HISTORY – WGAF?

 

 

Being a bloke, I watch a lot of documentaries: history, facts, non-fiction.

And a lot of b&w footage exists of those things that actually happened.

So making those documentaries should be an easy job for someone: link the right pictures to the right facts.

But they don’t seem to be able do that.

If I watch a documentary about, say, the Battle of Britain, the Spitfires usually have huge  black-and-white stripes across both wings.

But black-and-white stripes were only used after D Day, and D Day was in 1944, four years after the Battle of Britain.

So what, a mere detail to most people, they won’t care.

But most people won’t be watching documentaries like that, and the people who are watching do care.

So those details are important if you’re a producer being paid to make historically accurate programmes.

But I’m getting used to the fact that the producers don’t care about the audience, because the producers don’t care about the subject.

They don’t care about the subject so they can’t be arsed with details.

That’s why they make b&w documentaries showing Russian T34 tanks and calling them German Panzers, showing little destroyers and calling them giant battleships, I’m used to the fact that whoever is making these programmes doesn’t give a damn.

But last night, I saw a clip that actually made my jaw drop.

The VO was talking about the Blitz, when the Luftwaffe mounted it’s biggest raid on London, and the visual was b&w footage of a United States Air Force B17 Flying-Fortress dropping its bomb-load.

And I thought, “Surely, no one can be THAT stupid”. 

But there it was, proof that whoever is cutting these programmes together literally doesn’t give a flying fuck.

German bombers have 2 engines, American bombers have 4 engines, German bombers have big black crosses on them, American bombers have big white stars, it’s not difficult.

But so what, it’s just some boring old crap for old geezers, no one cares.

And yet remember, this channel is called the Discovery HISTORY channel.

People don’t turn it on to watch Love Island, or I’m a Celebrity, or Keeping Up with the Kardashians, or hip-hop videos, or zombie-alien-robot movies.

This channel sells itself on historical accuracy, that’s what people watch it for, that’s what the people who work there are being paid to deliver.

And yet the people who are paid to work there treat it with contempt.

They couldn’t care less about the facts, or the audience, and they don’t care who knows it.

Which is pretty much the attitude of people in advertising.

People who work in it couldn’t give a damn about the product (what’s being advertised) or  what the audience wants, or delivering any factual information.

The people who are making the ads are bored with all that, so they assume everyone must be bored with all that.

The people making the ads just want awards for emotion and mood, so they assume that’s what everyone wants, emotion and mood.

If you like the mood in our little film you’ll buy whatever we’re selling.

You don’t need to know the name, or what it does, or who it’s for.

These people don’t like advertising, so they try to change it into something they do like.

My feeling is if you hate the job, then don’t do that job, go somewhere else and find a job you do like.

But don’t ruin this job for the people who do like it.