighters in the earlier conflict, he is largely depicted as a good father and reluctant war hero who single-handedly turns the tide in favor of the Americans at the Battle of Cowpens. We learn that his African American servants are not enslaved but free, and the film further resolves racism by having a token Black soldier befriend a formerly racist brother-in-arms. Cute children, dogs, and romantic entanglements enliven the narrative. British officers are one-dimensional villains who range from vain and unprincipled to downright evil. In your view, does it matter that The Patriot – the most successful Hollywood film ever to be made about the American Revolution – reinforces an idealized narrative of American greatness that is both thoroughly uncomplicated and historically inaccurate? What might the film tell us about the myth of the American Revolution at the dawn of the 21st century?
Revolution in Film/TV Question 1
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In my opinion, it certainly makes a difference that The Patriot relies so heavily on an inaccurate and idealized history because it substitutes a very complicated reality for a comfortable myth. As Phillips explains, it “courted a higher standard” by working with the Smithsonian, but it is ultimately an “imperfect history”. For example, its portrayal of Benjamin Martin’s workers as slaves is a “false bit of political correctness” designed to avoid the “brutal reality” of slavery. This whitewashing of history makes the American Revolution seem like a very morally simple conflict, when in reality, the leaders on whom Martin is based were slave owners.
It is also worth noting, as The Patriot tells us, that at the beginning of the 21st century, there is a desire for a “rebooted” history of national origin, one centered on revenge rather than politics. Phillips explains, for example, that the actual war in the Carolinas was a “savage civil war… where neighbor fought neighbor,” but The Patriot reduces it to a “patriotic holiday experience” with one-dimensional evil British soldiers. Furthermore, it avoids the “engaging truth” of the fact that the famous green-uniformed British Legion was actually composed of Americans, and instead prioritizes “Hollywood propaganda” over a real understanding of how divided and difficult the birth of the country actually was.