Essay/Term paper: Inherit the wind

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Cliff Notes

The Truth about Stanley Kramer"s Inherit the Wind History

is consistently used in films as a technique to teach the values

and morals of events that occurred. But what"s the point in

teaching history through films when they are terribly fictional?

In films, the director finds the best scheme to intrigue their

audience only by changing the actual event to satisfy their

interest. This is true for Stanley Kramer when he made the

history of John Scopes and his "monkey trial" into a film

called Inherit the Wind. Kramer knew the exact

stereotypical "Hollywood history" his audience enjoyed. The

trial itself had a series of conflicts, the main one being

evolution vs. religion. Yet there was also a series of tensions

throughout the movie, including the argument between

individual vs. society. The same themes from Inherit the

Wind can also be seen from the actual "monkey trial" event

in Dayton, Tennessee. It is sometimes said that truth is

stranger than fiction and according to this film, truth is also

stronger than fiction. Inherit the Wind ignored the true

dramatic moment, which is essential to the actual trial that

happened in Dayton, Tennessee. Kramer even portrayed his

own opinion of this trial in this film. The truth was so

distorted in the film so now the argument is not individual vs.

society or evolution vs. religion but history vs. fiction. Inherit

the Wind is set in the little town of Hillsboro when Bertram

Cates (played by), a biology teacher, was thrown into prison

for teaching Darwin"s theory of evolution. Two famous

lawyers were behind this case, Henry Drummond (played

by) as the defender and Mathew Harrison Brady (played

by), as the prosecutor. Mathew Harrison Brady who was

"voted 3 times for a presidential candidate" was sent to

Hillsboro is carry out the job as a prosecutor for this trial. As

for Cates, a journalist from Baltimore Herald by the name of

E.K. Horrbeck willingly provided a lawyer named Henry

Drummond for him. Horrbeck was interested in the Cates,

expecting to make big bucks from this big "media" case. The

two opposing lawyers, Drummond and Brady, were

Kramer"s two main characters, both with different opinions

on how humans arrived on earth. Drummond supported the

evolution theory, while Brady, the creation theory. In this

film, Kramer distorted the facts of the actual trial to make

this film more of a drama than a history documentary. He

added fictitious characters like Reverend Heremiah Brown

(played by) and his daughter Rachel Brown (played by) to

bring this drama out. It"s obvious that Rachel is used as icon

in Inherit the Wind to make film be seen as more of a drama

with the typical love story that directly attracts more

audience to his film. Kramer also added Brady"s death in the

courtroom. He dramatically died of a heart attack in the

chaotic courtroom at the end of the trial after his last speech.

Persecuted The film is far from the truth, the actual trial

didn"t happen in quite the same way. The 1925, Dayton,

Tennessee went against one of its individual, John Scopes.

He just so happened to be substituting for a biology class

that was learning about the Darwin"s theory. Similar to the

film, the actual lawyers, Darrow and Bryan were also

famous in their position of the society. Darrow was the

defender, and Bryan, the prosecutor. The characters in this

film also had different personalities compared with the actual

history figures they are. Take Drummond for example, he

was less cynical and biting than Scopes" actual defender,

Darrow. Brady, on the other hand, was portrayed more of a

comical fanatic at moments in the courtroom. From this

event on, the flaws of this little town began to reveal. The

townspeople of Hillsboro were far more frenzied,

mean-spirited, and ignorant than the real citizens of Dayton

were toward this trial. From the fictitious characters and the

distant differences between the history and film, I can

conclude that Kramer was completely biased when he was

directing this film. When the actual trial and the film are

compared, it"d obvious that Kramer was not only thinking of

his audience"s interest but his own. He was biased against a

particular class of people and their beliefs. The people who

believed in the "miracle recorded in the bible, especially the

section in Genesis about God"s creation, were portrayed in a

disgraceful uncomplimentary way. However, the people who

didn"t believe in the bible were eminently reasonable people

who must put on with the threats and ignorance of the

fundamentalist Christians around them. The Christian

fundamentalists, Bryan being one of them, were consistently

lampooned throughout the film while skeptics and agnostics

were consistently portrayed as intelligent, rational, and even

heroic like Drummond. Kramer did want to make Inherit the

Wind similar to John Scopes" trial. It can also be seen that

Kramer had made the names of the character and the history

figure with almost all the same syllables and even some with

the same letter of the first letter in their names. Though in

attempted to portray this, he let too many things in his path

that overcame the importance of the truth. But is the truth

always most important? Or rather what we like to think is

the truth? It"s a lot simpler when we think that way but in

reality it isn"t so using films as a technique to teach history is

purposeless.