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I am saying that Shakespeare might be great literature, but if whomever wrote it was intentionally inaccurate it doesn't qualify as historical. In earlier movies, I'd still expect them to be as accurate as possible, or not qualify as an historical dramatization of the era.

History texts are so messed up with modern interpretations. I would hope that novels, movies, TV etc that pass themselves off as based on history do their best to get it right.

Dramatists and historians use different tools. The goals and methods are different. The criteria are different. If you want history then read a history book or watch a documentary.

You're absolutely right, and someone trying to defend this as a "dramatic technique" is completely wrong. It's like defending Uri Geller on the basis of the idea that conjurors used his kinds of tricks all the time. James Randi, a real magician among the several who exposed him, would have none of it: You're not an entertainer if you perform magic but claim you have psychic powers. You're a charlatan, plain and simple.

These race-based dramas are put forth as if they're actual history, and deserve criticism as such. Most of the idiots who go to see this film will come away from it -- just as they did from Oliver Stone's wildly [insanely] ahistorical JFK -- as if they've learned something about history. They haven't.

No one engaging in this kind of historical malpractice deserves a pass on "artistic" grounds.