Vi gör film, inte historia! : En filmanalys om historicitet i filmerna Gladiator och Troja samt dess funktion i undervisningen

Sammanfattning: The antiquity period has just undergone a big debate in Sweden, the debate started by Skolverkets proposal to remove the antiquity period from being taught in Swedish schools. The proposal did not go through; however, it did start a debate on time-management. How do we fully optimize our teaching hours? This study’s aim is to find out if motion pictures can work as a way to teach antiquity in school. Are motion picture movies a good way for students to understand the historical time called the antiquity period? Antiquity movies, as any historical movies, include a lot of historical errors, but does these errors matter? This study has been conducted by comparing and analysing the movies Gladiator and Troy, and by comparing their themes, errors and overall production, to see if they are valid motion pictures for students to study in history classes. The study is based on Vygotsky’s’ theory “development-zones” which is originated from the sociocultural perspective and, in short, means that a person (or student in this case) who has knowledge about something that another student doesn’t have, teaches that student who is lacking in knowledge. This could lead to that a newly taught student teaches another student about that newly found knowledge, or in some cases even a teacher. Historical errors in movies and development-zones therefore goes hand in hand, due to its nature to be corrected or explained. Besides the development-zones theories such as history-consciousness, history- use and meditative tools are also implemented on the analysis. The method used to analyse the empiricism in this study is constructed by Andersson & Hedling and relies on the person conducting the study to present relevant data for the study in the text. By applying these theories, I noticed that, even though Gladiator and Troy includes a lot of factual errors, they don’t matter too much in the aspect of learning, because if they are approached by the teachers in a correct manner, they become harmless. By using delevopment-zones, students and teachers are able to learn from each other which is an environment to strive for in classrooms.