I haven’t seen the movie Selma, and I’m not particularly learned about historical facts. But I do trust the insights into Coretta Scott King’s character that are offered by Barbara Reynolds in her Washington Post article of January 19th, 2015:
Ms. Reynolds met Ms. King in the 1970s, when working as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. She interviewed her for news articles numerous times and, in 2000, began periodically recording her accounts of her experiences. The resulting 1,000 pages of transcripts are being turned into a biography to be published later this year. I think it’s safe to say that, if Ms. Reynolds says the movie Selma misrepresents Coretta Scott King, then it does indeed misrepresent her.
Which begs the question: why?
Ms. Reynolds says that, in real life, “one of Coretta’s most painful struggles was seeing her marriage maligned by persistent charges that her husband was unfaithful.” In the movie, the Coretta character tearfully asks her husband, “Did you love the others?” Ms. Reynolds maintains this is not something Coretta would have said, partly because she never accepted the infidelity as true:
“She argued that the image of Martin as an unfaithful husband was part of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s ongoing campaign to nullify his influence by destroying his marriage — and his life.”
I can believe that, as my own father was also the victim of smear campaigns instigated by the FBI, which came to light very explicitly through the documents later obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
The other reason this portrayal of Coretta King is inaccurate is that, even if she had believed her husband was adulterous, she would never have addressed the issue with “the weepy resignation portrayed in Selma.”
Perhaps I should dedicate a future issue of the art & ethics journal to the theme “Artistic License.” In the meantime, I want to pose the following questions in the framework of the somewhat related current theme — “Freedom of expression: where do we draw the line?”:
Does it serve any good purpose to depict Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife as weepy instead of a “a strong-willed woman independently committed to the global struggle for human rights”? Is it for the purpose of “a good story” (the art of it, so to speak) at the expense of historical accuracy? Is it deemed to be more entertaining as a story if the man is portrayed as unfaithful and the woman as tearful about it?
And if so, what does that say about our culture?
Do filmmakers and other artists have no responsibility to put historical accuracy above perceived entertainment value (emphasis on “perceived”), when claiming to portray real people and real events?
Barbara Reynolds views on this are clear:
“[…] it is wrong for storytellers to engage in open miseducation, to fictionalize our heroes. Doing so robs real people of their historic truth, particularly when those people can no longer defend themselves.”
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