Tuesday, June 3, 2008

An Open Letter to Documentarians

After watching Stone Henge Decoded on National Geographic, I have one simple request to all television- nay all documentarians: stop with the reenactments. Stop. They are horrible. They do nothing but reduce an otherwise serious or interesting program into Society for Creative Anachronism sideshow. Just. Stop. I beg you.

Case in point: the aforementioned Stonehenge program- shot after shot, close-up after brutal close-up of various haggard extras in nutria furs and Renaissance Fair outfits mouthing random lines from Beowulf. Please God make them stop.

What might be worse- as worse- are the reenactments by actual witnesses. As seen in such monuments to the documentary arts as the History Channel's MonsterQuest, a witness to a paranormal event will star as themselves in a replay of the event. Watch the excruciating attempts at emotions. Marvel as the non-actors wave, point, and otherwise madly gesture at an empty section of the screen where later Bigfoot, Skunk-Ape or a Little Green Man will be digitally inserted with all the buttery smooth subtlety of a rectal probe.

No more. Please. No more weekend actors playing at Hamlet in front of a green screen. No more off-duty Renaissance Fair employees. No more people over-dramatizing their own fifteen seconds of fame. Please, no more. I don't think I can take it.

So let me hereby propose a moratorium on reenactments. If removing this senseless, brain-destroying filler reduces documentary times in half then I will watch twice as much. As it stands, I can't watch half as much as I want to. My eyes just won't let me. It burns they tell me. And they're right. So no more, I say! No more!