After all these years, I assumed my immunity would still be good. How many episodes of Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion have I been exposed to? How many pledge drive marathons of the Three Tenors and Peter, Paul and Mary have I deftly avoided? I know I’ve given up on NPR in the car and I don’t get PBS directly anymore either. But from time to time I’ve watched Nova and Frontline on Netflix as booster shots if nothing else.
Still, nothing prepared me for a virulent case of the Ken Burns series on The Civil War. This was PBS history at its PBSest, taking a difficult and painful subject and making it far worse than it had to be. If Burns was a pediatrician, he would hit you with a mess of shots and then give you a plate of liver and lima beans to cheer you up.
After sitting through his treatments of baseball and World War Two, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect aesthetically: slide after slide drifting in and out like a middle school teacher-has-a-headache lesson with the projector not planted firmly on its prop books. Celebrities reading documents from the period. And of course minor key renditions of every folksy song from the era, which must have taxed East Coast harmonicas and dobros to their considerable limits.
All of that was well within the scope of my inoculations. I was even prepared for a certain amount of gloss. Many historians tend to regard Abolitionist Abe as the Real Lincoln, so little detours such as his support for an amendment that would have made slavery a permanent part of the Constitution tend to end up omitted.
What I wasn’t ready for was the inexcusable “even-handedness” of the production. The first few episodes were bound to be painful, as they covered Southern victories early in the war. But that was supposed to be the dramatic build-up, the part of the kung fu movie when the bad guys beat up the hero, burn down his house, assault his girlfriend and kick his dog. “The good part’s coming,” I kept telling myself. “Sherman’s gonna show up any minute now, and then all will be right with the world.”
Oh but no. Sure, the Union eventually wins the war (unlike Civil War reenactments, which often seem to be won by the Confederates whether or not that’s the way the actual battle ended). But the victory isn’t Bruce Lee stomping the bad guys’ guts out for killing his sister. The last two or three installments turn all goddamn weepy, wallowing in a ridiculous mess of “gallant enemy dignified even in defeat.” Episode Eight actually gave me the impression that the North was somehow apologizing for beating the South’s racist, traitor asses.
Particularly galling was the extended homage to Nathan Bedford Forrest. Yes, the man was a talented military commander. But after the war he founded the Ku Klux Klan, strongly suggesting that his involvement in the conflict wasn’t merely a matter of misplaced patriotism. Thank heaven Burns didn’t build this sort of “balance” into his series on the Second World War. Five minutes of loving tribute to Adolph Eichmann’s organizational talent with train schedules would have been more than anyone would have tolerated.
Which raises an obvious question: why treat the largest act of treason in American history as if it had been a noble cause worth dying or killing for? Maybe Burns knows his audience well enough to know that a more honest telling of the tale would have angered a lot of people in the former traitor states.
Ah, but that in turn raises another question: who gives a crap? If Southern “outlaws” still cling to the ersatz glory of the Confederacy, shouldn’t we stand ready to rub their noses in their inglorious defeat?
Perhaps not. Nearly a century and a half after Appomattox, maybe we should all forgive and forget. Time heals all wounds, does it not?
Not if the wound is still fresh. How many blocks do you have to drive from your house before you encounter the Traitor Battle Flag flying high in someone’s yard? Do the images of traitors still mar the face of Stone Mountain, Georgia? Did ESPN just fire Hank Williams Jr. for comparing the President to Hitler?
And the bastard actually had the temerity to whine that his right to free speech had been violated. No, Bocephus. Getting fired by your boss because you’re a racist turd doesn’t transgress upon the First Amendment. If you want to know what it feels like to have your rights violated, there are plenty of countries in the world that would execute you for publicly insulting the chief executive.
Oh, and a quick aside to ESPN: if you didn’t know the ugly truth about the guy, you’ve never been to the Missouri State Fair and seen his picture proudly emblazoned on banners proclaiming that “If the South would have won we’d have it made.” Pull your head out of the sand once in awhile.
Therein lies the problem with letting Shelby Foote influence how the South is handled in a documentary. Nobility in defeat is acceptable only if the enemy is actually defeated. As an ethical and practical matter, you can’t offer a hand up to a vanquished foe if he’s going to try to stab you again the moment he regains his feet.
So let’s stick Ken Burns’ The Civil War in a vault somewhere and let it sit awhile. Put a sticker on it for the benefit of future generations that reads: “Open only when the last vestiges of slavery have been not only marginalized but completely eradicated like Smallpox.” Maybe then the message of this production will be appropriate.
But until then, no.
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