Outlander tartans: Questions

[freep]

To take an example from a slightly different genre of film, since the invention of moving pictures the depiction of Native Americans has been lamented long and loud by both Indians and Whites and with very good cause. The use of non-Native actors for Native characters has been condemned, also with good cause. So a movie comes along that employs Native American actors in appropriate roles, portrays a compassionate and reasonably historically accurate view of 1860s plains Indian culture and lifestyle. It is lauded as the best movie ever depicting Native/White interaction. At first. Then a couple years down the pike the criticisms creep in--this guy wouldn't have worn that color shirt, that guy didn't have the right beadwork, the other guy doesn't have the right uniform buttons, and my favorite: the actor in the lead role is not a Lakota but an Oneida and he's Canadian, not even an American!

C'mon.

We're all humans, as such we make mistakes. It's my thought that "Dances With Wolves" was the best, most sensitive and accurate movie about Native Americans to date. Did it have problems? Yes, with history, culturally and with regard to casting. The fact remains that it was a huge leap forward in the genre and paves the way for even greater accuracy and sensitivity in making such movies in future. I see the Outlander books and films in the same light.

Yes, in the Outlander series there are errors here and there, the lead actor is not a Highlander, various things aren't historically correct, the argot is not exactly that of the time (though I wonder what sort of original sources we might have for what a Highland accent sounded like in 1743), and so on. But it would seem to me that in light of many films portraying Scottish history this one is a step forward. They tried pretty hard and did a lot of things in an attempt at authenticity that could have been done much more inexpensively had they not. Again, not perfect, but a step in the right direction. Perhaps a little forbearance is in order when considering such moves in the correct direction and gentle correction rather than outright condemnation.

As a parthian shot, I'd note that not a one of us was actually on the scene in the mid-eighteenth century, many of the original sources are of suspect authenticity and/or accuracy and we'll never truly know what it was like to be a Scotsman during the Jacobite rising of '45. The best we can do is our best scholarship and that is not always perfect.