When I learned of this miniseries I hoped for the best. "America" is a great, complex nation with a riveting, dramatic history. This miniseries, however, "seldom rises above middle-school sophistication.
To further define history downward, there are the "drizzled celebrity comments" which include Sheryl Crow, Michael Douglas, P. Diddy, (Puff Daddy, Sean Combs, or is it just plain Diddy?), Meryl Streep, Martha Stewart, et al. Why?
Some make a little more sense because they represent a certain "type" of American: Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Brokaw (at least he's written an inspirational book on America's greatest generation) and I guess Martha Stewart and Diddy could fit in this group as a special type of entrepreneur.
But Variety gets it right about the celebrity comments "which play like an entirely separate program, one where various luminaries discuss what's unique about the American character. Unfortunately, the grafting process proves awkward, often making the celebs appear kind of dense, and History (the channel, not the study) look like it's pandering, which of course, it is."
The miniseries is generous with its CGI. But visual impact just can't substitute for creative content. And the American story lends itself most easily to creative twists. Our national story is
-full of irony,
-hidden class conflicts,
-high crimes and misdemeanors,
-abundant heroism and knavery,
-inventiveness and greed,
-the shedding of fraternal blood and brilliant attempts to create a benevolent empire,
-unique understandings of how church and state reinforce one another,
-fertile new forms of voluntary association like labor unions, Kiwanis clubs, bowling leagues, Eagle Scouts, and home grown cults like Mormonism, Christian Science and Scientology
-massive, far-sighted engineering projects like the Erie Canal and trans-continental railroads,
-welcome to immigrants and endurance of the KKK,
-philosophic schools like pragmatism and transcendentalism, and
-international contributions to human civilization like the automobile, the electric light, the First Amendment, Coca Cola, dynamic random access memory, Scrabble, McDonalds, napalm, Pat Robertson, Preparation-H, Hollywood, the flow chart, the Franklin stove, radio carbon dating, Motown, and Madonna.
With conflict, content, and characters like this, it takes real effort to scale back the storytelling so that something like the Chicago fire resembles a marshmallow roast or the California gold rush sounds like a sale at WalMarts. Couldn't the scriptwriters have spent time with Paul Johnson's bristling insights in History of the American People or Allen Guelzo's narrative eloquence in his lecture series, "The American Mind"?
"One whale to another: 'Yo, Moby! What's going on? I hear they got state-of-the-art harpoons now. Not just sharp ones or big one!'
"Other whale: 'What kind of 'art' can there be to a pointy damn stick? It either penetrates your blubber, or it doesn't.'
"First whale: 'Well, I don't know, but that's what the narrator said. And it's Liev Schreiber, big-time actor.'
"Other whale: 'Guess they couldn't get Oprah, huh?'"
That's not actual dialogue but I thought it might be necessary to say so given how lamely some of the dramatic reenactments come off.
There is also a remarkable melding of content and commerciality. Here's just one example I noticed tonight. As the program described America's westward expansion, it rightly pointed out the important role commerce played. In fact, commerce exploded with the construction of the Erie Canal and the opening to the west. The storyline continues and we're told that the canal was financed by the State Bank of New York which today is known as Bank of America and it is still generating prosperity westward. Hear a spokeswoman from California's Mendocino State College as she describes the solar panels financed through Bank of America that saves the college 300k a year. It took me at least 15-30 seconds before I realized I was watching a commercial. Very clever and a bit creepy.
Believe me, I am glad for underwriters and sponsors but broadcasters have a moral, and in many cases, a legal obligation to signal when particular content is originating from an advertiser, sponsor or underwriter. Thankfully, the LA Times has commented on this feature of the miniseries.
Now having criticized the series so roundly, I ask for your opinion. Complaining reviews take us only so far. The real question isn't what the miniseries could have been but whether it is finding an audience that knows even less about the story of US, than some of the celebs who in spite of being well-known haven't really known US well. Straighten me out or chime in if you've seen "America: The Story of Us".
Lies are often most loudly proclaimed through the use of silence or ignor-ance = ignoring key elements of the story. I too had hoped for a good, well-balanced program overviewing the history of America. Instead I have been disappointed by the fact that the script neglects to tell the most important element to the American story--the impact and influence of the Christian faith. So far I think I maybe saw a shallow passing reference to Cotton Mather and then a somewhat degrading mention of the evangelist Billy Sunday, who is portrated as a preacher primarily against alcohol. They've missed the biggest part of the American story, and in so doing have told a huge lie. Very disappointed. They did not mention such important events as the Great Awakening. How do you accurately tell the American story without telling that story. And no mention of the "Black Regiment", the ministers who preached and taught the ideas that led to the Revolutionary War. King George after all referred to the American Revolutionary War as "The Scottish Presbyterian Rebellion." No mention of that either. Sad. Revisionist History to be sure. Wasn't it Lenin or maybe Marx who said that to conquer a nation all you must do is seperate one generation of that nation from their past, then insert the version you want them to have and you have effectively conquered them. This series presents only a Marxist, materialistic, economic view of American history, which is not the whole story by a long ways. Sad.
ReplyDeleteThis series is horrible. For the most part, it focuses on unimportant events. Furthermore, they spend a half hour talking about buffalo. How about natural rights, Roman origin of constitutional republicanism, the gilded age, the trusts, progressives, expansion of executive power, welfare state, massive debt, hundreds of military bases around the world, and all of the other SIGNIFICANT issues impacting this country? This is nothing more than an attempt to indoctrinate people with a version of history that suits the needs of the elite. Besides that, it is a massive Bank of America ad. Why else would they offer it free to all schools? Just more nonsense from the establishment.
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