'Troy' arouses me to no end, but it's not history

I wish I could be one of those people who goes to see movies like "Troy" and manages to ignore any historical inaccuracy -- I'd probably be able to enjoy the stories a lot more. As I've gotten old enough to enjoy nonfiction histories and biographies, I've developed a reaction towards cringing whenever a film version of a historical event is announced. I'll still see them -- I need something to do while alone in Bloomington -- but I've started to notice a certain trend in these historical action movies that bears note.\nIt started with "Enemy at the Gates." Come on, that book had all the drama and romance you could possibly imagine, but of course it got changed. In the film, the weeklong sniper battle IS the movie, love reigns supreme in the end (despite what really happened) and that annoying little kid becomes the human-interest side story to "Jude Law and Rachel Weisz Do Soviet Russia" before being hanged by the evil German sniper whose gold-lined cigarettes and American accent are symbolic of his vacuous materialism. \nI know, people want a story, not just the facts. The problem is, there are still people living today who were there at the Battle of Stalingrad, and I doubt they appreciate their life stories being modified to fit nicely into a package. People should be able to determine fact from fiction; then again, if you ask my little cousin, Anastasia Romanov escaped the Soviets and lived the high life in 1920s Paris with cuddly animal friends and a menacing reincarnation of Rasputin. Next thing you know, there'll be a 1950s street-gang musical where a twentysomething Anne Frank is forced to decide between the sleazeball her parents chose for her and the no-good greaser from the wrong side of town who stole her heart. Worse still, people will believe it really happened.\nWell, now that "Troy" is the No. 1 movie in America, it's most likely going to give rise to a whole new crop of people that think that Hector killed Menelaus or whatever it is that didn't happen -- I've made it a point to not study the history of people without last names -- and this is ruffling the feathers of classical studies majors across the country. \nA good friend of mine is one of them; she hates life to the point that she plans on being a middle school Latin teacher, and she's recently told me that she wondered if she's going to be correcting her future students left and right (when she teaches Greek history to Latin students in a bizarro alternate universe where down is up). \nHowever, she loves the movie and claims it will spark new interest in the classics; the fact that she only saw it to catch a glimpse of Brad Pitt's ass notwithstanding. After having seen it, I think she's right on the money as to why people are flocking to this film -- there is a constant supply of muscled-out dudes wearing what can only be described as Gianni Versace's Trojan slumber party collection, all the while brandishing whirling blades of fury and really, really contrived speeches about immortality a la "strength and honor" from "Gladiator." Very few people know the history involved, but they will pay to attend an entertaining history lesson with swords and shirtless heroes from the manly days of yore.\nThe only problem is, there really isn't too much mention of the history involved. In fact, half of this movie is a slowed-down battle sequence with the sound effects replaced by a howling world-music chanteuse (I think this is becoming a genre in and of itself.) Also, I know there must be glaring faults, but just like we didn't make note that William Wallace couldn't have impregnated the French queen in "Braveheart" since her baby was actually born like 10 years after his death, very few people will separate the package-completing fiction from the fact.\nIs this a problem? Well, to make the issue contemporary, I'm going to beat a dead horse. Imagine it's 2064, a full 48 years since 50 Cent was elected president on the basis of having been shot nine times. The hit action movie of the summer is "9/11: The Movie" and all of us in the over-70 crowd go to see it and relive those tragic days of horror and confusion. Except in this version, Richard Clarke tells his daughter to get on the plane to Los Angeles despite her dark premonition with a speech about the American way and faith in our aviation system, "because Americans are always safe." On board, she is seated next to Jared Fogle and the two of them share a low-fat sub and fall in love after being forced to stop the terrorist takeover together, all the while Richard Clarke is on the ground, agonizing over his hubris. A full 90 minutes of slow-motion-explosions-set-to-plaintive-song-in-a-foreign-language later, Dick Cheney safely captures the last plane in the hands of the Optimus Prime robot he's controlling with his mind through the internet; Osama bin Laden is subsequently imprisoned in carbonite and launched on a crash course with the sun.\nWould this appall you? I can imagine this is how the Scots feel when history is bent in the name of a good story, or how the Greeks must feel when their heroes are transformed by Americans as acrobatic Chippendales dancers. I can only imagine how the Japanese must have felt when "The Last Samurai" portrayed the last of their warrior peoples as, oh yeah, a white American. I'm not saying that films have to be exact down to the dialogue, but you can hardly change the fundamental story to make it more palatable to people seeking extreme closure. Artistic license is one thing, but come on.\nI guess this means that not every movie (especially one that purports itself as historical) can end with the hero getting the girl, resurrecting said girl and then saving democracy. The more this trend continues, the closer we get to "Flying Robot 9/11: The Holocaust on Ice." I do not want this, and neither do the people I care about. It's time for Hollywood to show a little responsibility for the images it portrays.