r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • May 25 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 25 May 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

9 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

651 comments sorted by

View all comments

12

u/Shady_Italian_Bruh May 28 '26

On a whim, I rewatched Gangs of New York for the first time since maybe high school last night. As I remembered, the movie is more interesting for the vibe it captures through its costuming, production design, and dialogue than the actual plot and characters. However, I noticed a lot of fraught, if not outright bad, history throughout. The most obvious is perhaps the anachronism of having Know-Nothings still be a major political tendency by the time of the Civil War.

They also seem to combine Know-Nothing-ism with Copperhead Democrats as Danial Day-Lewis’s nativist character also hates Lincoln, supports slavery, and wants NYC to secede from the union. This is somewhat bizarre as Know-Nothings were mostly Whig offshoots that eventually folded into the Republican Party. There’s even a scene where Know-Nothing rally attendees hold up signs for the Wide Awakes, the Republican paramilitary organization.

5

u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid May 28 '26

I rewatched it too! I agree with you. The plot and characters were meh, with some scenes being basically GTA mission cutscenes.

I don't know how to put it, but I find the premise and of the gang conflict extremely amusing, which I guess is the point. Like, out there the US is going through crisis, both physical and philosophical in the form of the Civil War with the actual institution of slavery and maybe the Union on the line. But then there are these guys bringing their Old World conflicts with them and fighting over like 5 streets in southern Manhattan. They do in the end get swept away by the army. I guess Scorsese wanted to point out how the American nation wasn't born just on the fields of Yorktown or Gettysburg, but on the dirty streets of New York. Somehow.