Using Video as a History Educator

As much as I love History, I don’t really like watching History movies. I know this might sound weird, but I have a hard time turning off the historical analysis that my brain wants to do when I watch movies that are meant to be historically accurate. Because of that, I haven’t seen many of the critically acclaimed movies such as “Saving Private Ryan” or “Schindler’s List” or so many other amazing films.

When I typically choose historically themed shows, I specifically enjoy shows where the history is just a small part of an overarching story: For instance, “The Great: An Occasionally True Story,” which is a comedic reinterpretation of the life of Catherine of the Great of Russia. This show tells you immediately that it’s going to make historical inaccuracies, and they’re going to be frequent, for instance Peter, (representing Peter III) was the grandson of Peter the Great, yet in the show, Peter the Great is his father, and this is just a minor switch compared to other outlandish things, such as Catherine’s invention of the Moscow Mule (not historically accurate at all, yet a fun scene in the show).

Other historical movies that I enjoy are comedies such as “History of the World: Part I” directed by Mel Brooks, or almost any of the Monty Python Movies (one of my favorites being Life of Brian). These movies while set in historical circumstances are purely comedy and don’t try for historical accuracy in any sense, but they make for quite the enjoyable experience if you’re open to their shenanigans.

If I were to pick historical movies, tv shows, or other watchable media, I would likely choose some out of the box stuff:

1. Downton Abbey: Downton Abbey is a long-running (but now finished) tv-show following an upper-class family in England as they navigate through their tumultuous lives, affected by major historical events, and the need to keep up appearances as wealthy elites. There are so many good scenes to pull from for educational purposes, but I think one of my favorites would be the beginning of season two with all of the scenes about World War I. Many of the male characters of the show volunteer to be sent to the frontlines in France to fight, and some of them don’t make it home, some make dangerous choices in the desperation to come home, some are wounded or crippled by the war. All while at home, the Grantham family offers their estate to partially be turned into a hospital and recovery center for wounded soldiers. It talks a lot about the sacrifices that all English citizens would have made during the war, as well as the hatred received by men who could not fight. For World War I and this media, I think it would be interesting for students to fill out a worksheet that would determine what might be their fate had they been involved? Would they fight, would they become an officer, would they learn medicine, or find other ways to support the war effort?
2. Six: The Musical: One of my personal guilty pleasures is musicals, and while Hamilton might be a fun addition, I want to add Six. Six is a musical styled like a singing competition between each of the six wives of Henry VIII as they talk about their lives, marriages, and other important aspects of Tudor History. I would not say that it is necessarily educational on its own merit, but it would do well to accompany lessons about Tudor History, the English Reformation, and potentially feminist history as a whole. While the music is littered with historically verified information, it is often exaggerated, cartoonish, and simplified for a ley audience. For instance, Anne Boleyn wishing someone would hang Catherine of Aragon, in the song “Ooh, why hasn’t it hit her? He doesn’t want to bang you, Somebody hang you” or in the historical text,”she replied that she cared not for the Queen or any of her family, and that she would rather see her hanged than have to confess that she was her Queen and mistress” (“Spain: January 1531, 1-10 | British History Online.” Accessed June 2, 2023. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/spain/vol4/no2/pp1-17.). Nevertheless, I still think that Six is an enjoyable way to examine Tudor feminist history, or at least refresh more deliberate study of the subject.
3. Jojo Rabbit: Ok hear me out, this one is strange. Jojo Rabbit is the story of a young Nazi Youth, Jojo Betzler, as he navigates through Nazi Germany and World War II. He is indoctrinated into anti-Semitic beliefs, which are challenged when he discovers that his mother is a member of anti-Nazi resistance and has been hiding a young Jewish girl in the walls of their house. Jojo faces a lot of difficult choices of whether to trust in his family (and the Jewish girl in his home), against the views of his country and imaginary best friend, Hitler. I think this movie is actually a really good way to show how susceptible youth are to extremist viewpoints, as well as what life was like for the family that resisted Nazi ideology in WWII Germany.

One of the things that my classmate, Annabelle Spencer talked about when analyzing media for history learning, is to find historical facts within tv-shows and then to hunt down primary or secondary sources that corroborate that fact. This is something I would do for each of these suggested media. Similar to how I find the primary source that alludes to Anne’s line in Six.

Digital storytelling is a fun, and almost immersive way to teach about history and historical thinking. While it seems pretty simple for us public historians to make educational videos, I think it would also be appropriate to have a major assignment for students to create their own educational videos, spending time scripting, filming (or collecting the media to include), editing, and then “marketing” their project for their classmates. In addition to learning about historical thinking (and how to analyze primary and secondary source material to make an argument about history) it would also teach students some introductory media skills as well as project management on a small scale (as videos have a lot more and varied steps than traditional essay writing). I think that those skills would be helpful to the students, even if they didn’t use them for history in the future.