If you told a group of second graders to write down the most bizarre story that they could imagine, then took that script and inserted a Lifetime movie plot filled with too much sex and death, gave it a good director and then patched up a few of the gapingly inaccurate crevices in the plot with some mildly correct facts, you would have produced the new Netflix show “Freud.”

The German show, which came out on March 23, takes place in 19th century Vienna and follows a young Sigmund Freud, a psychic and a police officer, as they attempt to solve a murder together. The 8-episode series lasts approximately 6.98 hours, so it only takes about a good night’s sleep to watch. Overall it’s a typical period crime show, excepting the particularly skilled cinematography. The directing of the show itself proved admirable with an engaging plot, plenty of riveting suspense, a well-pieced together soundtrack and superlative acting, especially for a crime show with so many emotional and visceral moments.

“Freud” has immense potential to be critically acclaimed but is held back by one fatal flaw: it changes history. In fact, it erases history, paints over the paper and then scribbles in some gratuitous, romanticized lies. It doesn’t just tweak some dates for brevity or smudge a couple of details for the sake of clarity like many historical series do; it completely falsifies history and glamorizes an extremely problematic historical figure. The creators of “Freud” claim that it is a historical series; however, I must passionately disagree, as this disgrace of a show represents nothing more than a cheap sell-out filled with too many problematic issues to count.

The show depicts Sigmund Freud as a witch hunter slash genius-doctor using hypnosis, seances and mediums to solve a murder. It has alternate realms filled with bloody demons, torture chambers in the Vienna Canal, foot fetishes, father issues and a cannibalism-prone opera singer. Newsflash: none of this happened! Every character’s name besides Freud’s was fabricated, and none of the events in the show actually transpired. Practically the only part that the show got right about Freud’s life was the fact that he heavily used cocaine, but even then the show’s portrayal is inaccurate, as his cocaine usage first began in 1894 and the show takes place in 1886.

The glamorization or erasure of history crosses a dangerous line, a line that, once crossed, can never be undone, for its precedent will impact everyone involved on a massive scale. The expunging of history has dire consequences, for it perpetuates both disregard for those affected by heinous historical events and figures and an atmosphere of continued bias and hate. For example, the U.S.’s attempted deletion of the Trail of Tears, Japanese American internment camps during World War II, LGBTQ+ history, the CIA’s crack and LSD usage scandals, years of police brutality against minorities and much more in its schools’ history books has fostered a perilous, if not fatal, environment of ignorance in the American public.

This show depicts Sigmund Freud as an altruistic, kind and empathetic man who always acted fairly and treated all genders, races and sexual orientations equally. However, I hate to break it to the creators of this show, but the father of psychoanalysis and modern psychology was actually kind of a terrible person, not the idealized figure that was presented in their show.

Sigmund Freud claimed many erroneous, prejudiced things in the name of science, setting back the field of psychology for decades. He claimed that homosexuality in men is neurotic yet non-problematic, but homosexuality in women is a gateway to mental illness. He claimed that men are inherently more moral because of their castration complex and should always be given authority. Women, therefore, are inherently amoral and conniving, as they have nothing to castrate. He stated that gay women cannot be led by a husband or father because of their relationship with another woman and must be considered mentally unstable. He claimed that science stated that men were superior to women even though he never conducted a single experiment.

There are also records indicating that he falsified patient records to fit his theories, most notably his Oedipal complex theory, a theory that describes a child’s psychosexual development being dependent on a child’s feeling of desire for an opposite-sex parent. Freud came up with this theory to hide allegations of abuse, as many of his female patients had recalled being molested by their fathers at a young age. Instead of coming forward with his findings in his report, he stated that the female patients’ recollections must have been unconscious wishes that they created out of sexual desire for their fathers and that the abuse never actually occurred, thus resulting in the Oedipal complex.

Despite almost every single one of Freud’s claims being debunked, many people (and psychologists) still believe in his theories, and his flagitious claims continue to harm even today. The fact that “Freud” completely erased his sins and even attempted to show anecdotal proof that one of Freud’s theories regarding gay men’s sexuality stemming from their father’s behavior is beyond reproachable and simply impermissible. This show should not have fabricated the truth, and it should not have glorified a harmful historical figure. The fact that Netflix allowed it to air is unthinkable.