Colonial House: Gen X'ers cannot cut it.

PBS is rerunning a series called "Colonial house," where some folks are sent to live like it was 1620 in coastal Maine." It was filmed in 2002.

It follows in the wake of the British "Victorian House" and the previous PBS "Frontier House."

I have worked as an anthropologist, and so there are two things in these programs that annoy the H. E. double hockeysticks out of me. 3 actually:

A. It is reality TV!!! If you add up the numberical values in "reality TV," they add up to 616. [ now there's an ATS joke if there ever was one ! ]

B. Even in the 1620's, adults of both genders and all classes were highly skilled technicians in practically every trade. Not that they ran a computer or anything. But have you ever tried to milk a cow? It is a definite skill. So is making soap; so is practically everything about running a self-sufficient farm. So it is laughable to expect a buncha whities from the burbs to be able to walk onto the set and survive. Most of them think that "hunt and gather involves a Sonic Drive in and a newspaper full of coupons.

C. The REAL struggle on these shows is not man against the elements. The real show is about how one or two mature people try to herd a group of post-modern troglodytes into actually performing a group activity. And watching them preen and priss around like a bunch of prima donnas who know damn well the camera crew isn't going to let them starve to death, as long as it "makes good TV."

It is disrespectful to the past, to treat people's lives and deaths as a sideshow prop, and then be freaked out about how ugly their clothes looked and omigod how it sucks to eat salad that isn't pre-cut for you.


Damn. This little tinkertoy "snivelization" is about to drown in a puddle of its own effluviate. We cannot even dress meat (most of you), and we freak out if there is no fireman, no cop, no surgeon, to fix everthing that goes wrong.

Damn.