My thoughts on That BBC Program
Jul. 22nd, 2009 12:13 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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revolution_frHullo boys and girls.
This is my attempt to seriously present my comments and criticism of the recent BBC program Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution without resorting (much) to swearing and snarling, hard as that proved to be.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
maelicia asked me to post it here, so...
First of all, one of the things that really strikes me about this "documentary" (quotation marks being necessary because it honestly does not deserve to be called one) is that it really gives you no idea at all of who Robespierre was. He is a vague and shadowy personage who only speaks or appears in order to Perform Evil. They say at the beginning that he wanted to use the Terror to make humanity moral, but you get virtually no sense of that. They say we he was "too idealistic," but you get virtually no sense of that. The only time we get even the vaguest glimmer of it is when he yells at Collot over what he's done in Lyon. But overall, the only traits they really allow him are Controlling, Self-Important, and Ruthless. It's like he was some cardboard Hollywood villain who happened to be called "Robespierre." Is it wrong or outlandish to expect real, in-depth analysis about the man and his actions, the man whose name is in the very title of the program?
But then again, since Simon Schama seems to think Robespierre’s whole life's work was devoted to killing dissidents because it was "fun," and since Schama was obviously the main influence on this program (with others mostly brought in to back him up or, in the case of Zizek, to make anyone who would bother defending Robespierre seem too ridiculous for words), I suppose that makes sense. It's horrendous, but it makes sense. It is an absolute travesty that this man is given so much money and attention. He's a narrow-minded, condescending little fool who cares more about sensationalizing and pushing an agenda than about honesty and critical inquiry. That's not a good thing in anyone, but it's positively unacceptable in a historian. It's the antithesis of everything a good historian is supposed to be. How can anyone take seriously a man whose “analysis” amounts to such comments as “In other words, the point of the revolution is slaughtering anyone who might disagree with the government at that moment in time. That's what Robespierre and Saint-Just are all about” and “It was more fun and more invigorating to do the killing than to have philosophical debates about whether or not to do so.” Need I even bother to point out how lazy and intellectually insulting these remarks are?
The characterizations of the other members of the Committee of Public Safety are more colorful than Robespierre’s, but similarly awful. Want to know what they've done to Saint-Just? They've neutered him, simple as that. They took a serious and eloquent young revolutionary who played a big role in events from the virtually the moment he made his appearance on the national stage and turned him into Robespierre's whiny, ineffectual sycophant. A teenager pitching a fit. First of all, a 26-year-old is pretty goddamn different from a teenager. Yes, it's still young, very young - but not teenager-young by a long shot. That’s not to say Saint-Just wasn't a little inexperienced or that you can't kind of tell from some of the things he said and from some of his ideas that he was young. You can, absolutely. But that doesn't mean he had nothing valuable to say or do, that he wasn't the other revolutionaries' equal, or that he needed to be told to "sit down," as Hilary Mantel so infuriatingly says.
So why would they portray Saint-Just this way? Why neuter him? I think - and, even more than the rest of the post, this is just my own theory - that they are afraid of him. They are afraid of what he represents, afraid of youth. They don't want the young to stand up, fight, and champion the ideals they've grown so afraid of in their fat, middle-aged comfort and laziness. So they rob a powerful youthful figure of his potency. In its way, this is even more insidious than the usual portrayal of Saint-Just in popular media as an authoritative, bloodthirsty young man. Because that is still a portrayal of youth with power, even if it is a negative one. It catches the imagination, it mesmerizes, it fascinates. On the other hand, what is there to find fascinating about a pouting teenager who gets verbally put in his place by Carnot almost every time he opens his mouth? Nothing. The point is to say to youth, "You don't deserve to be heard. You're too young, you don't have the right amount of life experience to have good ideas. If you dare try, you punk, then reasonable people have every right to say to you, 'Sit down, child.' And you should listen to them, because look at what a little laughingstock you'll be if you don’t." Ridicule is more powerful than demonization.
Couthon barely makes a mark. They apparently can't bear to give him any credit for anything, since he was a friend of the Evil Robespierre. Thus, a comment that he won a prize for an essay on patience must then be followed by the (entirely unsuitable) Couthon actor telling a couple of men carrying him up the stairs, "Come on, come on, put your backs into it!" and another comment on his lenience in Lyon needs to hammer home that he was only lenient because he was a weirdo crazy who thought that they acted the way they did because of the climate and that the rest of the Committee are rolling their eyes at him. And yet, they can't find much to hold against him either (I'm surprised he didn't get more blame for the Law of 22 Prairial!). So he ends up being a bit player, singled out every once and a while to get kicked down, written off, and forgotten about again. God only knows why they decided to put him in at all. It can’t be for the sake of giving the viewer the whole picture of the situation, that’s for sure, since they apparently felt no need to so much as mention the existence of six of the twelve members of the Committee of Public Safety, nor the existence of other official bodies with an important role in carrying out the Terror, such as the Committee of General Security.
Collot’s portrayal is pure and simple lazy caricature. Oh, he was a violent, overly radical lefty? Better give him a working-class accent and take away any hint of sophistication! Give me a break.
And Carnot...Carnot, Carnot, Carnot. What is there to say? He's Schama's stand-in, his alter-ego and Mary Sue. He puts forth the only "reasonable" suggestions, makes a dry quip against The Evil Ones at all the right times, puts that silly little Saint-Just in his place, yells at That Horrible Dictator Robespierre and gets away with it, and, in the end, gets to triumph and laugh in the face of said dictator's demise. And he's incredibly English, even moreso than the others (says a lot, doesn't it, that their version of the "ideal" Frenchman here is basically an Englishman!). Any resemblance to the real Carnot is purely incidental, folks.
The piece as a whole is also nothing short of vicious propaganda against politicians with ideals taking action to bring those ideals to fruition. Its representation of Robespierre and Saint-Just, clumsily put side-by-side with images of every modern totalitarian takeover they could think of, piles of bodies, and pictures of purge victims set to Ominous Music of Woe, is intended to tell you this: Idealism is bad. See what happens when you put the idealists in charge? Bloodbathes! Chaos! Purges! It's a defense of cynicism and corruption, of keeping the status quo. And that, even more than the shoddy historical research and vapid talking heads, is what is most objectionable about it.
This is my attempt to seriously present my comments and criticism of the recent BBC program Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution without resorting (much) to swearing and snarling, hard as that proved to be.
maelicia asked me to post it here, so...First of all, one of the things that really strikes me about this "documentary" (quotation marks being necessary because it honestly does not deserve to be called one) is that it really gives you no idea at all of who Robespierre was. He is a vague and shadowy personage who only speaks or appears in order to Perform Evil. They say at the beginning that he wanted to use the Terror to make humanity moral, but you get virtually no sense of that. They say we he was "too idealistic," but you get virtually no sense of that. The only time we get even the vaguest glimmer of it is when he yells at Collot over what he's done in Lyon. But overall, the only traits they really allow him are Controlling, Self-Important, and Ruthless. It's like he was some cardboard Hollywood villain who happened to be called "Robespierre." Is it wrong or outlandish to expect real, in-depth analysis about the man and his actions, the man whose name is in the very title of the program?
But then again, since Simon Schama seems to think Robespierre’s whole life's work was devoted to killing dissidents because it was "fun," and since Schama was obviously the main influence on this program (with others mostly brought in to back him up or, in the case of Zizek, to make anyone who would bother defending Robespierre seem too ridiculous for words), I suppose that makes sense. It's horrendous, but it makes sense. It is an absolute travesty that this man is given so much money and attention. He's a narrow-minded, condescending little fool who cares more about sensationalizing and pushing an agenda than about honesty and critical inquiry. That's not a good thing in anyone, but it's positively unacceptable in a historian. It's the antithesis of everything a good historian is supposed to be. How can anyone take seriously a man whose “analysis” amounts to such comments as “In other words, the point of the revolution is slaughtering anyone who might disagree with the government at that moment in time. That's what Robespierre and Saint-Just are all about” and “It was more fun and more invigorating to do the killing than to have philosophical debates about whether or not to do so.” Need I even bother to point out how lazy and intellectually insulting these remarks are?
The characterizations of the other members of the Committee of Public Safety are more colorful than Robespierre’s, but similarly awful. Want to know what they've done to Saint-Just? They've neutered him, simple as that. They took a serious and eloquent young revolutionary who played a big role in events from the virtually the moment he made his appearance on the national stage and turned him into Robespierre's whiny, ineffectual sycophant. A teenager pitching a fit. First of all, a 26-year-old is pretty goddamn different from a teenager. Yes, it's still young, very young - but not teenager-young by a long shot. That’s not to say Saint-Just wasn't a little inexperienced or that you can't kind of tell from some of the things he said and from some of his ideas that he was young. You can, absolutely. But that doesn't mean he had nothing valuable to say or do, that he wasn't the other revolutionaries' equal, or that he needed to be told to "sit down," as Hilary Mantel so infuriatingly says.
So why would they portray Saint-Just this way? Why neuter him? I think - and, even more than the rest of the post, this is just my own theory - that they are afraid of him. They are afraid of what he represents, afraid of youth. They don't want the young to stand up, fight, and champion the ideals they've grown so afraid of in their fat, middle-aged comfort and laziness. So they rob a powerful youthful figure of his potency. In its way, this is even more insidious than the usual portrayal of Saint-Just in popular media as an authoritative, bloodthirsty young man. Because that is still a portrayal of youth with power, even if it is a negative one. It catches the imagination, it mesmerizes, it fascinates. On the other hand, what is there to find fascinating about a pouting teenager who gets verbally put in his place by Carnot almost every time he opens his mouth? Nothing. The point is to say to youth, "You don't deserve to be heard. You're too young, you don't have the right amount of life experience to have good ideas. If you dare try, you punk, then reasonable people have every right to say to you, 'Sit down, child.' And you should listen to them, because look at what a little laughingstock you'll be if you don’t." Ridicule is more powerful than demonization.
Couthon barely makes a mark. They apparently can't bear to give him any credit for anything, since he was a friend of the Evil Robespierre. Thus, a comment that he won a prize for an essay on patience must then be followed by the (entirely unsuitable) Couthon actor telling a couple of men carrying him up the stairs, "Come on, come on, put your backs into it!" and another comment on his lenience in Lyon needs to hammer home that he was only lenient because he was a weirdo crazy who thought that they acted the way they did because of the climate and that the rest of the Committee are rolling their eyes at him. And yet, they can't find much to hold against him either (I'm surprised he didn't get more blame for the Law of 22 Prairial!). So he ends up being a bit player, singled out every once and a while to get kicked down, written off, and forgotten about again. God only knows why they decided to put him in at all. It can’t be for the sake of giving the viewer the whole picture of the situation, that’s for sure, since they apparently felt no need to so much as mention the existence of six of the twelve members of the Committee of Public Safety, nor the existence of other official bodies with an important role in carrying out the Terror, such as the Committee of General Security.
Collot’s portrayal is pure and simple lazy caricature. Oh, he was a violent, overly radical lefty? Better give him a working-class accent and take away any hint of sophistication! Give me a break.
And Carnot...Carnot, Carnot, Carnot. What is there to say? He's Schama's stand-in, his alter-ego and Mary Sue. He puts forth the only "reasonable" suggestions, makes a dry quip against The Evil Ones at all the right times, puts that silly little Saint-Just in his place, yells at That Horrible Dictator Robespierre and gets away with it, and, in the end, gets to triumph and laugh in the face of said dictator's demise. And he's incredibly English, even moreso than the others (says a lot, doesn't it, that their version of the "ideal" Frenchman here is basically an Englishman!). Any resemblance to the real Carnot is purely incidental, folks.
The piece as a whole is also nothing short of vicious propaganda against politicians with ideals taking action to bring those ideals to fruition. Its representation of Robespierre and Saint-Just, clumsily put side-by-side with images of every modern totalitarian takeover they could think of, piles of bodies, and pictures of purge victims set to Ominous Music of Woe, is intended to tell you this: Idealism is bad. See what happens when you put the idealists in charge? Bloodbathes! Chaos! Purges! It's a defense of cynicism and corruption, of keeping the status quo. And that, even more than the shoddy historical research and vapid talking heads, is what is most objectionable about it.
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