Old History in New Bottles

• The true crime genre has surged in popularity in recent years, becoming one of the fastest-growing forms of entertainment
• Along with its success come numerous ethical hazards and complexities that demand critical examination
• Jeffrey Kelavos


  Assaulted Patricia Wenskunas, his former gym trainer
• Despite evidence against Kelavos, the charges against him were dropped, sparking outrage and leading Wenskunas to take action to support other victims
• Wenskunas emphasizes that her experience is not merely a story but her life, illustrating the deeply personal impact of true crime narratives
• Businesses market stories of real-life crimes, often without the consent of victims' families, concerns about exploitation and sensationalism arise
• The genre's origins date back centuries, but its recent proliferation, fueled by podcasts and documentaries like Serial and Making a Murderer, has brought new attention to its ethical implications
• True crime narratives can perpetuate systemic biases and misrepresentations, particularly regarding race and privilege
• The "CSI effect" influences public perceptions of the justice system, potentially impacting criminal investigations and reinforcing stereotypes
• True crime also has its dedicated fans and serves as a platform for raising awareness about criminal justice issues
• Podcasts like True Crime Obsessed provide a space for processing and discussing true crime documentaries while fostering a sense of community among listeners, predominantly women
• As audiences engage with true crime content, they are urged to remain critical and consider the ethical dimensions of the stories being told
• Braveheart


  A 1995 epic historical drama film about Sir William Wallace, a late 13th century Scottish warrior who led the Scots in the First War of Scottish Independence against King Edward I of England
• Controversiality Reasons for Braveheart

  • Allies: Wallace and his army (protagonists) never received help from Andrew Moray who actually was a key ally in the Battle of Stirling Bridge
  • Distance: Wallace's armies never reached as far south as York (shown in the movie)
  • Clothing: Wallace is painted with woad (1,000 years too late) running amok in a tartan kilt (500 years too early)
  • Death: He's betrayed by the wrong people in the wrong city. Additionally, he's not killed quickly but tortured extensively and then killed. Plus, he never shouted "freedom" during this period
  • Background: The movie depicts him as a highland farmer who's a "man of the people" when in reality, he's the well-educated son of a rich man
  • "Braveheart": The nickname "Braveheart" actually refers to Robert the Bruce (king of Scotland) not Wallace
  • Battle: The Battle of Bannockburn was shown as a spontaneous uprising when Robert the Bruce had been at war with the English for eight years. Additionally, the battle wasn't a tribute to Wallace
  • Freedom: The film depicts them winning their freedom in 1314 not 1328 (accurate)
• Pocahontas


  An animated musical historical drama film loosely based on the life of Native American woman Pocahontas, and the arrival of English colonial settlers from the Virginia Company
• Pocahontas romanticizes Pocahontas' encounter with John Smith and her saving of his life (which was never in danger)
• Controversiality Reasons for Pocahontas

  • Love: The movie is centered around John Smith who Pocahontas fell in love with though the two were never romantically involved. In fact, when he arrived at her town Pocahontas was 9 or 10 and John was 27
  • Trauma: The movie veiled the trauma Indigenous people face through colonization
  • Story: The real story of Pocahontas was grim and brutal while Disney paints it as an empowering and fluffy one
  • Group: The cohort of women Pocahontas belongs to is based on myth or imaginary
  • All: It doesn't show the whole story and discounts the destruction of Native American settlements. It's like ending the Titanic movie just before the ship starts to sink
• 300


  An epic historical action film, based on a 1998 comic book series of the same name, which is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae in the Greco-Persian wars. The plot revolves around King Leonidas who leads 300 Spartans into battle against King Xerxes' 300,000+ soldiers
• Controversiality Reasons for 300

  • Government: It portrays the Spartans (a heavily militarized and fascist society), as democratic
  • Offense: It depicts Xeres (a persian ruler) as a black, half-naked man who's adorned with jewels and looks + talks like a drug dealer. This caused Iran some offense
  • Racism: It depicts the Spartans (heroes) as white able-bodied people filled with aggression and violence while it depicts the Persians (villains) as a gender-fluid society who was not visibly white and the incarnation of evil and treachery
  • Stereotypes: It reinforces the stereotype that whites are good and people of color are bad. It also helps to reinforce the idea that it's right to fear immigrants, especially those of color
  • Villains: The movie displays the Persians as tyrants, when that role better fits the Spartans or so called heroes. The Spartans systematically murdered their own children for non-conformity, created a mono-culture of soldiers and left zero opportunity for freedom of choice or expression
  • Stereotypes+: It glorifies the idea that those with disabilities or who don't fit a desired appearance have no place in society through glorifying the Spartans who murdered their children for non-conformity
• "For All Mankind"


  Envisions a different world, a world where the Soviets maintained their lead in the Space Race and achieved the first moon landing forever cementing their legacy in the upper echelons of time. This seemingly inconsequential event caused a butterfly effect in which the Space Race heated up and continued far past the moon, the Soviets began cooperating with America and a raft of presidents were removed from history and replaced
• "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury


  Explores themes of redundancy, discipline, and dystopia through the lens of a futuristic, automated home and its impact on a family
• The Happylife Home


  • a technologically advanced house that fulfills every need and desire of the family, that causes the parents George and Linda to become increasingly redundant in their roles as caregivers
• Discipline theme

  • The children, Peter and Wendy, exhibit increasingly defiant and entitled behavior, reflecting a lack of discipline and authority within the family dynamic
• Dystopian setting


  • The Happylife Home, while designed to enhance convenience and comfort, ultimately leads to the demise of the family unit as it replaces human connection with artificial convenience
• Bradbury's portrayal of this dystopia serves as a warning about the potential consequences of over-reliance on technology and the loss of human agency
• Transporter


  • Debates persist over whether it transports actual atoms or merely replicates individuals at the destination, raising existential questions about the nature of identity and the possibility of transferring consciousness
• Real-world transporters are currently implausible due to issues such as data storage capacity, harmful radiation, and the need for extensive infrastructure
• Replicators


  • Operate on molecular principles, utilizing stored data to recreate objects, primarily food and materials, from recycled matter. Concerns arise regarding the replication of antimatter due to safety and technical considerations
• Holodeck


  • Combines holographic and matter systems to create immersive virtual environments, but is plagued by safety protocol failures, leading to potentially hazardous situations
• Guy Gavriel Kay


  An author that combines history and fantasy, basing his stories on certain cultures (Romans, etc.) and finding the fantastic and magical bits of their culture, like finding gods and fairies
• Guy Gavriel Kay is mainly known for his top-level atmosphere building, such as being a successor to Lord of the Rings, by combining historically old culture with its cultural myths
• Ysabel


  Mostly about how the past does not really go away and how a history of a place can be really powerful over a period of sometimes thousand of years, how legends and things people tell themselves about their own past can still be powerful in the present day
• Under Heaven


  Inspired by the Tang Dynasty in the eighth century and the famous, terrible rebellion of An Lushan which was one of the most destructive rebellions in all of human history
• River of Stars


  Inspired by the Song Dynasty almost three hundred years later and the fall of what historians called the Northern Song when their capital was overrun by people from the steppes in the North
• "Brazilian Telephone" by Miriam Bird Greenberg


  A cautionary poem about the dangers of unintentional accidents and kids just playing, describing a mother busy baking and children playing trying to reenact a science experiment, ending before the "electrocution" but implying the child is injured or dies
• The Municipal Gallery Revisited - W.B Yeats


  The poem talks about the poet going to the municipal gallery in Ireland, having a lot of portraits of Irish war stuff, then the poet realizing that Ireland in real life is different from what other poets say, and he then watches a few portraits of his friends and remembers that war glory is not important
• "At the Tomb of Napoleon" by Robert G. Ingersoll


  A poem about going to the grave of Napoleon and imagining the former glory of this military genius, reflecting on Napoleon's personal losses of love and how his acts resulted in widows and orphans, and concluding that all that glory is worthless
• "A Brief History of Toa Payoh" by Koh Buck Song


  A poem that seems to eulogize the loss of the "good old days" and how it is hard to keep up with the pace of development in Toa Payoh, a town in Singapore that has undergone dramatic transformation from village to urban center in the last 100 years
• "The Czar's Last Christmas Letter" by Norman Dubie


  A poem written from the point of view of Nicholas II, the last Czar of Russia, addressing his mother after the royal family is being held by the Bolshevik revolutionaries, exploring themes of class, power, and the human impact of the Russian Revolution