Watched a couple of nature documentaries recently, and discovered a fascinating change in how they are made. At no point in either of the documentaries, both by NatGeo, did they pause the information delivery to bemoan humanity’s impact on nature, nor did they bend over backwards to put the blame for said impacts solely on Europeans. This marks are dramatic change over the last decade. There was a time when you couldn’t watch two minutes of a documentary about swinging dead cats without being chastised for all the world’s ills.
It’s a refreshing change, but it’s not universal. I also checked out a documentary on the Cahokia mound builders and man oh man was it a glazing on par with the reviews for Gone Home.
“Population in the mid 10th century Pete at about 15,000.”
“The builders used sophisticated construction techniques to build pyramids over 75 ft high.”
Meanwhile, St. Paul’s Cathedral:
But the real kicker is one of the glazers trying to ask the rhetorical question: “Why would they spend so much energy building these massive structures? That’s a lot of effort!”
We’re not supposed to talk about this, but Google is right there in my pocket. We’re probably not supposed to notice that the quartet of researchers doing very sophisticated non-intrusive investigations using ground penetrating radar are old European stock, but we are supposed to take their word for it when they tell us that the mound builders practiced advanced scientific inquiries of their own. We’re not sure what those inquiries were because the mound builders left no written records, but bro trust me.
The last three minutes of what I can only consider a mockumentary were interviews with members of the Osage nation explaining that the mound builders are still here. They just kinda… sorta… stopped building mounds for like no real reason. Natural climate change and peacefully changing demographics that weren’t related to wars of conquest hand wave away any ugly truths about the matter.
Ok. Cool.
Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer nonfiction video these days. Basement enthusiasts are churning out some incredibly informative and interesting works in niche topics. There is an endless parade of interesting videos about environmental restoration, for example, that carry hopeful notes of triumphal optimism. It’s better watching than the firehose of trash Hollywood poops out annually, with a much higher signal to noise ratio, but we still aren’t at a place that you can’t just turn your brains off.
And maybe that’s the real reason I prefer it.