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Senator Chuck Grassley has been tweeting my opinions exactly:
“No history,” Grassley tweeted on Feb. 19. “I used to get history. Why do we h[a]v[e] such a channel when it doesn’t do history.”A week later, the senator turned to the History Channel and found, not black and white footage of Nazis, but “Mud Cats.” Again Grassley took to Twitter to express his displeasure. “When wi[ll] they put history back on the channel,” he tweeted.
Grassley pounds History Channel for lack of historyI suppose that the History Channel has done what MTV did back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, by moving past its namesake topic into more "trendy" programming. The difference is that I give a rip about what is on the History Channel.
It's funny (and stupid) for them to make that move to “trendy” seeing that much of the complaint about the History Channel is that they don't show history.
I agree with Chuck. I haven't liked the HC for awhile. AT least since they ran out of strange Nazi stuff to cover. They don't really do history anymore and haven't for several years.
At least there is the Military History Channel.
Should be more likely called the airpower/Nazi channel.
Given the state of Congress, their approval rating, their level of civility, and their relative level of inaction, it is no wonder that we now have two senators running down this rabbit hole of distraction.Personally, I watched (and enjoyed) the historical fiction mini-series "Hatfields & McCoys." I grew up with a family of Hatfield descendents living just a few houses up the street, and listen with awed fascination (that only a 9 or 10 year old can have) of the stories they'd tell, especially after coming back from the summer "reunions".Also, from a personal viewpoint, I can't stand the History Channel's new reality shows - Swamp People, Mountain Men, Ax Men, Ice Road Truckers, et. al. HOWEVER, I can see where and how this fits into "history" from a much broader perspective (kind of like why they show poker tournaments on ESPN) - kind of the same way that some documentaries can serve as history. Whether it is "pop-culture" (which is, after all, a discipline in academic history) or we look at it from more of a sociological/antropological point of view there is some justification as well. Personally, not my cup of tea... but at this point, Michael Jackson, Elvis, and even Bruce Springsteen qualify as "history".I think what Grassley is saying, is that the history channel isn't giving him his dose of "comfortable" history. As a senator, I'm sure he sees himself through the lens of future historians, and he maybe he fears that he'll be upstaged by some modern day moonshiner.
I am one who shares these politicians' views, if only because I have seen the shift take place over the past decade and have been dismayed by it as well. I remember six or seven years ago when I could turn the History Channel on at almost any time and tune into a show (whether it was a documentary on some interesting aspect of the Third Reich, an examination of the history of a certain holiday, or a re-enactment of the Mayflower journey) which would captivate me. It was a time when you could actually learn history, even if it was embellished for the cameras from time to time. I don't mind the channel showing the “Hatfields & McCoys” (though I didn't get a chance to see it), but I think that any historical value of shows such as “Ice Road Truckers” or “Ax Men” is so tangential as to be virtually non-existent.As an avid History Channel watcher some years ago, I decided to turn my career to a historical field. In fact, this forum was created around the same time that I was watching the channel a lot, and a number of my early posts were reactions to shows that I watched. The channel did have an influence on my life at a time when I needed it. I agree that those in Congress probably have more important matters to discuss than the changing format of the History Channel, but at least I am glad to know that I am not the only one who is irked by this.
