A Clever Story, but Sans Truth and Respect
I did a little research on this movie and turned up some unpleasant truths: About once a decade, an "anti-religion propaganda film" comes out of Hollywood. I can name three of them and this is one. Really, if such a movie targeted blacks or gays or Muslims, it would arouse an outcry, and it should. This movie, produced by an atheist Christian-hater, is simply a thinly disguised attack on Christians. A teacher who shows this to his class is perpetuating this prejudice. The film does everything it can to portray southern American Christians as hateful, bigoted, intolerant, narrow-minded, ignorant, anti-scientific, and utterly unsophisticated. But, isn't such a hateful portrayal itself bigoted, hateful, & intolerant? Is such an image REALLY accurate about ANYONE? Here in Canada we are taught not to tolerate religious bigotry any more than racial bigotry. Anyway, "hate & mockery" truly describe the spirit of this film - it is so extreme, it is almost unique in this way. As for its content:
The film is technically fine - a courtroom drama. But unfortunately, it is not faithful to the facts of the trial; in fact, the whole picture is essentially a lie. For instance, no one arrested Scopes, the whole trial was initiated by the ACLU in order to overturn a penaltyless anti-evolution law. The ACLU convinced Scopes to play this role and even the prosecution cooperated as a test case. Scopes was not poor and defenseless either, a whole team of lawyers and scientists was brought from NYC by the ACLU. Thus, it wasn't really a normal trial - this is why the defense freely admitted Scopes "guilt". Scopes himself hadn't even taught evolution, the "defense" attorneys had coached the children three months later to say he had (read perjury). What Scopes had done is teach from a book which did teach evolution (the same textbook also declared evolution proved whites were superior to other races, by the way). Anyway, Scopes himself said in his autobiography that he was treated very well by everyone in town. As for the angry fundamentalist preacher and the violent lynch-mob, these were complete fiction - a straw man falsely representing only what the filmmaker WANTED to envision - a lie. And...
It was Darrow, not Bryant, who was cited for contempt. Darrow was an avowed atheist who admitted in his own autobiography that his real goal for the case was to attack what he called "fundamentalists". In fact, the last day of the trial this man broke his word by refusing to testify. By contrast, Bryant, Darrow's opponent, was no intolerant, ignorant buffoon, as he treated in the film - Bryant was chosen as the democratic candidate for president three times and was Wilson's Secretary of State. And the scientists? Darrow wouldn't let them testify either because he knew what Bryant could do to them on the stand! The whole movie deliberately twists the facts much like a Nazi or Soviet styled propaganda film. This movie is simply a deliberate slander. Think about what you are really doing before you embrace this film. There are few films I'd actually condemn - this is one of about ten. And by the way, before you mock creationists, intelligent design proponents, religious people, or atheists, be intellectually honest by taking a couple of hours to hear the specifics of what your opponents are saying; have you even heard the other side? Use science to carry on such a controversy - not ridicule. Ridiculing others, as the filmmaker has so eagerly done, is just plain wrong.Read full review
