More telly!

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Coming up in the next few weeks on BBC2 here in sunny Britain, 'The Supersizers Eat...the French Revolution' (or 'Versailles', as some listing previews seem to have it), a one hour prog on the eating habits of the 1780's/90's, as far as I can gather...I'm guessing 'cake' (yeah, I know, it was either brioche or a pre-existing anecdote reapplied to da queen), oranges, and the dawn of canned food, but I may be totally wrong. And better - or possibly worse - well, at any rate, more pertinent to this site - 'Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution' http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/04_april/22/bbctwo_tz.shtml ...well, you go for years, decades, with nothing on the telly and suddenly - oh BBC, you are really spoiling us! Or not, as the case may be - 90 mins on Robespierre (neat!) only with Simon bastard bloody scrotum-faced Schama (nooooooo). God, I was gutted as I scrolled down the page. I know the BBC have him on a 3 million quid contract (our money!), but that's just cruel. Like putting celery in my food.
Be interesting to see how the prog plays out - the synopsis sounds like the usual fare - Schama doing his standard 'it was the proto-Holocaust' thing - but Zizek is this decade's student darling, and the British public quite like the idea of guillotining non-virtuous politicians at the moment! No date as yet, but it's the 220th anniversary (tenuous link beloved of schedulers) of that Bastille business, so I reckon it'll be on around then. I don't know how to put stuff on youtube, but if anyone else here in Britain can copy and post the broadcasts (because BBC online isn't available from overseas), that'd be fab!

Comments

[la-muse-venale6.livejournal.com]

"Debating Robespierre's legacy is Slavoj Zizek, who argues that terror in the cause of virtue is justifiable, and Simon Schama, who believes the road from Robespierre ran straight to the gulag and the 20th-century concentration camp."

I fear this will turn on an anti robespierriste portrait as... always, ugh x_x

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

There is no way this is going to turn out well: your epithet describes Schama well, and, as for Zizek, he's not doing Robespierre any favors by defending him. It's odd that neither the defense nor the prosecution seem to understand anything about their subject...

[misatheredpanda.livejournal.com]

"Simon bastard bloody scrotum-faced Schama" aww, I never thought that name would bring such a gigantic smile to my face.

I'd really like to see these though, and am rather annoyed they'll be on when I'm not in Britain. :(

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

*pukes*

And for the matter:

It was a year which gave birth to key features of the modern age: the thought crime; the belief that calculated acts of violence can perfect humanity; the notion that the interests of "mankind" can be placed above those of "man"; the use of policemen to enforce morals; and the use of denunciation as a political tool.

That already existed long before with the Ancien Régime, wtf. And it's all bullshit.

[lucieandco.livejournal.com]

Haha, if the notion that the interests of "mankind" can be placed above those of "man" for one is a key feature of the modern age I suppose the modern age started roughly with the death of the dinosaurs. I assume that what they're going for (unless they do mean to mention it as an example something good that came of the Revolution ... which wouldn't make the overall claim any more true, and anyway the context is all negative) is "evil collectivism takes away my human right to not give a fuck about anything but myself" but the way they're phrasing it it sounds like a concept that's Older Than Jesus (and quite popular at that). So ... they are either trying to put everything in the broadest possible terms to make the programme attractive to absolutely anybody or they're seriously clueless? Excellent.

(On a sidenote, the top of the page says they made a comedy drama about the colourful scope of threats to the life of war journalists? A comedy drama! Why not a call-in show? If you would prefer to see a bomb death next week, call ABC-01. If you're more in the mood for amoebic diarrhoea, -02's your number.)