Time for an Update

Filming of Monumental Myths began September 11, 2001 and continued for eight years. Since the film’s initial release in 2009, the themes of historical censorship and deeply-rooted myths and biases remain relevant. And responses are being expressed by Americans whose voices, histories, and identities have been misrepresented, and whose lives have been deeply affected. In response to the current national conscience, in 2023 — twenty-two years after location production began — a remastered and updated version of the film is now streaming on Prime Video and other platforms.

 

Read the Press Release

 

Watch the Trailer

 

Watch the Movie

 

 

 

 

Streaming on PBS.org and the PBS app

Check local TV listings for broadcast.

 

Educational Licenses may also be purchased by clicking the Rent from this site link above.

 

Amazon Prime

 

 

 

 

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MONUMENTAL MYTHS is a 51-minute documentary that exposes the perpetuated myths of America’s historic sites and markers. Carved in rock or cast in bronze, monuments are intended – by those who commissioned them – to impart a sense of authority and an unquestionable truth about the people and the events they commemorate. Travel across the country in a 1965 Airstream trailer as filmmaker Tom Trinley, supported by historians James Loewen, Howard Zinn and Lonnie Bunch, unveils the “other side of the story” at some of our nation’s best-known sites giving voice to those whose perspectives would not otherwise be heard and providing a clearer picture of America’s past and its influence on the present.

 

The film was inspired by best-selling books Lies Across America and A People’s History of the United States.

 

 

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

Many of America’s monuments tell half-truths—or in some cases—outright lies. Many history textbooks follow the same pattern. But, I wasn’t taught this in school. I learned the whole story of our country’s past several years after graduating from college while doing research for my very first documentary series, which focused on American environmental issues.

 

Monuments—from the Latin monere, to remind—are made larger-than-life of long-lasting, solid materials such as granite and bronze for a reason: to impart an unquestionable truth about the past and to literally write a single-sided version of an event in stone so future generations won’t change the storyline. This seemed such a contradiction in a country whose democracy is dependent on the free speech of multiple viewpoints. I was compelled to make this film because I was both offended and concerned that special interest groups were presenting this propaganda as fact—and on public land for that matter.

 

Multiple Perspectives 

In the film, I have attempted to present multiple perspectives so that viewers might begin to understand that history, like the people that make it, is complex. Issues aren’t as simple as textbooks and monuments present them to be. In fact, many textbooks and monuments don’t even attempt to describe the issue. They simply offer names, dates and places—an easy but unconstructive way of avoiding our sometimes-unpleasant past. Yet, many of the issues represented by statues, plaques, and historic sites are unresolved today. But you wouldn’t know that by reading the text or inscriptions, or listening to the tour guide’s scripted presentation.

 

Un-American

During the making and marketing of this film some people accused me of being “un-American.” I found it a paradox to be called un-American for adding back to history the voices of those who have been intentionally, or unconsciously, censored out by ill-informed or non-objective “historians” and civic groups. Being un-American, I believe, is to do nothing to build on our great country—to sit back and to criticize those who try to invite all Americans to secure their inalienable rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” as articulated in the Declaration of Independence.

 

It’s Upsetting

The truth, hidden long enough, can be upsetting. It was for me. Ironically, the truth may even appear to be a lie because it contradicts the stories you’ve been told and the world you have lived in your whole life. How can that version of the story be true when it’s nothing at all like the story that I was taught?

 

But how can we resolve current social problems — or even debate about them — if we deny or ignore the decisions and events that created these problems ever occurred in the first place? When America’s monuments (and textbooks) remind us of our true, shared history—the good and the bad— they will force us, in author and sociologist James Loewen’s words, “to come face-to-face with the truth and then we can better deal with it and each other and create the America of the future.”

 

Tom Trinley

 

For a Screening Guide and Additional Resources on monuments, click here.

 

Listen to the closing credits rap, “My Country.”