And the Oscar goes to...

     The Oscars are fast approaching. People are buzzing about who they think will win this award and that award, about what color Anne Hathaway will wear, and, of course, about what movie will win best picture. There are nine movies nominated in this category: Amour, Silver Linings Playbook, Lincoln, Life of Pi, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Zero Dark Thirty, Django Unchained, and Les Miserables. I am proud to say that I have seen three of these movies, which is actually quite a lot for me. The truth is, though, I may not have seen any of them had they not been nominated for an Oscar. I mean really, who wants to watch an Award show when they haven't even seen any of the movies? In fact, I think that the Oscars and other award shows probably shape the way that people, including myself, look at certain things. For example, if a person sees a movie that is up for an Oscar, it is doubtful that they will criticize it as much as they might have if it wasn't up for one. If it's up for best picture, is just has to be a "good" movie, right?!?
     The question is, how can we classify a movie as "good"? What qualifications must it achieve? I saw "Lincoln" and really enjoyed it. That said, there are parts of the movie that send the watcher completely false information. An article in the New York times states that, ""Lincoln" falsely showed two of Connecticut’s House members voting “Nay” against the 13th Amendment for the abolition of slavery." The motive behind this was most likely to make for a more suspenseful climax of the movie, but in my opinion, in a movie such as "Lincoln," it is more important that the watcher receives, at least for the most part, accurate historical information. Tony Kushner, who wrote the screenplay of Lincoln, responded to the criticism, stating that it is okay to “manipulate a small detail in the service of a greater historical truth." The word that stands out to me here is "manipulate," which means to alter or edit. Even in a movie, I am not sure the extent to which it really should be okay to alter history. In another movie up for best picture, "Argo," President Carter's chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, is portrayed as having children, when in reality he did not have any at the time. Finally, there's Zero Dark Thirty, in which, as Maureen Dowd writes, it is shown that "torture was instrumental in the capture of Osama." Don't get me wrong, I will definitely be tuning into the Oscars this Sunday, but I wonder, to what extent is it okay to alter history in order to make a movie more dramatic?