Exhausted after a full day of kayak fishing in the waters off Green Island in the Lower Laguna Madre, I plopped down on the floor and crossed my legs under the coffee table in front of the TV. I stared at the laptop for a moment, then opened it and pressed the “On” button. Roused from hibernation, the laptop displayed what I had last seen – a reminder to watch “The People Speak” on The History Channel.
Ugh.
I had done a little research weeks ago on Howard Zinn and his pseudocumentary, so my expectations were rather low. Still, tired though I was, I felt compelled to watch.
I was able to endure fifteen minutes.
It was the presentation that irked me the most. The presentation of Zinn as a latter-day prophet/patriot. The presentation of multimillionaire elitist Hollywood actors as purveyors of some Higher Truth, as though we in the audience are unaware of the fact that they made their millions by being very convincing liars. Lying is what actors do, after all. The more convincing the lie, the better the “performance.”
The venue was very disturbing, too. Zinn walked out on the stage, it was reminiscent of a Lewis Black performance I watched recently. I thought, “This is a program about American history?” It seemed so…inappropriate. This was not a serious take on American history from various perspectives. This was a revisionist historian’s point of view channeled by contemporary Hollywood icons.
What a shame. I used to love watching the History Channel. I have no interest in watching its newest iteration – the People’s History Channel. Fifteen minutes was all I could take.
Click here for more critiques of The People Speak
