Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Distorting History

Proposed CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) disclaimer for a miniseries on the life of a Canadian socialist politician. [Emphasis mine.]
This film is a dramatization based on true events. Some names have been changed and locations, events and characters, including James G. Gardiner, have been composited, condensed or fictionalized for dramatic purposes and do not necessarily reflect the generally accepted historical record.
Most docudramas are fictionalized to an extent as few movie or documentary makers have first hand experience in a given event, nor do historians.   But when you make a documentary that doesn't reflect historical record, you are talking about an Oliver Stone political fantasy tailored to create a misimpression.   It's agitprop.   It isn't interpretation.   It isn't an accident.  It is a deliberate attempt to rewrite history. What is it about Leftists that they have such a fervent desire to distort history?

I suspect it is the Utopianism in some that makes their grounding in reality so uncertain that they feel any distortion is justified if it sounds good. In others, it is probably less delusional and more sinister. Still, you would think the CBC would take it as a warning that their pool of talent has fallen to dangerously low intellectual levels.

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