Our Reactions to the Unfamiliar

This past Thanksgiving, I was eagerly looking forward to going with family to the movies to see the Ridley Scott film, Napoleon.Prior to seeing the movie, I had my own idea in the archives of my mind of who the man named Napoleon was, given there are too many versions in popular myth to count. Not a scholar on Napoleon by any measure, I had something of a mosaic of who the man was from what I had learned over the years. My expectations were high.  

Whether what we know is fiction or fact, Napoleon’s name and reputation remain ubiquitous, and most people have some sense of the man. Despite his flaws—seemingly, as an opportunist without a soul—he unquestionably has been known as a military genius and any film about him would, of course, be an historical epic about a great military hero.  

As I watched the Scott interpretation of Napoleon, I became increasingly disappointed. With no small amount of disdain, I was saying in my mind, “I don’t know this Napoleon you have created, and I wish I had never seen this movie.”

My reaction surprised me. Was it because the movie didn’t match what I thought it would be? I see myself as a person with an open mind to other points of view, and I particularly like historical fiction. Why was I taking umbrage with the point of view of a film about a person whose biography has more points of view than possibly any other biography to date?

As I questioned my negative reaction, I had one of my “aha moments”: Is this the kind of reaction that people have when they are confronted with parts of U.S. history that they don’t want to know?

If one believes that they already know the story, they are not going to like, believe, or allow another version of the story to be told. If facts contrary to their beliefs are brought to light, those facts are judged as false, not real, or “revisionist,” to be stomped down and vilified before innocent minds can hear about them. The rejection of a wider and deeper view of history and experiences of others is so strong that information that contradicts what some people think they know and want to believe must be banned and the authors discredited.

There is probably no greater fear than the fear of reality—of what really happened. Unfortunately, it seems to be human nature to resist what doesn’t adhere to our preconceived notions. As students, the redacted history we were taught became reality. Anything to the contrary is not real.

My reaction of not only disliking the new Napoleon movie but having negative feelings about even having seen it reminds me of a saying on a paperweight I gave my mother when I was a teen. It read, “My mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with facts.”

It’s not only confusion that one feels when something contrary to what one “knows” is brought forth, it’s a disconnection that leaves one unsettled and angry—angry enough to confront and challenge the authenticity of the new information and, further, to use the power of authority to ban and denigrate what the fearful don’t want to hear.

With excellent research and books coming forth, one must realize that much history being taught does not include all the facts. While some welcome new information to add to history, others resist with all their might. Likely bolstered and emboldened by the current parental rights movement, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, “barred an AP African American Studies course from Florida high schools claiming it ‘lacks educational value’” (Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report “Hate and Extremism 2023” from essay originally published in The State of Black America 2023).

As ridiculous as my reaction was to the new movie Napoleon, my experienceis an example of how natural and ignorant it is for people to resist the telling of the whole story and not just the parts that one thought they knew and wanted to believe.

Having something of an understanding of why people react as they do to information that they have not already come to believe does not excuse us from having the moral courage to resist the backward and inane attempts to stifle and omit the broader story that might run contrary to the believed myth. Our entire history matters, not just what some want to believe.

It’s both encouraging and disappointing that a “2022 poll showed that most people support the accurate teaching of history, including the civil rights movement, slavery, racial inequity, and systemic racism” (SPLC, “Hate and Extremism”). The disappointing part is that not all people support the accurate teaching of history.