If you follow the world of movies at all, then you might have noticed that the film Selma has been met with a hefty amount of criticism. Journalists took no time at all to criticize the film to varying degrees about how President Lyndon B. Johnson is portrayed. Director Ava DuVernay and others have come out in support of the film's portrayal of the events depicted. Personally, I'm not that familiar with the events of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. I haven't seen the movie, so I can't personally comment on how events or people are portrayed. If you are unfamiliar with the criticisms of the film, this article is a great place to start.
Is that really the point though? Let's take a step back from the arguments over the accuracy of the film. This is a movie. It's a work of art. Plot points were concieved and artistic choices were made. DuVernay put herself into whatever is presented on the screen. This isn't a documentary. PBS or the History Channel didn't produce this. The point being, nobody at any point has made the claim that this is in any way an exact retelling of the events surrounding Selma. By focusing the conversation on the perceived historical inaccuracies of the movie, and not any of the many other artistic choices made in creating the film, journalists (and I don't mean film critics) have deprived audiences of some very meaningful conversations. (A very worthwhile article on the subject of criticizing the accuracy of movies over the artistry of movies can be found here.)
I'm not saying that films are above being criticized for accuracy. If inaccuracies make the plot or themes of a film confusing or muddled, then criticizing that, is indeed a part of criticizing the artistic process. As the article referenced above points out, there is a fine line between being an expert on the subject matter dealt with in a film and being an expert of films that are dealing with that subject matter. In 2013, astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson publicly criticized the film Gravity because of scientific inaccuracies. There's a video on YouTube that is over nine minutes long of him pointing out the flaws in the movie. Not 20 seconds into the video a caption pops up that says, "Mysteries of #Gravity: Why anyone is impressed with a zero-G film 45 years after being impressed with '2001: A Space Odyssey'." With that remark Tyson goes from knowledgeable scientist to unqualified film critic. It's the same thing that has happened with Selma. Historians, and journalists with no knowledge of film-making have grabbed hold of the discussion about Selma, the film, and made it about LBJ, the person.
So the big question is: Why does any of this matter? Who care's if the discussion has been about historical accuracy? It's a biographical film, so what else should people be talking about? For starters, how about the fact that Ava DuVernay has a very strong chance of being the first female African-American director to be nominated an Oscar. If she won, DuVernay would be the first black director of either gender to win. How about the fact that this film employed a large number of black actors without having "Tyler Perry Presents" in the title? Then there are the many artistic elements (acting, cinematography, writing, editing, costume design, set design, soundtrack, score, etc.) that are being overshadowed by the current course of the discussion. The real tragedy is if the legacy of this film is always plagued by people not being able to see it for what it is: a movie.
