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Reuters Via Yahoo:
PBS has launched its largest marketing and promotional campaign ever for Ken Burns' 15-hour, seven-episode World War II documentary "The War," which premieres September 23.
PBS and its corporate sponsors, General Motors, Bank of America and Anheuser-Busch, are spending some $10 million on traditional advertising avenues, such as radio, print, online and billboard ads.
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Nice to see GM underwriting the series after making all that cabbage selling 3-ton "Blitz" trucks to the Nazis.
Oh corporate America, is there any tyrannical dictator you can't do business with?
I am concerned also about the improper influence of Corporate Advertisers. It made me sick when Tom Brokow went touting "The greatest Generation." His bragging for them was false. Those folks NEVER bragged about being the greatest. Only marketing for the U.S. market allowed Brokow to get away with that farce.
It will be interesting to see the treatment, if any at all, of the Russians, who really beat the Nazis. Ours was a side show in comparison to the Russian front. I hope Ken Burns plays it straight.
While I think Burns is a good film-maker, I would hope that PBS is not showing favoritism over other budding film-makers -- besides Burns -- who are very talented, as well.
Hmmm... Yes, they are using some (for PBS) non-traditional advertising methods.
I can personally attest that like musical artists and event managers throughout the country, they have plastered the abandoned building across the street from my house with posters for the series.
I was rather shocked at this class-less development. I expected better. Imitating commercial networks doesn't help their image much, but it is to be expected.
Well, that means that GM, Bank of America, and Anheuser-Busch can pay for the show, and we can stop seeing those never-ending "Begathons!" I stopped contributing to PBS when they took Moyers off the air and put a "Dirty Rethug" in charge of the CPB. I will not pay up until they go completely back to their old ways! It is not "Public Broadcasting," if these "Private Corporations" are involved in the decision-making processes!
Well then spend your money wisely next time
Judging from the promotional material, this Burns project appears to be still more War Porn, a "Greatest Generation" treatment heavy on smarmy and sentimental nostalgia and old-school jingoism. Like Spielberg, Burns is certainly a master craftsman; let's hope he hasn't developed the same Achilles' Heel of degenerating into merely manipulating his audience.
If so, it's the latest in PBS' devolution into just another corporate-controlled teevee network. Personally, I would prefer an updated version of Gwynne Dyer's "War" series televised several years ago. At least Dyer tried to examine the question: War! What is it good for? (Absolutely nothing.)
How would YOU provide a "balanced", non-jingoistic, view of WWII? Give the Nazis equal time? Hove someone explain that Japan was ENTITLED to control all of Asia and the Pacific?
Better snappy comebacks, please. I'm not a professional historian or filmmaker, but I don't swallow whole the simplistic feel-good Amerikan myth of WWII as The Good War.
Whereas YOU seem to be implying that there really isn't another side to the story. You got your Good Guys, white-hatted Allies, and your Bad Guys, the black-hatted Axis. Seems kind of two-dimensional to me.
Maybe the "coming attractions" don't do justice to Burns' work-- we all know how off-base previews can be.
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First Posted: 09-10-07 08:11 AM | Updated: 03-28-08 02:45 AM