So - Richard!
Tuesday, 5 February 2013 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
byslantedlightOddly enough, the whole Richard III/Princes in the Tower thing was something I missed out on at school (or perhaps not oddly, we looked at gold rushes and things like that instead... *g*), so although I think the archaeology and science and discovery and all of Richard III are very cool, it's not got quite the same emotional attachment for me as it seems to have for a lot of people. The University of Leicester and all have done a great job of hyping it all up though, to the point that I stayed up to watch the documentary about it last night...
...and nearly cried. Not about Richard (finding his skeleton doesn't change what that body may have done whilst it was alive, though I'm more interested in finding out about it!), but about the state of so-called historical documentaries on our telly! With every wonderful thing that they've done with science in archaeology, all the amazing advances that have been made and their application to the remains found in the carpark... we got that.
What I'd been looking forward to:
- seeing how they'd matched the mtDNA to the two alleged descendants
- seeing what they'd worked out about the level of his scoliosis, considering the dramatic curvature of the vertebra
- seeing how they created his facial reconstruction, not (at a very shallow level) a reconstruction
- hearing more about the story of Richard, and why this was all such a big deal.
What we got instead:
- told they'd matched the DNA
- told "this is what he looked like"
- told "some people thought he was evil but some people don't believe that"
- far too much Shakespeare in the background, when they were purporting to be overturning the image
- far too much wibbly guff about the RIIIsoc woman's "journey". I was with Appleby, the osteologist, who a) refused to carry the remains around draped in a flag until they'd been properly verified (proud of her, I was, for that refusal!); and b) looked rather embarrassed and trying not to laugh out loud when the RIIIsoc woman had to leave the room for a wee cry after being told that the skeleton did indeed have scoliosis which may have resulted in a hunched back (and possible problems finding armour to fit...) Yes this might be important to you personally, and something you spend alot of emotional energy on, but I'm not interested in spending 90 minutes of my life finding out about you, nice as you might be, I want to know about what was found! Tell me that, not how much you want to have a cry!
- far too much emphasis on how spooky it was that there'd been an "R" on the carpark in the exact spot, and the arch's came down on the remains straight away, and oooh didn't it rain hard just as they'd found them? (It's archaeology! It's sod's law that it always starts to rain as soon as you find something that really shouldn't get wet! And it's England!)
I'm all about keeping the human factor in archaeology, and that's something I think the UK does well, but I want the human factor about what's been found (and why we can believe it), not about the people doing the finding... I don't want dull, dry telly either, but by all accounts this is Richard III, who had quite the life and death - there was battle and intrigue and murder, and the death of his own young son, and... and... and... This is where Henry VII (to be) triumphed, and the country was hugely changed by Tudor rule (would we have had the Church of England without it...?) And where was I left to find most of that information? Wiki-sodding-pedia! If I hadn't been reading about it all afternoon first, I'd've come away absolutely no wiser, having seen the documentary.
Is it just me? Am I just very grumpy because when we're making brilliant advances, what I'm seeing is the dumbing down of any vaguely educational historical content on telly at all? Should I just shut up and wait for Strictly Archaeologists on Ice in all their spangled glory? (Or the return, perhaps, of Bonekickers... *shudders*)
...and nearly cried. Not about Richard (finding his skeleton doesn't change what that body may have done whilst it was alive, though I'm more interested in finding out about it!), but about the state of so-called historical documentaries on our telly! With every wonderful thing that they've done with science in archaeology, all the amazing advances that have been made and their application to the remains found in the carpark... we got that.
What I'd been looking forward to:
- seeing how they'd matched the mtDNA to the two alleged descendants
- seeing what they'd worked out about the level of his scoliosis, considering the dramatic curvature of the vertebra
- seeing how they created his facial reconstruction, not (at a very shallow level) a reconstruction
- hearing more about the story of Richard, and why this was all such a big deal.
What we got instead:
- told they'd matched the DNA
- told "this is what he looked like"
- told "some people thought he was evil but some people don't believe that"
- far too much Shakespeare in the background, when they were purporting to be overturning the image
- far too much wibbly guff about the RIIIsoc woman's "journey". I was with Appleby, the osteologist, who a) refused to carry the remains around draped in a flag until they'd been properly verified (proud of her, I was, for that refusal!); and b) looked rather embarrassed and trying not to laugh out loud when the RIIIsoc woman had to leave the room for a wee cry after being told that the skeleton did indeed have scoliosis which may have resulted in a hunched back (and possible problems finding armour to fit...) Yes this might be important to you personally, and something you spend alot of emotional energy on, but I'm not interested in spending 90 minutes of my life finding out about you, nice as you might be, I want to know about what was found! Tell me that, not how much you want to have a cry!
- far too much emphasis on how spooky it was that there'd been an "R" on the carpark in the exact spot, and the arch's came down on the remains straight away, and oooh didn't it rain hard just as they'd found them? (It's archaeology! It's sod's law that it always starts to rain as soon as you find something that really shouldn't get wet! And it's England!)
I'm all about keeping the human factor in archaeology, and that's something I think the UK does well, but I want the human factor about what's been found (and why we can believe it), not about the people doing the finding... I don't want dull, dry telly either, but by all accounts this is Richard III, who had quite the life and death - there was battle and intrigue and murder, and the death of his own young son, and... and... and... This is where Henry VII (to be) triumphed, and the country was hugely changed by Tudor rule (would we have had the Church of England without it...?) And where was I left to find most of that information? Wiki-sodding-pedia! If I hadn't been reading about it all afternoon first, I'd've come away absolutely no wiser, having seen the documentary.
Is it just me? Am I just very grumpy because when we're making brilliant advances, what I'm seeing is the dumbing down of any vaguely educational historical content on telly at all? Should I just shut up and wait for Strictly Archaeologists on Ice in all their spangled glory? (Or the return, perhaps, of Bonekickers... *shudders*)
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 5 February 2013 11:45 am (UTC)I've always been fascinated by Richard, and have both studied him and read around the subject. I was quite 'thrilled' at the discovery of the skeleton, but I had doubts about the documentary and didn't watch it. The various errors in different media reports were bad enough.
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 5 February 2013 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 5 February 2013 01:44 pm (UTC)After a number of poor Horizon presentations I just about stopped watching anything with a medical slant. I suppose they find difficulty in making information accessible to all but I'd almost rather they didn't try.
I've read a couple of history books about the plague in the last few years that were similarly irritating - couldn't make their minds up who their audience was, I suspect.
We watched Brian Cox's lecture the other night and frankly, he lost me, but at least it wasn't badly dumbed down (just turned into a 'show'!) and I grasped some of it.
I've also been watching Attenborough's new Africa series and at least it's 'pretty' though I think I actually got more from Stephen Tompkinson's balloon trip.
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 5 February 2013 09:31 pm (UTC)I suspect alot of it does come down to producers/directors deciding who they think the audience is (or "should be") and then deciding for that audience what it is they're supposed to be watching... thank goodness there are still a few people who won't - or don't have to - do that! I missed Cox' lecture the other night - didn't even know he was doing it until I walked in on my landlady watching it, bleary-eyed... *g* See, that's why I'd like to have a chair to watch telly from - oh, and a couple of extra plugs, so I could leave it all plugged in and just turn the telly on without it being such a big palaver...
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 5 February 2013 10:31 pm (UTC)I have now watched the Richard III documentary - my f'list was full of it this morning so I thought I'd better have a look. I hated it - very little about Richard, and lots and lots about a very emotional campaigner. Apart from the facial resconstruction I didn't learn anything that wasn't in the news reports.
Sometimes I don't think producers/directors have any idea about their viewers!
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 6 February 2013 08:40 am (UTC)Except out of curiosity I trawled around for reviews of it yesterday, and the vast majority (and their comments) talked about how much they'd enjoyed it... and that is almost the most frightening thing - the loudest people are the ones who want to extol this level of film-making, rather than encourage people to open their imagination and understanding further... Maybe because they can't be bothered to do it themselves...
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 6 February 2013 10:38 am (UTC)But I suppose it's always hard to realise we're in a minority, when most of our friends are interested in the same things. (And that, of course, applies to everyone.)