From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon May 06 2002 - 09:36:00 MDT
T0Morrow@aol.com wrote:
>
> Mike wrote, in relevant part:
>
> >I did become greatly concerned at the sort of
> >messages that this broadcast is trying to send in the area of promoting
> >the romance of a primitive pastoral existence over modern life.
>
> You might find it consoling, then, to hear that I know of at least two
> libertarian economics professors who have worked the show into their lessons,
> all with the aim of demonstrating to their students exactly how *un*romantic
> (or, at least, how dreary and uncomfortable) life was only a very short while
> ago. One of those two reports that he uses the show as a counter to the
> claim that modern market societies commodify and exploit women. Both
> professors find the show makes those points very clearly and convincingly to
> their students.
This is good to hear. I think that Pro-Act should make contact with the
Alfred P Sloan Foundation, one of the backers of the show. They
apparently are dedicated to educating the public about the importance of
technology in modern society.
While there is certainly an attempt to describe the real difficulties
that frontier families faced in the 1880's within the narration, I don't
think the audience will generally absorb this as much as the visual
images of the kids enjoying their one room schoolhouse education and
playing with the farm animals, and recounting their experiences
romatically once safely reensconced in the modern world. While there
were many positive experiences, the negative ones seemed to get glossed
over visually despite being detailed in the narrative. While we saw a
few barnyard injuries, none of the kids got sick (while in reality
1880's, one in five kids didn't survive). While the families had one
close encounter with a rather genial bear, they were free (and the
narrators never mentioned) that in the 1880's the primary threat to
people were wolves, which now only exist within Yellowstone Park. While
the show 'experts' graded the families on their preparedness for
winters, most non-academic audiences will never gain a visceral
understanding of the true hardships of 1880's Montana since the show
never went through the winter for real.
For those in Hollywood, I'd suggest that Frontier House be made into a 5
year reality tv show, with a million dollar prize for the winners. Lets
see these modern families last the 5 years to actually gain their
homestead grant.
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