This is all nonsense, of course. The fact that FDR may have gotten it on with a mistress or two doesn’t justify the inference that he was Ben Roethlisberger version 1.0. We need to keep in mind that FDR came from a time and place in which sex was strictly behind closed doors. There was no Spice Channel or internet porn, or even the Starr Report. The kind of sexual encounter described in that excerpt would have been completely outrageous and therefore not at all true to his actual character.

Most fillmakers are actually a lot more subtle about this. A favorite tactic in modern historical dramas is to show a LOT of cussing. Even “Lincoln” did this, although I thought it was otherwise great in terms of presenting us with a plausible vision of 1865 Washington. While I don’t doubt there was plenty of profanity in the old days, I think it was probably a lot less common to hear four-letter words in normal conversation. IOW, standards have decorum have changed. And that makes sense, actually, because a person 75 years ago would have NEVER heard a four-letter word uttered on the radio or in any movie, or even seen it in print. However, today’s movie directors will typically portray historical characters using bad language as if it were just as ubiquitous as it is today, simply to connect with modern audiences.

You see this trend in other ways, too. If you look at old photos or movies, you rarely see a lady in a particularly flattering bra. In fact, a lot of women’s clothing (at least up to the 1930s) really looks bad to my “modern” eye. But Hollywood will always tailor the clothes to make the girls look great and sexy, no matter what the era. (Note: This is not a complaint.) And of course she’ll have perfect hair, makeup, and teeth, even though I would imagine it was nearly impossible for women to achieve such looks in the era being portrayed on film. Again, it’s more important to the filmmakers to make the characters relatable to modern audiences than it is to get the history right.

But it was seared, seared I tell you, into my memory.

You’re absolutely right. Thanks for the clarification.

And that would be the Hoover Administration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

Just as Tina Fey’s pretend quote from Sarah Palin about seeing Russia from her house replaced the actual quote from the real Sarah, so Oliver Stone’s movies have been regarded by way too many people as factual documentaries

I have been complaining locally about this since the early “docudrama” starring Barry Bostwick as George Washington. It is especially those with less than critical minds who walk away believing that George Washington, FDR or Sarah Palin said those things. No! As we here know, in most cases a Hollywood writer wrote those things.

Remember the response to the premier of The Exorcist? They claim that visits to psycologists and psychiatrists increased noticeably in the short term after the movie premiered. This further reinforces the power that the optics of movies have. How many people, even of critical mind, naturally remind themselves that a movie is story-telling and nothing more?

So my comment wasn’t a knock on FDR (I’ll save the knocks for Social Security), but to point out the difference in treament had a Republican done anything remotely similar.

Plus, if the later failure to treat with antibiotics had happened under Republicans, that fact would have been trumpeted to the skies.

Despite my simplistic take, I think the point remains: had this started under a Republican Administration, that fact would be blazened across the sky as a damning indictment (regardless of how innocuous and well-meant it was at the time).