It's annoying this happens when the Americans make a film purporting to be factual. No evidence exists that Tarleton was involved in infanticide or any incidents such as the church arson and murders, said Scott Withrow, historian at South Carolina's Cowpens National Battlefield, where the Redcoats were defeated in The Patriot army were masters of this at that time and they built him up as a hated person.
Some U. Columbia Pictures has not responded to Liverpool's demand for an apology. There were a few battles and a rough winter at Valley Forge. But George Washington kicked out the British. Hollywood has now personalised this "Birth of a Nation" saga through Mel Gibson as the Swamp Fox pitted against the dastardly Tavington.
There was a problem with the Swamp Fox, as in real life Francis Marion was an avowed racist, hunted native Americans or Indians for sport and raped his slaves.
The film has changed his name to Ben Martin and portrays him as only employing "freed slaves" on his plantation, almost years before the abolition of slavery. The respected Smithsonian Institute which was used as a historical consultant has okayed this whitewash. The film is rated "R" which means anyone under 17 has to be accompanied by a parent or adult. There is no sex in the film so the restriction is due to the gory scenes, but also because it shows two sons of Gibson aged about 10 and 11 using their father's muskets to blast redcoats.
Children handling guns is a touchy subject for Americans after a series of school shootings, such as at Columbine in Colorado over a year ago. But these kids are presented as "patriots": guns are good in their hands when it's for the Stars and Stripes. You just need an adult sitting beside you in the cinema to explain the difference between shooting redcoats and your schoolmates. Please update your payment details to keep enjoying your Irish Times subscription. Not content with allying himself with the hairy-kneed porridge-munchers in a ludicrous travesty of British history with Braveheart, Mad Mel is now having another bash at the English with his historical epic, The Patriot, in which Gibson stars as Benjamin Martin, a colonial militiaman in the American War of Independence whose guerrilla exploits against the Redcoats in the swamps of the Carolinas earned him the soubriquet the Swamp Fox.
Judging by the reaction so far to the film, which opened in the US on 28 June, the English are not only in for a thorough pasting from Mel and his band of motley guerrillas but also a comprehensive character assassination. To a man, the dastardly English are depicted as heartless toffs and machiavels, war criminals and child-killers.
I'm a nasty, evil British officer and Mel comes after me like a warrior possessed. But possessed of what, exactly? Certainly not intelligent objectivity and partiality. It's a long way and a lot of dollars in the bank since Gallipoli, in which Gibson played an Australian athlete who joined the Anzacs in the First World War only to be sent to certain death by - you guessed it - incompetent English officers.
It is entirely possible that Gibson, who was born in Peerskill, New York and did not arrive in Australia until the age of 12, has bought into the Australian legacy of English-hating - an atavistic resentment against the policy of transportation of convicts; then again, Gibson, who is a devout Catholic, possibly subscribes to a headily romantic view of Celtic republicanism that finds merit in the perennial resistance of the underdog nations Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall against their merciless oppressor, England.
Or maybe he is just getting his own back against English critics who have failed to take him seriously enough. The result is immediate — Rollo immediately ascends to martyrdom, and Thatcher becomes a metaphor for English brutality.
Gerry Adams Mel Gibson is an unassuming Irishman, with a wife and two beautiful sons. Heroically armed with nail bombs and sacks of fertiliser, Gerry launches an assault upon the headquarters of the British Army HQ. Unfortunately, the attack goes awry, and Gerry is arrested, and found guilty of high treason.
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