Inherit the Wind

Inherit the Wind is a fictionalized, distorted account of the Scopes Monkey Trial first presented as a play and later made into a movie.

Fictional Character	Historical person
the Reverend Jeremiah Brown	(fictious)
Brown's persecuted daughter, Rachel	(fictious)
Matthew Harrison Brady	William Jennings Bryan
Henry Drummond	Clarence Darrow
Bert Cates	John Scopes
E.K. Hornbeck	H.L. Mencken

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Fabrications in the movie include:

Bryan’s movie character betrays the trust of Scopes’s girlfriend, who is the local preacher’s daughter, and who is shattered by the breach of confidence. ‘Bryan’ is presented as a harsh and desperate man willing even to ‘sell out’ an innocent girl to achieve victory. In reality Scopes did not even have a girlfriend.

Distorting and parodying Christian morality, Bryan’s movie character claims that sexual intercourse is the ‘original sin’. In reality, there was however no mention made about sex at all during Darrow’s examination of Bryan.

Bryan’s character was portrayed as having a ‘head-in-the-sand’ approach to life by refusing even to read Darwin’s writings. In fact, Bryan was highly educated and had discussed Darwin’s books with leading evolutionists.

In real life, Scopes was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine, which Bryan charitably offered to pay on his behalf. The play however, has ‘Bryan’ protesting that the fine ought to be much harsher.

In the fabricated closing scenes, ‘Bryan’ is portrayed as a defeated and broken man, insanely reciting Scripture in a sweat-laden frenzy of madness, before dramatically dying in the courtroom. He is looked upon with pity by the calm and reasonable evolutionists, and those gathered from the press.

The message in the film was clear: To portray those who accept evolution as being progressive truth-seekers, unshackled by false old religious ideas, and full of common sense. But Christians were portrayed as dishonest and hypocritical, or as ignorant yokels who deny the truth of progress occuring all around them, preferring to remain attached to quaint old traditions. [1]