Bollocks

August 29, 2007

Prowling around the Internet to make this afternoon go faster, I stumbled on a story about Ken Burns' upcoming documentary, The War.

There has been no shortage of controversy surrounding this piece. I don't get it. There have been endless films made about WWII. Documentaries, docudrama, fiction, romance, action films that stretch all possibilities of real life… the list is endless. And none of them are perfect enough to satisfy all parties. But, for some reason, this high profile membership lure is plaguing PBS.

Today's story was about the fact that some affiliates are airing an edited version that blips out the profanities from the soldiers' recollections. WTF?

If ever there was a justification to say fuck or shit on public television, I think something relative to the horrors of WWII just might be the case. Who are these idiots who wish to whitewash history? No, who just want to make it sound a little less harsh? Because they aren't asking PBS to edit out the images of dead bodies or explosions. Just the swear words. Who wouldn't be vulgar describing the horrific images of Iwo Jima or Normandy or the Battle of Bulge? Good God. Are these people that stupid?

There has been other controversy surrounding this film, about omissions made. The thing is only fourteen hours long. How can every aspect of that war get fair telling in just fourteen hours? It isn't the definitive story of WWII. But isn't it just simply… important that the story is still being told sixty years later? That we are not letting ourselves forget? That we are trying to remember the horror so that the legitimate profanities of bloodshed and holocaust and devastation do not repeat themselves? Or is it because our society gets stuck on petty little words and not the story… that, in fact, these profanities are being allowed to happen again?

Bloody hell.