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The BBC has a new high-profile series on Roman history called 'Meet the Romans, with Mary Beard' presented by celebrity historian Mary Beard. You can tell she's a celebrity historian because the programme isn't called 'Meet the Romans', it's called 'Meet the Romans, with MARY BEARD'. I watched the first episode with bunn. We're both interested in Roman history, although she's self-taught and I did it at A-level. We also have very different interests. She's into social history, ordinary Romans during Imperial times and Roman Britain. My main interest in Roman history is the politics of the late Republic. In fictional terms, she's a big 'Eagle of the Ninth' fan, while I much preferred the HBO series 'Rome'.
This difference in tastes probably explains why bunn liked the programme rather more than I did. In fact, I thought MTRWMB was a little bit dull*, a little bit childish**, a little bit sensationalist*** and, dare I say it, a little bit dumbed down.
It's difficult to accuse a history programme of being dumbed down when it is presented by a Cambridge professor who is one of the country's, if not the world's, leading authorities on ancient Rome. But when you compare the programme to say 'A History of Britain' (the Simon Schama series) it seems very lightweight. That might be unfair (especially after only one episode). 'A History of Britain' ticks the boxes of what I want in a television series on history - it concentrates on the important events and people who shaped history, and uses anecdotes about ordinary people to illustrate those events. MTRWMB is almost the exact opposite. In the first episode, we learned almost nothing about any actual historical event (just a little bit about the first Jewish revolt), but we did hear plenty of funny anecdotes about unimportant Romans and their foibles.
At primary school I found that some parts of the history syllabus were exciting and interesting lessons where you learned about important things that happened in the past. And then there were the dull lessons where you learned about "How we used to live", and (worst of all) had to write short fiction where you had to imagine life as say a child factory worker. I hated those lessons. When I got to senior school, I got back to proper history lessons. My school was lucky enough to have a set of genuinely brilliant and inspirational history teachers and the school actually set its own GCSE syllabus. Our version of "How we used to live" was actual historical research - such as interviewing old people about past events like the War. When I left school and went to sixth form college, the History A-level was a very boring sounding syllabus full of stuff like the industrial revolution and the corn laws. So instead, I chose to do the ultra-obscure**** 'Greek & Roman History'. This was a mixture of 'proper' history, original (translated) sources and political institutions and theory*****. I loved it.
Professor Beard herself is an engaging presenter. She's no Simon Schama (who is my yardstick for presenting any factual documentary on television), but she's more interesting to listen to than David Starkey or Bettany Hughes. TV critic AA Gill got into trouble recently for saying she was too ugly for TV. This was perhaps a little ungallant, and most people rushed to defend her saying that it didn't matter what she looked like, it was what she said that counts. While this is undeniably true, I can't help but suspect that there is an element of Heinz Wolff syndrome at work here. For those who don't remember him from his 1980s TV career, Professor Heinz Wolff was (and still is) a scientist who managed to have a successful television career by playing up on his eccentric scientist image - bow-tie, mad hair, German accent - the stereotypical mad scientist. Deliberately or not, Mary Beard has the image of a stereotypical classics don, and I think this is part of her appeal to TV bosses. I don't know about you, but if I was going to present a programme on primetime national television, I'd at least brush my hair. I can imagine a director telling Mary Beard not to, so that it added to the effect. Ultimately though, given the choice between a celebrity TV historian who had stereotypically mad hair and one who poses on clifftops while his beautifully coiffured shoulder length locks blow majestically in the breeze (I'm looking at you, Neil 'Coast' Oliver...), I'll take the scruffy, shabby Mary Beard every time.******
AKICOLJ: One thing I did notice about Mary Beard is her Latin pronunciation. Now there is no way that I know Latin anywhere near as well as she does. Nevertheless, when I were a lad, doing Latin at school, the letter 'v' in Latin was pronounced 'w'. Mary Beard consistently pronounces her 'v's as 'v'. I thought that this was only acceptable when pronouncing 'modern' Latin words like scientific names for plants and animals or religious terms, and when pronouncing classical Latin, the 'w' pronunciation should be used. Am I wrong?Mind you, I remember one of my economics tutors at Oxford (who was Italian) complaining that we British were wrong and that instead of "wenny, widdy, weeky", we should be saying (and here you have to imagine the Italian accent and the stereotypical handwaving gestures) "VEnee, ViDee, VITCHee".
One more piece of Roman history today. I reacquired the tabletop wargame 'Imperium Romanum II'. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1496/imperium-romanum-ii I owned this when I was doing my A-levels, and played it a few times with friends who were in the same class, but I sold it during a time in my life when I was short on money and space. I've been looking for a decent copy on eBay for a while, but it's quite rare. However, I found one in Germany and it arrived today - EURO 33.50 and mint condition. The shorter scenarios take a couple of hours to play and the longest take over 100. I'll quite possibly never end up playing it, but in an alternative universe where I have much, much more time than I do now (and Football Manager and Traveller don't exist...) I'd find a way to play a massive supercampaign starting with the Marius v Sulla civil war and running long into the Empire until all of the players die of old age. If skordh's suggestion of an old folks' home for gamers comes to fruition, I'll want to play this.
* The general premise of the programme seems to be "Look how the Romans were just like us!" Frankly if they're just like us, why would they be interesting? TV series like 'Rome' and 'I, Claudius' are interesting because they deal with the important people, who _aren't_ just like us. If they were basically Roman versions of Eastenders or Coronotion Street (Caius Kennus Barlo, Quintus Phillus Mitcellus, Lucius Jackus Duckverdiccas...), they wouldn't be very exciting.
** There's a scene where the presenter shows how the Romans would "shit together". Yes, it shows an aspect of Roman life that was presumably important to Romans, but I'm really not interested in the unpleasant toilet habits of ancient Romans. This sort of stuff is fine for 'Horrible Histories', but too silly for a grown-up history programme.
*** Professor Beard tells us about an innkeeper whose name translates as (cue Kenneth Williams style knowing look at the camera) "Mr Hot Sex". Some people will no doubt find it fascinating that the Romans had innkeepers who had names like "Mr Hot Sex", but to me it smacks of desperation. "Look how exciting Roman history is! It's none of that boring "weeny, weedy, weaky" stuff!"
**** How obscure? In my year, in the entire country, the subject was sat by sixteen people. Fourteen of those were in my class. When my teacher decided she didn't want to teach it the following year, and wanted to do Classical Civilisation instead, the examining board had to drop the subject. I got a grade B, despite apparently getting the top mark in the country.
***** Something that was particularly useful in my Oxford interviews for PPE.
****** There might be some double standards at play here. My impression is that female television presenters (with the exception of newsreaders) get away with being rather more casually dressed than their male equivalents. We live in a world where Match of the Day presenters can look immaculately groomed and wear smart and expensive suits, but are still criticised for not wearing ties, whereas female sports presenters like Hazel Irvine and Clare Balding get away with being rather less smart.
This difference in tastes probably explains why bunn liked the programme rather more than I did. In fact, I thought MTRWMB was a little bit dull*, a little bit childish**, a little bit sensationalist*** and, dare I say it, a little bit dumbed down.
It's difficult to accuse a history programme of being dumbed down when it is presented by a Cambridge professor who is one of the country's, if not the world's, leading authorities on ancient Rome. But when you compare the programme to say 'A History of Britain' (the Simon Schama series) it seems very lightweight. That might be unfair (especially after only one episode). 'A History of Britain' ticks the boxes of what I want in a television series on history - it concentrates on the important events and people who shaped history, and uses anecdotes about ordinary people to illustrate those events. MTRWMB is almost the exact opposite. In the first episode, we learned almost nothing about any actual historical event (just a little bit about the first Jewish revolt), but we did hear plenty of funny anecdotes about unimportant Romans and their foibles.
At primary school I found that some parts of the history syllabus were exciting and interesting lessons where you learned about important things that happened in the past. And then there were the dull lessons where you learned about "How we used to live", and (worst of all) had to write short fiction where you had to imagine life as say a child factory worker. I hated those lessons. When I got to senior school, I got back to proper history lessons. My school was lucky enough to have a set of genuinely brilliant and inspirational history teachers and the school actually set its own GCSE syllabus. Our version of "How we used to live" was actual historical research - such as interviewing old people about past events like the War. When I left school and went to sixth form college, the History A-level was a very boring sounding syllabus full of stuff like the industrial revolution and the corn laws. So instead, I chose to do the ultra-obscure**** 'Greek & Roman History'. This was a mixture of 'proper' history, original (translated) sources and political institutions and theory*****. I loved it.
Professor Beard herself is an engaging presenter. She's no Simon Schama (who is my yardstick for presenting any factual documentary on television), but she's more interesting to listen to than David Starkey or Bettany Hughes. TV critic AA Gill got into trouble recently for saying she was too ugly for TV. This was perhaps a little ungallant, and most people rushed to defend her saying that it didn't matter what she looked like, it was what she said that counts. While this is undeniably true, I can't help but suspect that there is an element of Heinz Wolff syndrome at work here. For those who don't remember him from his 1980s TV career, Professor Heinz Wolff was (and still is) a scientist who managed to have a successful television career by playing up on his eccentric scientist image - bow-tie, mad hair, German accent - the stereotypical mad scientist. Deliberately or not, Mary Beard has the image of a stereotypical classics don, and I think this is part of her appeal to TV bosses. I don't know about you, but if I was going to present a programme on primetime national television, I'd at least brush my hair. I can imagine a director telling Mary Beard not to, so that it added to the effect. Ultimately though, given the choice between a celebrity TV historian who had stereotypically mad hair and one who poses on clifftops while his beautifully coiffured shoulder length locks blow majestically in the breeze (I'm looking at you, Neil 'Coast' Oliver...), I'll take the scruffy, shabby Mary Beard every time.******
AKICOLJ: One thing I did notice about Mary Beard is her Latin pronunciation. Now there is no way that I know Latin anywhere near as well as she does. Nevertheless, when I were a lad, doing Latin at school, the letter 'v' in Latin was pronounced 'w'. Mary Beard consistently pronounces her 'v's as 'v'. I thought that this was only acceptable when pronouncing 'modern' Latin words like scientific names for plants and animals or religious terms, and when pronouncing classical Latin, the 'w' pronunciation should be used. Am I wrong?Mind you, I remember one of my economics tutors at Oxford (who was Italian) complaining that we British were wrong and that instead of "wenny, widdy, weeky", we should be saying (and here you have to imagine the Italian accent and the stereotypical handwaving gestures) "VEnee, ViDee, VITCHee".
One more piece of Roman history today. I reacquired the tabletop wargame 'Imperium Romanum II'. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1496/imperium-romanum-ii I owned this when I was doing my A-levels, and played it a few times with friends who were in the same class, but I sold it during a time in my life when I was short on money and space. I've been looking for a decent copy on eBay for a while, but it's quite rare. However, I found one in Germany and it arrived today - EURO 33.50 and mint condition. The shorter scenarios take a couple of hours to play and the longest take over 100. I'll quite possibly never end up playing it, but in an alternative universe where I have much, much more time than I do now (and Football Manager and Traveller don't exist...) I'd find a way to play a massive supercampaign starting with the Marius v Sulla civil war and running long into the Empire until all of the players die of old age. If skordh's suggestion of an old folks' home for gamers comes to fruition, I'll want to play this.
* The general premise of the programme seems to be "Look how the Romans were just like us!" Frankly if they're just like us, why would they be interesting? TV series like 'Rome' and 'I, Claudius' are interesting because they deal with the important people, who _aren't_ just like us. If they were basically Roman versions of Eastenders or Coronotion Street (Caius Kennus Barlo, Quintus Phillus Mitcellus, Lucius Jackus Duckverdiccas...), they wouldn't be very exciting.
** There's a scene where the presenter shows how the Romans would "shit together". Yes, it shows an aspect of Roman life that was presumably important to Romans, but I'm really not interested in the unpleasant toilet habits of ancient Romans. This sort of stuff is fine for 'Horrible Histories', but too silly for a grown-up history programme.
*** Professor Beard tells us about an innkeeper whose name translates as (cue Kenneth Williams style knowing look at the camera) "Mr Hot Sex". Some people will no doubt find it fascinating that the Romans had innkeepers who had names like "Mr Hot Sex", but to me it smacks of desperation. "Look how exciting Roman history is! It's none of that boring "weeny, weedy, weaky" stuff!"
**** How obscure? In my year, in the entire country, the subject was sat by sixteen people. Fourteen of those were in my class. When my teacher decided she didn't want to teach it the following year, and wanted to do Classical Civilisation instead, the examining board had to drop the subject. I got a grade B, despite apparently getting the top mark in the country.
***** Something that was particularly useful in my Oxford interviews for PPE.
****** There might be some double standards at play here. My impression is that female television presenters (with the exception of newsreaders) get away with being rather more casually dressed than their male equivalents. We live in a world where Match of the Day presenters can look immaculately groomed and wear smart and expensive suits, but are still criticised for not wearing ties, whereas female sports presenters like Hazel Irvine and Clare Balding get away with being rather less smart.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 04:30 pm (UTC)Personally, when I was little, I just loved history, full stop (medieval and Early Modern, anyway) although most of my enthusiasms involved big events, battles and kings. However, I certainly don't think it's the case that only one sort of history is "proper" history. You can't understand the big events without knowing at least something about how the people involved in them lived, what they thought about the world, how they interacted, what they believed etc. etc. Otherwise it's easy to fall into the trap of attributing modern day values to the people of the past.* Equally, you can't properly understand how ordinary people lived without knowing something about the big events that influenced their lives, however indirectly.
* When I did the Wars of the Roses as my Special Subject for my finals, my tutorial partner and I both parroted the usual "bastard feudalism was shocking and corrupt" line, and our tutor sternly told us to forget anything like that. We had understand how poeple at the time lived and thought, so we could to see the events through medieval eyes, otherwise we'd never understand the politics. We both got Firsts, with our highest marks being received for the Wars of the Roses paper, so he must have been on to something.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 07:49 pm (UTC)I note that it wasn't just the social history element that put you off A level history, sounds like it was the period covered as well?
I actually find Simon Schama quite a dull presenter but I'm less interested in the periods of history he focusses on. Basically if it happened after 1485, I'm happy to ignore it. :-D
no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 06:43 pm (UTC)Was that the board game that a group from Taruithorn once played in the same room as a group playing a game, called, I think, Junta? My abiding memories of that night are of the two sets of rules being read out in parallel ("Assassinations take place in the Senate phase! No they don't, assassinations take place at any time!). Also of the punic wars coming up in the wrong order, and Kargicq making a (very short) speech in Latin.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 10:14 pm (UTC)a little bit dumbed down
Date: 2012-04-30 07:55 pm (UTC)I actually liked HBO's 'Rome' as well, but basically I'm not much inclined to be a huge fan of anything televisual : I don't absorb information as well from TV, (hence, do not mind repetition & dumbing down particularly) and I never enjoy a TV program as much as a good book.
Re: a little bit dumbed down
Date: 2012-05-01 08:57 am (UTC)Re: a little bit dumbed down
Date: 2012-05-01 09:16 am (UTC)Also the 'shut up and be grateful' thing strikes me as a little odd -surely most academics would be very reluctant to let their name go on something that was just wrong if it was in print. I can see why TV might have been different once because of the shortage of channels, but the way media are merging now, you'd think the content people would be starting to get more of a say.
Re: a little bit dumbed down
Date: 2012-05-01 06:41 pm (UTC)(*) By this I mean that I have often seen science articles where, in giving the context for the research, the journalist gives the impression that the scientist has made a much wider breakthrough than they really did. E.g., "'My work shows that the perception of a particular colour depends on colours surrounding it,' explains Dr X". Where in fact the words which appear as a direct quotation have been made up by the journalist, the fact regarding perception has been known since at least the seminal work of von Wissenschaft in 1862, and Dr X's paper contains a tweak which improves performance of the current model of the phenomenon. I always imagine serried ranks of scientists, who haven't been on media training courses and thus don't know how it works, bulging with indignation at the bare-faced cheek of the hapless Dr X, and resolving to trash all his grant applications from now on :-).
Neuromancer
Re: a little bit dumbed down
Date: 2012-05-02 12:59 pm (UTC)I wonder if at some point you will be asked to include Youtube appearances, or will be expected to give an estimated number of eyeballs that Virtual You was in front of in a year...
In the long term, that fuzziness is probably a good thing, in that no longer is the program shot and then the sniping goes on behind closed doors, but more and more, people will be posting their comments in a way that can be analysed and responded to.
Though mind you that will probably be awfully timeconsuming in terms of answering the same old thing over and over.
(I should have said that obviously I'm not able to spot if there was something *wrong* in this particular program. It was only that I was struck by a couple of things where the emphasis seemed odd compared to other information I've read about the same topic, where I wondered if the message could have been affected by cutting. But might just be that my original idea was completely wrong, of course :-D )
Re: a little bit dumbed down
Date: 2012-05-01 10:24 am (UTC)Oh, that's pure class. You know, somebody should collect examples like that and make a website out of it.
Re: a little bit dumbed down
Date: 2012-05-02 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-14 06:06 pm (UTC)