The Fantasy and Myths of Pirates in Film

Pirates depicted in media are nothing like how they actually acted back in their golden age. They are not exactly how we all view them from the franchise that monopolizes films on pirates which is The Pirates of the Caribbean.

Starting off they didn't use lingo what so ever. No pirate went around and said "arrgggggg"  In reality they talked like most British sailors at the time. Everyone may have also believed that all pirates flew the typical skull and cross bones flag when in actuality some may have flown that flag , but most pirates made their own designs to fly.

 Another disappointing fact to learn is that pirates never buried treasure. They knew they had a short life expectancy at the time and instead of burying the treasure they instead would spend whatever money they acquired as fast as they could. I media, stories and films pirates were said to walk the plank. This idea became imprinted in peoples minds. George Lucas took this concept in his film Return of the Jedi directed by Richard Marquand. Sadly this is also a myth. Pirates used the method known as Knee-hauling which pirates put other pirates or victims under the haul of a ship as torture.


Even though it is heartbreaking to discover that pirates that yelled about jars of dirt didn't exist. It is still important to respect the world and genre that this idea of romanticized pirates came from. If it wasn't for Robert Louis Stevenson the author of treasure island, Jack Sparrow would have never been created.