Let me start this with a short story.

I enjoy Natalie Portman as an actress, so that led me to watch “The Other Boleyn Girl,” also starring, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana. The movie is set in 16th century England and focuses on sisters Mary and Anne Boleyn and their competition to win the heart of King Henry VIII.

I fell in love with the movie. After watching it, I discovered the Showtime program “The Tudors,” which follows the life of King Henry VIII and his six wives, Anne Boleyn taking up the majority of the show’s four seasons.

From there, my fascination with Anne Boleyn took off. I ended up taking a history course where I was able to write a research paper focused on the infamous Queen of England. I thought the paper would be a breeze because I knew so much about her. I was way off.

While doing my research, I discovered how different Anne Boleyn was from how she is portrayed in both modern and historical forms of entertainment. I felt cheated. I felt that her real journey and personality were fascinating enough, that writers and directors didn’t need to change her so drastically.

Once I realized this about Anne Boleyn, I realized that this was true for many different forms of entertainment that are “based on a true story.” In all reality, a movie or novel just needs to have the names of real people and a general summary of a story, and they can take off from there and completely change the real facts.

What is this doing to people who invest their time into these movies and books? Sure, it may be entertaining, but it’s not “the true story” that it was advertised as. It is a lie.

All the information I found about Anne Boleyn, I found mostly through articles and books for the sake of my research paper. But in reality, primary sources and evidence about her was available with a simple Google search.

I understand that some blanks need to be filled in historical novels, and most authors will provide their sources and differentiate between fact and fiction. It is up to the reader to read through those authors’ notes and educate themselves on the real history.

Trivializing true stories to make them more entertaining makes consumers ignorant. Doing a simple internet search is the difference between an ignorant consumer and an educated one.