100 Thoughts: History Channel and Atlantis 11/100

[tari_roo]

The other day I watched a history channel programme on Atlantis - mostly because I have a lingering love for Atlantis ;) and my love affair with history is fairly epic.

However, the History Channel and I don't exactly see eye to eye on its programming. Initially I thought the history channel would be the bees knees and I would spend hours trawling through the shows until I hit all the reruns. Alas, this was not to be for one sad fact. I am a bit of a snob when it comes to history (see above love affair) and I tend to balk and get irritated at the style of the majority of programmes. By this I mostly mean that the show is geared towards the mass uneducated public, which is all well and fine and as it should be, but as a result, the producers of these shows favour a lot of repetition and over dramatisation and the 'impressive voice over' narrator and generally trying to make the dry historical facts as exciting and entertaining as possible. It just generally tends to annoying me instead.

And the show on Atlantis is a perfect example of this. I have heard most of the theories as to where Atlantis may have been, and I liked the indepth look on the evidence for the Minoan civilization to be 'Atlantis' but the way the programme positioned itself, it was like watching 'CNN and a Breaking News story!" *ugh* Yes, folks, discoveries made in 1900 and 1963 were 'new' evidence and the history channel team of experts were only 'now' discovering this and that and ... I was rolling my eyes. And that is what frustrates me about the format of so many of the shows - trying to grab a modern audiences' attention and using... irritating methods to do so. I would so prefer to presented with the facts as they are.. that back in the 1900s so archaelogists found the Minoans, oh and btw, ole Plato who was writing about Atlantis was recording a general urban legend of his day as told to his people for centuries by the Egyptians. Don't coat it in 'amazing, never before seen' colours just to keep me watching - I was interested before.

*sigh* I guess I shouldn't complain - better some form of interest in history exist than complete apathy. I just long for a better format and style of story telling, I suppose.

Comments

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Yes to everything you said about the history channel. Plus, on top of everything else, the sensationalism and etc means it often is bad history, and even setting aside that, there are frequent gross characterizations and oversimplifications. And popular history doesn't have to be that way. PBS has stellar history programs directed at mass audiences. Secrets of the Dead, Nova, American Experience, Frontline (though it usually is through the lens of some current issue), to say nothing of the legion of historical programs that aren't done under the banner of a series (they had a *great* one on the Roman Baths back in the early part of the 00s)...none of them using that garbage McHistory style, never treating the audience as idiots, and usually being pretty careful with their research and even showcasing some of the debates in scholarship. (And not the this side thinks its REAL, this side thinks its FAKE kind of stuff...more like, if they're talking about a text that gives insight into an ancient culture's view of ABC, they'll talk to professor XYZ, who will say that she thinks the text was meant ironically, and thus must be interpreted differently, and then they'll talk to professor QRS, who thinks it is meant as part of a larger program of establishing the writer's bonafides, and so on).

Of course, I have noticed that PBS has slowly been sliding in a cable-channel like direction in the last few years, but mostly superficially. It's a little disappointing, but they're still miles and miles and miles above the cable shows.

[tari-roo.livejournal.com]

I am glad to hear that there is better programming out there :) Just a pity it doesn't show here but maybe I can download it.... *ponders*

And what you describe sounds PERFECT - just what you should get in a show exploring history because it is about theories and ideas not... 'this is fact with no alternatives'. History is all about who is telling the story, why, what was their view point and most importantly who thought differently.

*pokes History Channel*