Can reenactment be like paprika? -Gavin Owens

I think that reenactment in film can only be about as accurate as historical fiction. Personally, I love the reenacted scenes because it adds a breath of life into what otherwise might be a “stale” kind of documentary. It makes sense that the History Channel, which is still a business, wants to create something that will appeal to a wide audience.
A historical fiction can portray famous figures in history, historical vernacular, customs, settings, events, etc. It can only portray these things using the present day knowledge of what happened and who lived it. Naturally as a writer you will have to make-up a lot to fill in the knowledge gaps. You may add some interesting side plots that never really happened, but are quite “plausible”. Yet, everyone seems to know they are reading fiction when they read a historical fiction. When you have a reenactment in video form, which is fiction wrapped in reality -just like a historical fiction, then you may run into trouble. It's quite possible that as we approach mediums of communication increasingly similar to what we perceive as reality then more people are likely to accept it as true. This is the danger of reenactment. It's not true, it's a good guess with a spice of dramatization. I don't think I have to convince everybody that rewriting history or misrepresenting history is a terrible thing. Reenactment can be relatively benign or it can be devastating on a persons perspective of history. I would say staying in the “benign” zone is where most people stay and where it is acceptable to stay.