Random Horrible True Stories Left Out Of Biopics To Make Person Look Bett (15 items)

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  (#13) 'Walk The Line' Skipped Over Johnny Cash Killing Like 50 Endangered Condors

  No one can say that Walk the Line makes Johnny Cash look perfect, but it does ignore the fact that Cash once almost drove an entire species of birds to extinction. In the summer of 1965, after a particularly toxic fight with his then-wife Vivian, the troubled singer drove a camper to Los Padres National Forest in California with his nephew, Damon Fielder.

  Unfortunately, Cash, who was high on amphetamines at the time, accidentally ignited some underbrush while trying to start a campfire and - oopsie daisy - burned three entire mountains of forested area. When informed by a judge later on that his actions had wiped out 49 of the area's 53 endangered condors, he quipped: "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards." Swoon!
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  (#10) Abraham Lincoln Was Racist, But 'Lincoln' Didn't Show It

  In its focus on Abraham Lincoln's fight to pass the 13th Amendment, the staid and stirring 2012 biopic Lincoln glossed over the fact that the man wasn't actually 100% anti-slavery. Although he agreed that slavery wasn't the best look for America, he also wasn't very gung-ho about eradicating one of the country's most long-standing institutions. Even more surprising was the fact that he was actually pretty racist. He wrote:

  "There is a physical difference between the white and Black races that will for ever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality."

  The Great Emancipator's solution? Sending Black people to Liberia, Haiti, and Central America - basically anywhere outside the United States.
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  (#7) 'The Theory Of Everything' Glosses Over The Hawkings' Terrible Marriage Disintegration

  In 1999, Jane Hawking (the former wife of Stephen Hawking), released her 610-page memoir, Music to Move the Stars, and, in it, she recounts some of the darkest moments from her marriage to the genius. She describes Stephen Hawking as an "all-powerful emperor" and "masterful puppeteer" because of his incredibly large ego and the degree of control he exercised over not only their relationship but also on most of those around him. She also records the relationship between Stephen and his nurse, Elaine Mason, whom he would later marry, as well as her own affair with Jonathan Hellyer-Jones, whom she would also go on to marry, as well. 

  This account doesn't really jibe with the love story portrayed in the 2014 movie, which stars Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as Stephen and Jane Hawking. Instead, The Theory of Everythingcenters on their romance along with Stephen's genius and physical degeneration. The film primarily shows the two as a unit oriented against the world; it glosses over their mutual affairs; and it says nothing about the intense and well-documented abuse that Elaine has been accused of perpetuating against Stephen.
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  (#11) 'The Motorcycle Diaries' Flinched When It Came To Che Guevara's Racism

  In the actual, written, diary form of The Motorcycle Diaries, Ernesto "Che" Guevara includes a passage that details his thoughts on Black folks. At one point, he describes "[the] Blacks" as "those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of affinity with bathing."

  At another moment, he characterizes "the Black" as "indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink," whereas "the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations."

  Granted, scholars are in disagreement over whether this constitutes racism on Guevara's part or is more of an example of general "Argentinean superiority" that was prevalent among most people in Guevara's social class at the time. While this may seem like splitting hairs, one thing that's certain is that these reflections on Guevara's part don't make their way into the 2004 film, which sees Gael García Bernal starring as Guevara.

  Rather, his awakening to the conditions of the poor and disenfranchised around South America is the dominant stuff of the narrative.
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  (#3) 'The Miracle Worker' Ignores That Helen Keller Was Wildly Into Eugenics

  There's no way that The Miracle Worker, a 1962 film about tutor Anne Sullivan teaching Helen Keller about friendship, self-confidence, and hope, was not going to make audiences feel good. Helen Keller is considered to be one of the most heroic people of all time, and for good reason: though blind and deaf from a young age, she went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts and inspire people across the country through lectures and writings.

  Despite her own disadvantages, however, she still didn't believe that other disadvantaged people should be allowed to coexist with normal citizens. In the early 20th century, as the international public began to embrace eugenics - AKA the process of filtering out undesired traits from the gene pool through breeding and genetic experiments - Keller was one of the first to write:

  "It is the possibility of happiness, intelligence and power that give life its sanctity, and they are absent in the case of a poor, misshapen, paralyzed, unthinking creature.”

  She also added that allowing a "defective" child to die was simply a “weeding of the human garden that shows a sincere love of true life.” 

  Apparently, Helen Keller didn't want any competitors for the title of "most inspirational blind/deaf person in history." 
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  (#12) 'Get On Up' Left Out The Small Detail Of James Brown Stealing His Biggest Song

  The James Brown biopic Get On Up isn't a hagiography, as it doesn't shy away from James Brown's (played by Chadwick Boseman) history of marital assault by painting him as a saint. It does, however, gloss over the fact that he stole his biggest song from a girlfriend. Brown's ex Betty Jean Newsome took him to court over the fact that he lifted the main melody of "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" from a riff she sang during a car ride.

  Newsome won the lawsuit, but Brown never formally apologized. And neither did the film.

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