The Disneyfication of the Middle Ages
Idling around on the Internet, I came across this academic article from 1998 discussing ‘The Ahistoricism of Medieval Film’. It’s more than a decade old and it’s rather long, but quite a good read if you’re interested in the relationship between the history of the Middle Ages and the way the period is depicted in the recent cinema.
There’s a good deal of harrumphing in it about what the author, Arthur Lindley, calls the ‘Disneyfication of the Middle Ages’. But there is also a thoughtful discussion of the ways in which filmmakers map the cultural and political concerns and debates of the present onto the malleable material of the past. The Middle Ages are particularly ripe for this, suggests Lindley, since they are essentially divorced from the present in terms of our contextual awareness of events and environment, but are also familiar in a variety of important imaginative modes, many of which are specifically attractive to filmmakers.
Worth reading. Especially so in anticipation of Ridley Scott’s forthcoming Robin Hood film. Russell Crowe is touted to be a dark Robin: the greenwood freedom fighter now painted as amoral and violent, rather than the heroic socialist of the late twentieth century. There are few other legends which work quite so effectively as historical palimpsests.
I’m afraid that the depiction of medieval life in Disney’s Robin Hood movie will give kids a false impression of medieval life. Also, they’ll think foxes will talk and be friends with bears.