History Main / PoliticallyCorrectHistory

* In episode 3 of ''Anime/TheAmbitionOfOdaNobuna'', several characters talk of marriage. While they do talk about marrying for political gain and alliances, ultimately they conclude that it's more about love. While commoners may or may not have done this in the past (and certainly in Yoshiharu's timeline), back around this time period through much of the world nobility often married for political reasons, largely in an attempt to unite lands or nations together.

* In episode 3 of ''LightNovel/TheAmbitionOfOdaNobuna'', several characters talk of marriage. While they do talk about marrying for political gain and alliances, ultimately they conclude that it's more about love. While commoners may or may not have done this in the past (and certainly in Yoshiharu's timeline), back around this time period through much of the world nobility often married for political reasons, largely in an attempt to unite lands or nations together.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'': Discussed when [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld Hob Gadling]] criticizes everything while accompanying his current girlfriend to a Renaissance Fair. However, he also points out one aspect that ''isn't'' an example, telling his black girlfriend that ideas about racial supremacy and racial purity are a lot more recent that most people assume.

* ''Film/KingdomOfHeaven'' is essentially the tale of a bunch of 12th-century secular humanists fighting for peace and tolerance, opposed by [[KnightTemplar Templars]] both literal and figurative. Appropriately enough, one historical figure's name was changed from "Barisan" to "Godfrey", a homonym for his anachronistic stance on religion. Near the end of the film, Orlando Bloom's character gives a speech to the defenders of Jerusalem, in which he argues that the Christians have no special claim to the city above the claims of the Jews and Muslims. The population is shockingly open-minded about this statement. Just to make sure viewers got the point, all the priests are self-serving jerks, and the villains are turned into Templars, despite them having been secular nobles in RealLife. At one point a monk of UsefulNotes/TheKnightsHospitallers, heavily implied to be a case of an AngelUnaware to boot, straight-up tells the protagonist that God prefers "right action" to religion.

** Female tank crews for nations even though only the Soviets used them in real life.

* In ''VideoGame/SilentStorm'', both sides of UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo has men and women of all races serving together in all branches of the military. This would only be true for the USSR.

*** While many armies had non-white soldiers, they are overrepresented in multiplayer given how the American, British, French and German armies have at least one out of seven classes represented by a person of color. Most egregiously, the German Scout and Calvary classes are black, whereas there were only ''five'' recorded Afro-Germans in the Kaiser's army in Europe during World War I.[[note]]Germans had the Askari regiments... but those fought in Africa only, and the game has no such map. In contrast, the British and French historically had more non-white soldiers because they controlled the sea lanes and thus were able to ship over soldiers from their colonies.[[/note]]

*** The game's Discovery Tour, essentially a guided educational tour through the game's world, makes mention of the fact this. Near the Library of Alexandria, a class group of both genders can be seen learning. The narrator says that they know this isn't historically accurate, but they decided they'd rather be politically correct than historically accurate. The fact that this rather defeats the point of the mode's educational nature isn't mentioned.

See also PopularHistory, FairForItsDay, VideoGameHistoricalRevisionism, EternalSexualFreedom, AluminumChristmasTrees, WeAllLiveInAmerica, AmericaWonWorldWarII, BlackVikings, ColorblindCasting, HistoricalHeroUpgrade, HistoricalVillainUpgrade, and HistoricalVillainDowngrade.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman'': Discussed when [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld Hob Gadling]] criticizes everything while accompanying his current girlfriend to a Renaissance Fair. However, he also points out one aspect that ''isn't'' an example, telling his black girlfriend that ideas about racial supremacy and racial purity are a lot more recent that most people assume.

* In ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009'', Rachel [=McAdams=] plays Irene Adler. Adler has no problem running around London in very tight pants, and is depicted as something of a Victorian era Catwoman. (In the original story, she goes out ''disguised as'' a boy, in male dress, and her impressive talent is carrying this off well enough to fool Holmes.)

* Sir Creator/ArthurConanDoyle was incredibly progressive for his time, advocating interracial marriages and liberal divorce laws, in a time when both were borderline illegal and even talking about them without showing signs of repulsion could cause one to be ostracized; however, similarly to ''Literature/UncleTomsCabin'', "[[Literature/SherlockHolmes A Scandal in Bohemia]]" has been misinterpreted nowadays by some as being denigrating towards women, because it shows "the Woman" who is able to outwit a man as someone remarkable -- never mind that man was Sherlock Freaking Holmes. Therefore, in the [[Film/SherlockHolmes2009 2009 movie]], Irene Adler went from the only woman able to outwit Holmes (three unnamed men are also mentioned in the books) to the only ''person'' to be able to outwit Holmes. Part of the reason she outwitted him was that his plan to beat her basically relied on her being an easily-led moron, and he found it remarkable that she wasn't, so in essence Holmes lost because his attitude was biased in a sexist manner.

* [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]] in ''Series/{{MASH}}''. Black people are referred to by the historically correct term "Negroes" on the show, even by the good guys (this was rather less politically incorrect when the show premiered, in the early 1970s, than it is now, the shift from "Negro" to "black" having taken place in the late sixties). However, later episodes gave Major Houlihan second-wave feminist views, even though the show is set more than ten years before ''The Feminine Mystique'' was first published. You could chalk this up to Houlihan being ahead of her time, except that the episode "Inga", written by Alan Alda as [[WriterOnBoard a love letter to the feminist movement]], seems to have all the characters acting as though the 1970s women’s movement already happened, breaking any illusion that the show is really set in the early 1950s. (That episode won an Emmy, of course.) There's also the black Dr. Jones, who was {{Brother Chuck}}ed halfway through the first season, supposedly because the producers discovered that no black doctors served in the Korean War (they were wrong: the real M*A*S*H unit that was the basis of the original novel and by proxy the series itself had a black surgeon among its medical staff). However, it was played as a joke that he was nicknamed "Spearchucker" because he threw the javelin in college. Of course, it was also tongue in cheek, in that everyone knew it also had racial connotations. In another episode, Hawkeye permanently turns down imminent sex with a beautiful woman, because she complains about "those gooks (Koreans) marrying our (white) people." He gives her a speech as well. In another episode, Hawkeye "schools" a redneck soldier who complains about getting a transfusion of "black blood," by painting him brown and claiming that he ordered watermelon for dinner, ''etc''. Not to mention repeating the urban legend that Dr. Charles Drew, the African-American surgeon who started the US blood bank, was refused care at a Southern hospital after being in a car accident and thus died from his injuries (false, though he ''did'' protest against segregation of the blood supply).

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'': The film was criticized for including Gabe Jones as part of the Howling Commandos, due to the fact that the army was still segregated at that point in history. However it's largely moot anyway since the Howling Commandos were handpicked by ComicBook/CaptainAmerica in the first place: strike forces assembled from different army units are "temporary" and don't have to adhere to certain regimental regulations, so Cap may have found a good use for LoopholeAbuse. Otherwise, the film does a good job of averting this. Dum Dum is suspicious of Jim Morita since the latter is a Japanese-American and the lyrics to Cap's USO show song call the Germans "krauts".

* ''Film/KingdomOfHeaven'' is essentially the tale of a bunch of 12th-century secular humanists fighting for peace and tolerance, opposed by [[KnightTemplar Templars]] both literal and figurative. Appropriately enough, one historical figure's name was changed from "Barisan" to "Godfrey", a homonym for his anachronistic stance on religion. Near the end of the film, Orlando Bloom's character gives a speech to the defenders of Jerusalem, in which he argues that the Christians have no special claim to the city above the claims of the Jews and Muslims. The population is shockingly open-minded about this statement. Just to make sure viewers got the point, all the priests are self-serving jerks, and the villains are turned into Templars, despite them having been secular nobles in RealLife. At one point a monk of the UsefulNotes/TheKnightsHospitallers, heavily implied to be a case of an AngelUnaware to boot, straight-up tells the protagonist that God prefers "right action" to religion.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfKells'' is set in a monastery in 9th Century Ireland and features three side characters that are, while never textually stated to be such, are clearly Italian, African and Chinese. An Italian monk hanging out in 8th Century Ireland is certainly possible, though still a bit off. An African, probably Nigerian seems highly unlikely, but a Chinese monk traveling that distance and even being Christian in the first place seems downright impossible.

* ''VisualNovel/MurderByNumbers'' is set in 1996, and yet gay people like KC and the drag queen culture are treated with a lot more respect than you'd think from that decade.

* Several attractions at Ride/DisneyThemeParks are like this, most notably ''Ride/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'', which was actually {{bowdlerized}} into being more politically correct, with aspects like pirates chasing women and the Wench Auction being altered or removed. This is probably justified, as one attraction that isn't, ''The American Adventure'', was loaded with UnfortunateImplications.

** An earlier episode, "Legends," before the series changed names, had some of the League transported into a dimension that bore resemblance to an in-show comic book (it's theorized that the creators of said comic had a subconscious link to that universe and used what they thought were original ideas for the comic) and pair up with equivalents of the ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica, who were of course still in UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks mentally. TheChick invites Hawkgirl to help cook. And when Green Lantern's childhood hero complimented him with "[[YouAreACreditToYourRace You're a credit to your people]], son!", Green Lantern could only reply, "Uh... yeah." It was an incredibly subtle bit of animation where you could see John's thoughts written all over his face... he obviously knew that the other man wasn't ''trying'' to be insulting, he just came from an era where statements like that probably ''were'' the equivalent of being racially sensitive. (The fact that the present day Green Lantern did not meet an actual [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] DC superhero but the ''equivalent'' enabled the script to get away with more. Actually, an earlier draft of the script had just that scenario, but you tend to think that Creator/DCComics might have a problem with ''any'' incarnation of one of their superheroes portrayed as a racist.)

* Enforced in the ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6102321/1/NGE_A_Century_Apart A Century Apart]]''. Due to the death toll of the Second Impact in 1900, armies from all parts of the world, including UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan, are forced to accept women, but the older officers are still grumpy about this. If the Second Impact didn't happen, there would be no difference.

* Sometimes-averted-sometimes-not in ''Series/{{MASH}}''. Black people are referred to by the historically correct term "Negroes" on the show, even by the good guys (this was rather less politically incorrect when the show premiered, in the early 1970s, than it is now, the shift from "Negro" to "black" having taken place in the late sixties). However, later episodes gave Major Houlihan second-wave feminist views, even though the show is set more than ten years before ''The Feminine Mystique'' was first published. You could chalk this up to Houlihan being ahead of her time, except that the episode "Inga", written by Alan Alda as [[WriterOnBoard a love letter to the feminist movement]], seems to have all the characters acting as though the 1970s women’s movement already happened, breaking any illusion that the show is really set in the early 1950s. (That episode won an Emmy, of course.) There's also the black Dr. Jones, who was {{Brother Chuck}}ed halfway through the first season, supposedly because the producers discovered that no black doctors served in the Korean War (they were wrong: the real M*A*S*H unit that was the basis of the original novel and by proxy the series itself had a black surgeon among its medical staff). However, it was played as a joke that he was nicknamed "Spearchucker" because he threw the javelin in college. Of course, it was also tongue in cheek, in that everyone knew it also had racial connotations. In another episode, Hawkeye permanently turns down imminent sex with a beautiful woman, because she complains about "those gooks (Koreans) marrying our (white) people." He gives her a speech as well. In another episode, Hawkeye "schools" a redneck soldier who complains about getting a transfusion of "black blood," by painting him brown and claiming that he ordered watermelon for dinner, ''etc''. Not to mention repeating the urban legend that Dr. Charles Drew, the African-American surgeon who started the US blood bank, was refused care at a Southern hospital after being in a car accident and thus died from his injuries (false, though he ''did'' protest against segregation of the blood supply).

** Solomon is shown treating Sarah as an equal and a friend. And although he lacks the vocabulary for it, he shows a 21st century view of homosexuality. [[spoiler:This is a BaitAndSwitch to the viewer (who probably until then assumed they would be like him if they lived back then) for when he is revealed to be the BigBad]]

* The 90s ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFour'' cartoon had a TimeTravel episode where the heroes are transported to ancient Greece during the battle of Marathon. The Thing asks whose side they're on and Reed Richards responds, "The Persians were brutal tyrants, while the Athenians invented democracy." While neither side was a bastion of liberty by today's standards, participation in Athenian democracy was denied to women, foreigners, and slaves (''i.e''., over two-thirds of the population). Meanwhile, while the Persians were conquerors and slavers they were conspicuous for how they tolerated the customs and institutions of the peoples they conquered -- their general policy was that as long as they paid proper tribute to the empire and didn't rebel, their conquered states could self-govern, maintain their traditions and beliefs, and generally go on much as they had before being conquered. This is generally believed to have been a major contributor to the success of their empire, as it tended to make rebellion a much less attractive proposition than it might otherwise be.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' has this ''in spades''. As well as [[AgeLift aging up]] its title character into a nubile, supermodel-like woman, the film also HEAVILY glosses over some of the more heinous elements of the conflict between the British colonists and the Native Americans.

* ''WesternAnimation/Pocahontas'' has this ''in spades''. As well as [[AgeLift aging up]] its title character into a nubile, supermodel-like woman, the film also HEAVILY glosses over some of the more heinous elements of the conflict between the British colonists and the Native Americans.