Civil War on the Jeff Dunham show

[Jhammond]

I know that this was an earlier discussion, but I finally saw the Jeff Dunham show with “sweet daddy d” at the civil war reenactment. I must say for as much as I enjoy his stand up work on comedy central, I was very offended as a reenactor to watch that. I mean the skit started off a little funny but the whole drive by shooting and black body guards was too much, I had to turn it off. Am I alone on this I know I can’t be? I feel as though the general public that sees that now will think that that’s all we do is mock history and act like simpletons on the weekend.

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

"I feel as though the general public that sees that now will think that that’s all we do is mock history and act like simpletons on the weekend."

Welcome to an appreciation of the on-going relationship between the media and reenacting, and how they chose to depict reenacting and reenactors.

Popular media has a consistent record with such stellar depictions as from:

The Ellen Show
South Park
The Simpsons
The Unfinished Civil War
George Carlan

To name a few (notice what common element... comedy.)

Two not quite as bad, perhaps, was an old Matlock episode where a reenactor commits a murder by using a live round (incorrectly talking about the lack of rifling marks on a Minie) and one of the CSI genre episodes where the murderer (or murdered) was an OCD reenactor.

And the most recent, IIRC, a Starbucks' coffee commercial?

CHS

[Jhammond]

correct me now if I'm wrong but i do believe I heard that Matt Groening one of the Simson's creators is a reenactor.

[sbl]

Let me add, the extra scene from Borat.

A problem is that reenactors willingly participate. On the other hand see Pen & Teller's show B#ll Sh!t, the episode on the Second Ammendment, (on Youtube perhaps). Reenactors were treated with respect.

[Pete K]

Amazing how people will overlook the results and the insult to their valuesfor that fifteen minutes of fame. "Lookie there, I'm on the TV!"

[sbl]

The movie "Network" (1976) was prophetic.

Arthur Jensen: [calmly] Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those *are* the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that . . . perfect world . . . in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Howard Beale: Why me?

Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

[Pete K]

Everybody Loves Raymond's re-enacting episode wasn't too bad. Raymond, and his strong New York accent, winds up playing a Reb and that was the core of the joke. How the Dad and brothers related through reenacting was almost realistic (and that the 60 something aged dad/grandpa was still out there on the field wasn't too far from the mark either!).

[sbl]

Raymond's father had a good line in another episode. When Doris Roberts said something about how his reenactor friends relieved themselves in the wood, the Peter Boyle replied: "You should see what the Southern guys do!"

Malcolm in the Middle had a reenactor grandfather. Christopher Lloyd.

[plankmaker]

The reason why these shows make fun of reenactors? We make it waaaaayyyy too easy.

Mark Campbell
Piney Flats, TN

[SgtTodd]

Don't forget House. A while back when Cuddy was looking for a sperm-donor, House tramples one applicant with; "and he reenacts the Civil War on weekends..."