When can history become fiction?

[Sketcher]

I am contempltating writing a story set around the LA riots in 1992, but I am concerned about any backlash it could receive. So, my question is, when do historical events become far enough removed from the public that they are not as controversial to read about? Is 1992 still too recent for the audience of 2012?

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

There's already plenty of fiction that uses 9/11 as a backdrop.

 

[Methos]

in my opinion, all of history is fiction...

unless you're there and can actually see things as they happen, looking back 20 years, 50 years, or a hundred years in the history books and reading about what happened is useless... it's a fact that history is written by the victors, events that happened, wars that were fought, they're all talked about and explained by the survivors / victors, who naturally have a biased view over what happened...

The only way to know the truth about history is to live it, anything else is fictional bias written by the survivors...

M

 

[Greg Cox]

There's no hard and fast rule. It's a judgment call, and different people are always going to have a different sense of when it's "too soon." It probably also depends on what approach you take? Is this a fun escapist entertainment, or a serious drama about race relations in the early nineties.

For what it's worth, The Twilight Zone did an episode about the Holocaust as early as the 1950's . . . .

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Why don't you want your fiction to be controversial? Would you rather it be bland?

You're the artist. Do as you will, and frak it if anyone doesn't like it.

 

[Lonemagpie]

History becomes fiction as soon as somebody writes it down

 

[Holdfast]

I fully understand the point people are trying to make with the repeated "history is fiction" reply, but I think it's hyperbole that is ultimately more superficial than shrewdly insightful.

Good history isn't fiction, in the same way good journalism isn't fiction, even though both often are frequently highly interpretative and even revisionist. Both attempt to weigh sources and come up with a something that reflects reality as seen from the author's perspective rather than attempting to wholly fabricate something unreal.

History is certainly almost automatically editorial in nature, but that's not the same thing as being fictional, a term which when used in conjunction with writing very strongly implies an active intent to create something deliberately imaginary.

Of course, sometimes historical tracts are deliberately designed with political/social ends in mind and here things can shade into more overt propaganda and fiction eg. something akin Suetonius' Lives of the 12 Caesars, or elements of Churchill's History of the English Speaking People and possibly including something like Machiavelli's Prince.

But plenty of historical works do attempt a reasonably fair-minded weighing up of sources to determine a "most likely" reflection of reality. That kind of author motivation is enough to separate it from pure fiction in my mind, even accepting the reported reality is inevitably not going to be 100% accurate due to the impossibility of capturing any given moment in, or period of, time. In any event, the most interesting aspects of history are not in a dry reportage of facts, but in an analysis of possible meanings, which is inevitably editorial.

 

[stj]

A well researched fiction about the 1992 riots might be controversial because it contradicts the false impressions delivered by the media. Anything that confirms a person's memories of conventional wisdom however is usually acceptable. But note there is nothing historical about racial issues and these are usually controversial in some quarters.

As to the general issue of when fiction in a past setting should be considered historical fiction, it is when exposition is hard and/or the choice between truth and narrative satisfaction is difficult.

 

[Level 2 Diagnostic]

It's already been done, and I don't recall much backlash about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Blue_(film)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Oh, write about the American Civil War instead. It was almost 150 years ago and so no one in the United States argues over or holds any resentments about that.

If one is very concerned about offending some readers, somewhere, it's probably best not to write.

 

[Greg Cox]

If one is very concerned about offending some readers, somewhere, it's probably best not to write.

And chances are, it's never the stuff you think is going to be controversial that upsets people, it's that throwaway line you didn't even think about that causes somebody to throw your book across the room.

(I'm still trying to figure out why that angry reader at goodreads.com thought my Alias novel was "anti-God.")

It's probably impossible to write something that doesn't offend someone, somewhere.

(Don't get me started about that guy who wrote Tor twenty-seven angry letters about one book!)

 

[Mr Light]

Isn't there an old saying, Tragedy + Time = Comedy ?

 

[scotpens]

Isn't there an old saying, Tragedy + Time = Comedy?

I don’t know how old it is, but I do remember Alan Alda’s character in Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors spouting that line as if he thinks it’s a brilliant piece of original insight.

Of course, it does become more acceptable to make light of tragic events the further removed they are from us in time. Think of all the old “hole in the head” jokes about Lincoln. Now they’re making those same jokes about JFK!

 

[Harvey]

It's already been done, and I don't recall much backlash about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Blue_(film)

And then three years later, this happened, so I think it's okay:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_L.A._Riot_Spectacular

 

[Forbin]

When the National Air & Space museum restored and displayed the Enola Gay, the accompanying display, with text and photos describing the horror that the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki went thru, with no context as to the rest of the war, the reasons for the war, and the horrors Japan inflicted upon China and Manchuria - or for that matter, no context with other more devastating conventional bombing raids - suggested the museum had a leftist, almost anti-American agenda.

(run-on sentences R us)

They may not have fictionalized history, but thru omission, they made it seem as if Japan was the poor harmless victim of unwarranted American aggression.

Luckily there were still enough people alive who remembered the whys and wherefores of the Pacific war to get this disgusting revisionism pulled from the museum, and now they simply present the airplane on display with a short, non-judgemental description of its place in history.

 

[Star Wolf]

I am contempltating writing a story set around the LA riots in 1992, but I am concerned about any backlash it could receive. So, my question is, when do historical events become far enough removed from the public that they are not as controversial to read about? Is 1992 still too recent for the audience of 2012?

Most of your audience were not there. I was, need a consultant ? Besides if there is no backlash why bother?

I remember the Crazy Lloyd Hopkins book series. 20 years after the 65 riots James Ellroy published Blood On The Moon were his protagonist Crazy Lloyd hunted down a National Guard Sergeant who used the riots as an excuse to turn his 50 cal machine gun on people and go hunting. I understand it wasn't about the riots it just served to introduce a Dirty Harry like character but remember the New Centurions novel and movie where out within 7 years of Watts 1965

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

As long as you don't defame anyone, go for it. In fact, in a lot of countries, it is neither a crime nor a tort to defame a deceased person, but it's probably a good idea to stick to incontrovertible facts for real persons who are recognisable by your description of them. Otherwise, any controversy is good publicity.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

As I recall, the TV sitcom A Different World had an episode that took place during the LA Riots, and that episode was broadcast only a few months after the riots took place. I don't know whether the episode was considered controversial, but controversy is good for ratings, so the producers were probably hoping it would be.

 

[Star Wolf]

As I recall, the TV sitcom A Different World had an episode that took place during the LA Riots, and that episode was broadcast only a few months after the riots took place. I don't know whether the episode was considered controversial, but controversy is good for ratings, so the producers were probably hoping it would be.

I don't see how, it was based on the other coast and would it build on the themes of the riot beyond "white"police brutality. That being the minority groups like Koreans, Blacks and Latinos (there being no local whites to target except cops and firefighters) fighting it out.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

When the National Air & Space museum restored and displayed the Enola Gay, the accompanying display, with text and photos describing the horror that the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki went thru, with no context as to the rest of the war, the reasons for the war, and the horrors Japan inflicted upon China and Manchuria - or for that matter, no context with other more devastating conventional bombing raids - suggested the museum had a leftist, almost anti-American agenda.

(run-on sentences R us)

They may not have fictionalized history, but thru omission, they made it seem as if Japan was the poor harmless victim of unwarranted American aggression.

The exhibit in question was a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the bombings and properly focused on the bombings and their effects - the Enola Gay was included in the exhibit only because of its relevance to the event. The exhibit was never about the plane itself nor was it a history lesson or apologia about the causes and overall prosecution of the war, or an offering of the rationalizations of the bombers for why what they did was okay.

The plane went on permanent display later with even less historical material provided other than technical data, which is pretty much the norm for air and space craft being exhibited for their own sake rather than as part of a larger event.

I've been to the National Air And Space Museum any number of times. I don't recall ever seeing any instruction or elaboration associated with the Mercury or Gemini or Apollo capsules that puts the backgrounds and wartime activities of the German rocket scientists who were so crucial to the program in any historical context. That's not what the exhibits are about.

It's not as if all responsible historians agree that the nuclear bombings of Japan were justified, after all - unless the museum is prepared to offer a lengthy course in history, instructing museum visitors that they were would be more biased in some ways than simply presenting the facts of the bombings - since that was the historical event that was being commemorated.


People are fairly aware that there was a big dustup between the Allies and Germany and Japan back in the '40s, after all.

We have a great big WWII memorial in downtown DC now. It doesn't teach history in context either, any more than most of our other monuments do. Here's the inscription:

HERE IN THE PRESENCE OF WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN, ONE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FATHER AND THE OTHER THE NINETEENTH CENTURY PRESERVER OF OUR NATION, WE HONOR THOSE TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICANS WHO TOOK UP THE STRUGGLE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND MADE THE SACRIFICES TO PERPETUATE THE GIFT OUR FOREFATHERS ENTRUSTED TO US: A NATION CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY AND JUSTICE.

Hmm. No history lesson there.

Maybe people get curious about learning history in detail after they visit these places; if they really dig into it, they might even come to conclusions at variance with Forbin's characterisation of it all, or mine.