# History documentaries that just don't care **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2015, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629 "2015-07-19T18:56:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/1 "2015-07-19T18:56:38Z")
Too lazy to look for something else on TV, _Mysteries At The Monument_ is playing. In a segment about Black U.S. soldiers in France in WWI, the re-enactors are armed with flintlock rifles. Also, the image is reversed so that the locks are on the left side and the soldiers are all left-handed. Another segment takes place in Connecticut in the 1750s. When bringing up the fear of Indians, they show Sioux warriors galloping across the Great Plains. Come on. Don’t you even care enough to hire a technical advisor? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![mind\_the\_gap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@mind\_the\_gap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mind_the_gap)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/2 "2015-07-19T21:08:40Z")
I hear you. I can’t count the number of docs I’ve seen where they talk about a particular piece of hardware and show a different one. “The F-86 was America’s prime fighter jet in the Korean War” while showing a Phantom or some such. :smack: My WAG is they figure the folks that know will know the diff and not care and the ones that don’t won’t care anyway. Helping to bring Henry Ford’s “History is bunk” statement to life I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/3 "2015-07-19T21:17:52Z")
Well, ta be honest, the problem is in your first few words. Maybe it would be more productive to arse yourself out and pick some more blackberries. 😃 The problem with wall-to-wall cable is that something has to fill that vast amazon of content, and 24 hours a day times 365 days a year times… 200 channels becomes one of those “whole Library of Congress in 6 hours” sort of thing. So the drivel factor goes up and up, and viewers who care enough to even change the channel get rarer and rarer, and pretty soon it’s hard to tell if we’re in the middle of _Idiocracy_, _Network_ or a Max Headroom episode. I know from first-hand experience that some documentary producers, even those who churn out an episode a week, do their best to get the details right. Nearly all of them, again IME, are from the UK. Blow Up Your TV, as John Denver said. Go make some berry wine instead. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/4 "2015-07-19T21:23:11Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Too lazy to look for something else on TV, _Mysteries At The Monument_ is playing. > > In a segment about Black U.S. soldiers in France in WWI, the re-enactors are armed with flintlock rifles. Also, the image is reversed so that the locks are on the left side and the soldiers are all left-handed. > > Another segment takes place in Connecticut in the 1750s. When bringing up the fear of Indians, they show Sioux warriors galloping across the Great Plains. According to _Mysteries at the Museum_, the National Postal Museum is housed in what had been DC’s first post office. Nope, that building had been at least the third. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/5 "2015-07-19T21:56:30Z")
Having worked on documentaries myself, I can assure you that most producers have no particular expertise in any field of history, and will go with whatever footage they can afford. In other words, documentaries are often done on the cheap. The quality of writing often leaves something to be desired, whether the writers know anything about history or not. I was watching something not too long ago where the narration made it sound like the _Americans_, not the Japanese, were losing in the Pacific in 1944, or something like that (I switched off the set at that point). Even if a technical advisor points out an error, there’s no guarantee he or she will be listened to. Or the advisor may not even be asked about something, and a howler results (like the Soviet Union collapsing in 1989 instead of 1991 :smack: ). ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/6 "2015-07-19T22:08:52Z")
That’s dovetailed with what I said - when did documentaries turn from things crafted with some expertise and validation (I’m thinking of all the original NatGeo documentaries, for example) to something to be as casually thrown together by drones as an episode of Oprah or a sitcom? When did simply having a production team become enough to turn out “factual” material? The need for vastly increased amounts of it, and to make it as remote-bait and eye-candy as possible to draw eyeballs is only part of the answer, IMHO. When did we stop caring if our “factual” viewing was anything of the kind? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/7 "2015-07-19T22:32:57Z")
Medical re-enactments are equally inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![Julius\_Henry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8797f3/32.png) [@Julius\_Henry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Julius_Henry)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/8 "2015-07-19T22:37:27Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > That’s dovetailed with what I said - when did documentaries turn from things crafted with some expertise and validation (I’m thinking of all the original NatGeo documentaries, for example) to something to be as casually thrown together by drones as an episode of Oprah or a sitcom? When did simply having a production team become enough to turn out “factual” material? As early as 1922, when Robert Flaherty made _Nanook of the North_. This is from Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > Flaherty has been criticized for deceptively portraying staged events as reality.[7] “Nanook” was in fact named Allakariallak (pronounced: [al.la.ka.ɢi.al.lak]), while the “wife” shown in the film was not really his wife. According to Charles Nayoumealuk, who was interviewed in Nanook Revisited (1988), “the two women in Nanook - Nyla (Alice [?] Nuvalinga) and Cunayou (whose real name we do not know) were not Allakariallak’s wives, but were in fact common-law wives of Flaherty.”[8] And although Allakariallak normally used a gun when hunting, Flaherty encouraged him to hunt after the fashion of his recent ancestors in order to capture the way the Inuit lived before European influence. On the other hand, while Flaherty made his Inuit actors use spears instead of guns during the walrus and seal hunts, the prey shown in the film were genuine, wild animals. Flaherty also exaggerated the peril to Inuit hunters with his claim, often repeated, that Allakariallak had died of starvation two years after the film was completed, whereas in fact he died at home, likely of tuberculosis. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/9 "2015-07-20T02:05:43Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Well, ta be honest, the problem is in your first few words. Maybe it would be more productive to arse yourself out and pick some more blackberries. 😃 > > The problem with wall-to-wall cable is that something has to fill that vast amazon of content, and 24 hours a day times 365 days a year times… 200 channels becomes one of those “whole Library of Congress in 6 hours” sort of thing. So the drivel factor goes up and up, and viewers who care enough to even change the channel get rarer and rarer, and pretty soon it’s hard to tell if we’re in the middle of _Idiocracy_, _Network_ or a Max Headroom episode. > > I know from first-hand experience that some documentary producers, even those who churn out an episode a week, do their best to get the details right. Nearly all of them, again IME, are from the UK. > > Blow Up Your TV, as John Denver said. Go make some berry wine instead. One is perforce led to concur with another noted pundit and savant C. P. Snow, when he concluded of the newly invented device which the true Anglophile is wont to call the “gogglebox”, ahaha, “No good will come of it; the word is half Greek and half Latin”. It would churlish of me to note, ahaha, that Snow’s trenchant observation was not wholly unapropos of a notable address I made at at a convention which was, if one may reminsisce, rapturously received. No doubt Snow’s quip was meant as a doff of the cap towards your humble obedient; nevertheless, it was perhaps a trifle _jejune_ of the great man to assume that one’s legion of Argus-eyed disciples would not be swift to sound the alert, ahaha. No harm done, and the old boy rather gracefully conceded the set with a brace of Tokay that Michaelmas. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/10 "2015-07-20T21:19:11Z")
Most of the WWII video clips on Youtube are cheaply made. I saw one on the Battle of Kursk (fought July 1943)-showed the German soldiers wearing inter uniforms-it as 95 in the shade. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/11 "2015-07-20T21:24:14Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Most of the WWII video clips on Youtube are cheaply made. I saw one on the Battle of Kursk (fought July 1943)-showed the German soldiers wearing inter uniforms-it as 95 in the shade. Did you use up your W allotment typing “WWII” ? Damn you, wartime rationing! ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/12 "2015-07-20T22:14:39Z")
> [@Julius\_Henry](#): > > As early as 1922, when Robert Flaherty made _Nanook of the North_. Oh, sure, and the Disney documentary showing lemmings marching to their deaths. But these tend to be the exception (pseudo-documentaries that often have racist or political bends aside) among the major documentary efforts of the pre-DiscoveryTV era. Even ten or so years ago you could tune into History Channel or one of its kin and be pretty much assured of something interesting, reliable and as accurate as tee-vee allows anything to be. Not half-hour fluff pieces on Nazi ghost hunters. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/13 "2015-07-23T21:46:04Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Not half-hour fluff pieces on Nazi ghost hunters. What? How come nobody told me this show existed? When is it on? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/14 "2015-07-23T23:02:35Z")
I’ve been watching _ **The Making of the Mob: New York** _ on AMC. A really good _ **docu** _drama, but all of those damned fifty-star flags irritate the hell out of me! :mad: Producers, hellooooooo! Have you ever heard of something called “silk screening”? You can use it for ALL SORTS OF THINGS, including FLAGS!!! :dubious: Also, I’m pretty sure 5th Army MPs did NOT carry lever-action Winchesters while in Italy in 1943! **D’OH!!!** :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/15 "2015-07-23T23:19:47Z")
Not a documentary but I recall in Goodfellas they showed a 747 in 1963 which was before it was put into service. However in that scene they did correctly call the airport Idlewild and not JFK. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/16 "2015-07-24T02:09:29Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Medical re-enactments are equally inaccurate. Technically, _Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction_ wasn’t a re-enactment. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/17 "2015-07-24T03:27:45Z")
“Blow Up Your TV, as John Denver said. Go make some berry wine instead.” Nitpick: John Prine. Eat a lot of peaches. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/BofvfVPFbiM/maxresdefault.jpg "John Prine - Spanish Pipedream") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BofvfVPFbiM) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-documentaries-that-just-dont-care/725629/18 "2015-07-24T03:52:18Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Not a documentary but I recall in Goodfellas they showed a 747 in 1963 which was before it was put into service. However in that scene they did correctly call the airport Idlewild and not JFK. In one docudrama about the Aloha Airlines incident, they showed a “Vietnam-era” airbase full of F-15s with “74” (the year of their manufacture) in the serial numbers on their tails.