revolution_fr | TERROR, on YOUTUBE!

;_; Um. Possibly, but I think we are more appalled at the blatant attempts at manipulation than the questionable accuracy.

Edited 2009-07-14 15:50 (UTC)

The problem here isn't that this "English TV show" isn't "all completely accurate": THE PROBLEM IS THAT IT'S ENTIRELY INACCURATE ON EVERY SINGLE LEVEL AND IS A BLATANT IDEOLOGICAL MANIPULATION OF HISTORY.

By the way, if you have anything good to add up to contribute to the debate, or, I don't know, to this community at all -- who are you? -- please do so.

Yes, Maelicia. You are totally right. Totally inaccurate...But people who watchs it without previous historical studies about RF will think it is (You know...all that it's going in TV it's true). This is our nowadays drama. A totally manipulated mass media, that influences too many minds around the world. Just think that these kind of shows are shown all over our planet, by "The History Channel" and doubled to thousand of languages. I've seen it in Spanish.These kind of shows push people to think what some historians does since 1794: that Robespierre and Saint-Just were bad, without friends, cold and simple murderes with love to blood. Oh, well!!! My brain is bleeding.

HanriotFran

Oh My God! I can't watch this to end! THE ENGLISH DOESN'T DO ANY FILMS/DOCUMENTARY FILMS ABOUT THE REVOLUTION!!!! Emo-haired Saint-Just is terrible..emos are everywhere :(...I wouldn't rather mention how Robespierre is not Robespierre XD

Oh my, now there is someone adding comments to your great analysis,praising the US revolutionaries as a positive contrast to the French ones, totally out of any historical context of 18th century France or Northern America (and leaving aside questions like slavery or the self-proclaimed right to expand in a presumably empty land)

Don't let them know. This lot will snitch you up and chop your head off!

Sor-RY, just because you think you own this place.

Have you ever seen, or read, -anything- about the French revolution that wasn't ideologically manipulated. That's what it's there for. Anyone who talks or writes about it does so because they have a comment to make... That's half what makes it so interesting,compared to programmes about the Tudors where they just chat about Henry VIII's wives.

And if you were ever to write a book about the Jacobins, I would be sure to take everything you say with a pinch of salt, as well.

Most people who watch these programmes aren't stupid, either. They at least have some interest in history and how history works - i.e. this isn't a completely accurate unbiased account of what happened.
What more worries me is that a lot of people don't even know who Maximilien Robespierre is, at all. But these people probably wouldn't watch this programme, because they're just not interested in it.

Actually, we're rather more pissed off that,

a) It's not accurate in the slightest particular;
b) The point of it was never to be accurate, but rather to be propaganda;
c) Have you ever seen an, accurate, pro-Revolutionary documentary on TV? No? Well, neither have I--it's not in any way a question of silencing Schama and co., but rather in according equal time for a rebuttal;
d) This doesn't apply to me, but those of us who live in the UK are annoyed that public (read: their) money is being spent on this.

(Moreover, as far as accuracy vs. ideology goes, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'd rather hear someone say, "The fall of the monarchy took place on 10 August 1792 and it was the worst thing that ever happened to France and the world" than "The fall of the monarchy took place on 11 August 1793 and it was wonderful.")

And I would also add that we have as much right to be angered at this program as you have the right to think it's no big deal, so there's no need to be condescending and sarcastic.

To clarify, this documentary says neither the equivalent of "The fall of the monarchy took place on 10 August 1792 and it was the worst thing that ever happened to France and the world" nor of "The fall of the monarchy took place on 11 August 1793 and it was wonderful," but rather that of "The fall of the monarchy took place on 11 August 1793 and it was the worst thing that ever happened to France and the world."

And another thing, even if it were only slightly inaccurate, since it purports to be a documentary and not a work of fiction, it would still be perfectly legitimate to critique it for that reason.

Everybody has a right to an opinion on this forum, I believe. I haven't posted my comments, because I am afraid if I don't agree 100% with what's been said I will be attacked and insulted, just as you have done to this unfortunate contributor. Maelicia, there is no need to personally insult people or ask them to justify their being here. Other people have just as much right to comment here as you do, regardless of who they are. If you can't engage in civilized debate instead of attacking people on a personal level, then you haven't much of a future in academia. By the way, WHO are YOU again? Believe it or not, there are more credentialed experts on the revolution who read this forum than you are. If you want to impress them, try putting your arguments in the sort of language worthy of a professional historian, rather than that of a teenager. I do believe you are intelligent and well-educated enough to do that.

Oh, thanks for the "lesson", really, and thanks for knowing that I am "intelligent" and "well-educated".

As far as my comment "By the way, if you have anything good to add up to contribute to the debate, or, I don't know, to this community at all -- who are you? -- please do so." was concerned, it was mostly to reply to the part of the comment "But I do get the impression that you guys will hate anything that deals with your favourite guys, especially English TV shows, that aren't all COMPLETELY ACCURATE".

I maintain that I have a right to say it anyway -- as we all have rights to say whatever we want, as we all obviously know *eyerolls* -- because I firmly believe that LJ communities are kept alive by the people who dare to post and comment in them, not by mysteriously appearing people who pop in suddenly to tell said people who contribute 'you're just angry because it attacks your favourite guys boo hoo' and enlightening the part 'especially English TV shows'. Well, English TV shows do happen to be pretty bad as far as the French Revolution is concerned, for obvious ideological reasons.

And maybe you should think of sharing the comments you also have on this so that we all know what you think as well, instead of just randomly jumping in to teach lessons to others?

P.S. And it's true: I don't know who she is. I was merely stating a fact.

I think 'condescending' is the standard tone of academics the world over, sadly. It's annoying enough when it comes from an English don, but when a bunch of modern people who have never done anything more stressful than ordering a book up from the stacks in the History Faculty or marking an 18 year old's essay and spend their lives in cosy studies sitting in fat padded armchairs start saying things like Saint-Just was an adolescent with no life experience I just want to shake them. Very violently.

Okay, this thread is just getting out of hand, so I'm putting on my rarely-used Mod Hat now and freezing replies before it degenerates any further than it already has. Frankly, I find fault with the attitudes of all three of you that I'm making this reply to. If you want to know why in further detail, feel free to get in touch with me.

There's condescension and then there's condescension though. I've read a great many historians, but even just to use the example of the book from the colloquium in which I read Andress's essay, there were other historians in that book whom I would describe as mainly straightforward, mainly persuasive, mainly aggressive in tone. Andress is the only one whose main tone really stood out to me as condescending. Maybe it's just me, but the other historians seemed to generally want to find out more about how people at all levels of society, from the members of a popular society in a small provincial town to members of the CSP, understood their world and were understood by others in it. Andress seemed more interested in condemning (again, in a very condescending fashion) than understanding.

I know exactly what you mean though, apart from that. Saint-Just had a lot more life experience in his short life than many historians do who live to be 90.

I would not like my previous comments to sound like English historiography bashing. I love the work of a great number of UK historians, though less so their work on the French rev., I have to admit. I think that there are certain common negative traits that frequently appear in a particular tradition of history writing, and a classist condescending tone,especially towards the foreign subjects of history, together with a certain self-referentiality is the one that seems to be quite frequent among certain English historians. This does not mean that other historiographic traditions do not suffer from the same of other problems. For example, until very recently, the French historians tended to see as somehow positive or justifiable anything they defined as a popular action or movement, as if "the People", whatever it means, could never be wrong. And I can think about other defects as purposefully incomprehensible language and lack of common sense :-) But I insist again, there is no genetic predisposiion towards certain way of history writing and there are examples of many different attitudes towards history-writing everywhere, of course. Sib.

Sorry, but I couldn't resist.

I haven't posted since forver in this group. It's awesome to see a bunch of new blood--and most of the some peeps.

TERROR, on YOUTUBE!

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