The Middle Ages according to historians VS the middle ages according to 'Hollywood'

When a film crew came to the experimental living history archaeological open-air Middelaldercentret museum in Denmark they decided that the way historians, archaeologists and experts thought he middle ages looked like just wasn't filthy enough and they turned the place into a mess.

When I say Hollywood, I of course mean the movie/TV industry in general, not just films made in Hollywood.

Based on this viral thread here;

Article explaining why the film crew was wrong about the middle ages;

Museum website;

The film in question is '12 Paces Without a Head' (2009)

[fakehistoryhunter]

Before you comment, check out the article that accompanies the Medieval Myths Bingo card, it explains every myth and why it's a myth, accompanied with a whole bunch of sources:

[jornthefreeze]

Don't forget lit torches and candles all over the place during the day.

[mortadelusmaximus]

-Normal people: "Oh, cool the middle ages!"
-Hollywood for some reason: "MUDPUNK WORLD"

[walterw]

I agree, the Hollywood version was totally wrong.
Not even one carriage full of dead people and no one aired out their cat against a wall.

[MaskHysteria]

Cleanliness wasn't discovered until Hollywood invented it apparently.

[ThalesWell]

I’m so tired of the lack of color in media set in the middle ages. Everything’s gotta be brown and gray

[benlap]

People in the middle ages did not know of bacteria and viruses, but they certainly knew the link between dirtiness and disease.

[renz]

So aparantly Shrek had a better represenation of the architecture from middle ages despite being an animated film.

[MrClickity]

Also people in the Middle Ages tended to dress way more flamboyantly than most people today realize. In fact, the outfits were often so bright and colorful that they'd be considered downright gaudy by today's standards. It was especially true for wealthier people, but even peasants wore colorful outfits. It wasn't a sea of drab browns, greys, and greens like a lot of modern people imagine thanks to movies.

[theprancingprussian]

They just follow the tropes of 'everyone was stupid before 1776 etc'
Also noticed in 90% of battle scenes nobody wears colour despite most wearing ornate garments to look nice and distinguish themselves

Edit: calling the people back then all dirty yet they are the ones who trash the village

[CuriousInquiror]

i also love how hollywood thinks the 1st and 2nd centuries look as clean and pristine as modern post-industrial cities. seems like roman period was probably not as clean as hollywood thinks it is, and the middle ages were not as dirty and backwards as hollywood thinks it is. probably a smaller delta between the height of the roman empire and the middle ages

[sidecarmisanthrope]

Hollywierd also thinks that the poor people didn't know how to fix holes in their walls, or cut wood straight.

[Iknowknow]

This happens with depictions of prehistoric peoples all the time! They always shown as wearing filthy rag like animal skins and their hair is always matted and unkempt. No animal on earth keeps itself unhygienic.Chimps and all apes for that matter spend large amounts of time grooming each other’s body. Being clean is a matter of life and death for all animals. Not having a strong odor is also important for both prey and predator. The earliest civilizations reveal that humans had numerous methods for grooming both for hygiene and aesthetic purposes. This has been a pet peeve of mine for decades.

[kosatochca]

It’s even funnier when people think that slums were once something widespread and as old as cities themselves, when in fact the slums epidemic was only brought about by the advent of the Industrial Revolution and massive increase in the city sizes

[debbralehrman]

Apparently they didn't wanna waste time being accurate. Oh wait it was accurate I guess he did wanna waste time.

[freeman]

The reason why Hollywood made medieval towns look like that, is because they think its "realistic".
To be realistic doesn't mean true to the reality of things, it means to make something that seems "sensible" or believable to them and their audience. It's why some movie would make people curse alot when making "realistic" settings. It seems realistic.

Hollywood medieval towns are colorless, depressed mud city in because modernity is a colorless, depressed, mud(concrete) city. No way something in the past can be better right than that. That makes no sense.
The idea of a colorful town lit with candles and natural light sounds like something from LotR.

These medieval mud towns have more in common with American Ghetto cities than actual medieval villages in Europe.

[grant.]

If we saw beautifully sculped mixed-use housing that existed for centuries, modernists couldn't sell us ugly amalgams of steel, glass, and concrete apartments at grossly overpriced rates.

[DurradonXylles]

YES, THANK YOU. Came here from Max/Tasting History, and decided to start reading/watching your stuff. Here's what really messes me up with how medieval Europe and its theming is depicted in media: your average Japanese-developed RPG with a medieval fantasy setting is far more accurate in depicting the architecture and building styles of medieval Europe than your average Hollywood movie or television show. There are exceptions of course, but it's wild how much the Victorians warped the public's perception and expectation of that time period up to the present day.

[ryang]

It's kind of a "clapping coconuts = the sound of horse hooves" thing. During the Enlightenment, there was what I can only describe as a smear campaign against the Middle Ages. That is where I'd say 90% of what people think they know about the period comes from. The lies told were then repeated from one generation to the next, often with further embellishments, until you got to the film era. Those early film makers, when designing sets, tapped into what they thought they knew about the period. Subsequent film makers would then reference those first works and, eventually, it became something audiences came to expect in any "realistic" depiction of the perood; just like with hoofbeats sounding like coconuts.

[MK_ULTRA]

Next you're going to show me proof that Mexico isn't entirely in sepia tone, huh?