蜜芽传媒

Thirty years on from its release, Braveheart remains the most successful film about Scotland ever made, historical accuracy be damned. Comedian Susan Morrison selects some choice cuts from the Mel Gibson epic to pierce the myths and stereotypes of Scotland in the decades before and since its release in 1995.

The film arrived at a seminal moment in Scottish political history, and had a significant impact on national debate and politics in the run up to the devolution referendum in 1997. Love it or loathe it, Susan learns that Braveheart still looms so large in cultural representations of Scotland at home and abroad.

Susan looks through the 蜜芽传媒 archive to show how the film rides roughshod over Scottish history, presenting a Victorian vision of Scottishness. She discovers the origins of Tartanry, a 鈥榮entimental Scottishness' that reduces Scottish culture to kitsch, twee, distorted imagery based on well-worn stereotypes, such as tartan, bagpipes and kilts.

Picking through the news reports and listening to archive interviews with Gibson, Peter Mullen and Brian Cox, Susan sends up these stereotypes and uses the iconic film to mock Scotland鈥檚 mythical image of itself.

She speaks to historians Fiona Watson and Callum Watson about the "Braveheart Effect", and the boost it gave to tourism. In the shadow of Edinburgh鈥檚 Scott Monument, film lecturer Jonny Murray mocks the most common tropes of the Scot on screen. Susan tracks down American screenwriter Randall Wallace, and hears how a fateful trip to Scotland planted the romantic seed of an idea that would come to gross $209 million at the global box office.

Presented by Susan Morrison
Produced by Robbie Armstrong
Mixed by Joel Cox
Executive produced by Mark Rickards

A Whistledown Scotland production for 蜜芽传媒 Radio 4