FREE ESSAY ON INHERIT THE WIND

INHERIT THE WIND

The Truth about Stanley Kramer's Inherit the Wind
History is consistently used in films as a technique to teach the values and morals of
events that occurred. But what's the point in teaching history through films when they
are terribly fictional? In films, the director finds the best scheme to intrigue their
audience only by changing the actual event to satisfy their interest. This is true for
Stanley Kramer when he made the history of John Scopes and his "monkey trial" into a film
called Inherit the Wind. Kramer knew the exact stereotypical "Hollywood history" his
audience enjoyed. The trial itself had a series of conflicts, the main one being
evolution vs. religion. Yet there was also a series of tensions throughout the movie,
including the argument between individual vs. society. The same themes from Inherit the
Wind can also be seen from the actual "monkey trial" event in Dayton, Tennessee. It is
sometimes said that truth is stranger than fiction and according to this film, truth is
also stronger than fiction. Inherit the Wind ignored the true dramatic moment, which is
essential to the actual trial that happened in Dayton, Tennessee. Kramer even portrayed
his own opinion of this trial in this film. The truth was so distorted in the film so now
the argument is not individual vs. society or evolution vs. religion but history vs.
fiction. 
Inherit the Wind is set in the little town of Hillsboro when Bertram Cates (played by), a
biology teacher, was thrown into prison for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. Two
famous lawyers were behind this case, Henry Drummond (played by) as the defender and
Mathew Harrison Brady (played by), as the prosecutor. Mathew Harrison Brady who was
"voted 3 times for a presidential candidate" was sent to Hillsboro is carry out the job
as a prosecutor for this trial. As for Cates, a journalist from Baltimore Herald by the
name of E.K. Horrbeck willingly provided a lawyer named Henry Drummond for him. Horrbeck
was interested in the Cates, expecting to make big bucks from this big "media" case. The
two opposing lawyers, Drummond and Brady, were Kramer's two main characters, both with
different opinions on how humans arrived on earth. Drummond supported the evolution
theory, while Brady, the creation theory. In this film, Kramer distorted the facts of the
actual trial to make this film more of a drama than a history documentary. He added
fictitious characters like Reverend Heremiah Brown (played by) and his daughter Rachel
Brown (played by) to bring this drama out. It's obvious that Rachel is used as icon in
Inherit the Wind to make film be seen as more of a drama with the typical love story that
directly attracts more audience to his film. Kramer also added Brady's death in the
courtroom. He dramatically died of a heart attack in the chaotic courtroom at the end of
the trial after his last speech. Persecuted 
The film is far from the truth, the actual trial didn't happen in quite the same way. The
1925, Dayton, Tennessee went against one of its individual, John Scopes. He just so
happened to be substituting for a biology class that was learning about the Darwin's
theory. Similar to the film, the actual lawyers, Darrow and Bryan were also famous in
their position of the society. Darrow was the defender, and Bryan, the prosecutor. The
characters in this film also had different personalities compared with the actual history
figures they are. Take Drummond for example, he was less cynical and biting than Scopes'
actual defender, Darrow. Brady, on the other hand, was portrayed more of a comical
fanatic at moments in the courtroom. From this event on, the flaws of this little town
began to reveal. The townspeople of Hillsboro were far more frenzied, mean-spirited, and
ignorant than the real citizens of Dayton were toward this trial. 
From the fictitious characters and the distant differences between the history and film,
I can conclude that Kramer was completely biased when he was directing this film. When
the actual trial and the film are compared, it'd obvious that Kramer was not only
thinking of his audience's interest but his own. He was biased against a particular class
of people and their beliefs. The people who believed in the "miracle recorded in the
bible, especially the section in Genesis about God's creation, were portrayed in a
disgraceful uncomplimentary way. However, the people who didn't believe in the bible were
eminently reasonable people who must put on with the threats and ignorance of the
fundamentalist Christians around them. The Christian fundamentalists, Bryan being one of
them, were consistently lampooned throughout the film while skeptics and agnostics were
consistently portrayed as intelligent, rational, and even heroic like Drummond. 
Kramer did want to make Inherit the Wind similar to John Scopes' trial. It can also be
seen that Kramer had made the names of the character and the history figure with almost
all the same syllables and even some with the same letter of the first letter in their
names. Though in attempted to portray this, he let too many things in his path that
overcame the importance of the truth. But is the truth always most important? Or rather
what we like to think is the truth? It's a lot simpler when we think that way but in
reality it isn't so using films as a technique to teach history is purposeless.