Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 10 Apr 2015 at 03:49:54 (UTC)

Original – Animated film The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. Two submarines torpedo the RMS Lusitania in 1915, killing 1 200. Probably the first animated documentary, this was the longest animated film made until Disney's feature-length films of the 1930s.

Reason: A short film created to exploit the international backlash against the Imperial German Navy in the aftermath of the 7 May 1915 attack by U-20 Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger that left 1,198 of the passengers dead. This animated film The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. In the film two submarines torpedo the RMS Lusitania in 1915, killing 1 200. It is thought that this is the first animated documentary, and at the time it was released this was the longest animated film made until Disney's feature-length films of the 1930s.
Articles in which this image appears: Animated documentary, Sinking of the RMS Lusitania, The Sinking of the Lusitania, Winsor McCay
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/History/World War I
Creator: Winsor McCay

Support as nominator – TomStar81 (Talk) 03:49, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think Curly mentioned that he'd gotten a Winsor McCay DVD with these films. Any news on that? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:34, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'd love to support, but is this the best copy available? As is, it appears to be a mish-mash composited of clips from several prints, some more worn and scratched than others, and a few titles are even in negative form. I doubt this was intentional, originally. --Janke | Talk 06:19, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- If Curly's got the DVD, that would probably be the best copy available. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:38, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – Interesting propaganda artifact, but must oppose due to historical inaccuracy: The myth of a second torpedo, and even a second U-boat, misleadingly propagated by the British Admiralty at the time, has been debunked in recent decades by historical research and underwater exploration. (Theories regarding the "second explosion" have included secretly shipped munitions and, more recently, a boiler or steam-pipe rupture. Neither hypothesis has been proven conclusively.) Sca (talk) 15:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You're opposing the promotion of a copy of a historically significant and widely studied work because the work itself presents an incorrect view of the world? If this was being used to illustrate the sinking itself, perhaps (just as we might worry about The Creation of Adam in an article about human evolution...), but surely the EV comes from the article on the film itself? Josh Milburn (talk) 16:37, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Josh, understand your rationale – but still oppose FPs that tend to perpetuate historical distortions, often accepted uncritically by general audiences. (Would not classify this film as a "documentary." But this isn't the place to rehash the Lusitania episode.) Sca (talk) 17:34, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 03:51, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]