The movie portrayed the character based on Bryan as a complete buffoon. Bryan's death was also portrayed as happening in the courthouse, when in fact he was an elderly man suffering from diabetes who died peacefully in his sleep.
American history books usually describe this case as a major defeat for Fundamentalists. ;<ref>The trial "marked a decisive setback for fundamentalism," says ''The Enduring Vision, Fifth Edition,'' Chapter 23: The 1920s: Coping with Change, Paul S. Boyer, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Clifford E. Clark, Jr., Carleton College; et al. (a commonly used American history textbook for Advanced Placement US History classes).</ref>in fact, the successful defense of the law enabled Tennessee to keep the racist evolutionary textbook out of its schools, to avoid teaching the falsehoods of evolution (such as the [[Piltdown Man]] featured in the trial textbook) to schoolchildren, and to permit the State (which still rejects a state income tax) to grow in [[conservatism]] to this day. Liberals [[Al Gore]], [[John Kerry]] and [[Barack Obama]] all failed to carry the state in recent presidential elections.
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