So I'm watching this Vietnam War documentary and...

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boogiepop

Guest
I've been appalled at how horribly skewed the viewpoint is in favor of the U.S. military personnel. During one battle scene, they refer to the actions of the Viet Cong as "merciless" only to describe U.S. bomber pilots' actions as "disciplined and precise" (or something to that effect) a few seconds later. In fact, most times they don't even call them the Viet cong, but just throw down that blanket term, "the enemy." I felt like I was watching Saving Private Ryan instead of a documentary the actions of the soldiers were so glorified.

Another gripe I have is that they skip over things like the My Lai Massacre (purposely, I presume). While they mention body count instead of territory being a measurement for success, they skimp on the important details. For example, they again refer to all those killed during search and destroy missions as The Enemy when in fact, a lot of the time those killed were civilians. It didn't matter if you were Viet Cong or not, a kill was a kill, and the sooner you got yourself "a respectable tally," the sooner you could head back to camp.

So yeah, has anyone else seen it? It's called Vietnam in HD. Any better documentaries on the subject you could recommend? It really burns my ass when I see something as biased as this about something as important as the Vietnam War. I seriously hope no teacher in the U.S. would have his or her students watch this garbage.
 
turgy22

turgy22

Nothing Special
I'm not familiar with the documentary you watched, but just because it's a documentary doesn't mean it's going to be unbiased. (Ever watched a Michael Moore film?) Filmmakers want to sell films and they'll skew the viewpoint towards their audience. I would guess that this film was made by an American director who expected to sell the film for western audiences. Additionally, any documentary (or news report for that matter) is only as good as the information available. If a western filmmaker is trying to make a documentary about the Vietnam war, he'll have much more access to American soldiers and viewpoints than those of the Vietnamese. If 100% of the people he talked to fought on the American side, it's going to be a 100% bias toward that side, whether he wants to do that or not. I'm sure there have been Vietnamese filmmakers telling their side of the war to audiences in the south pacific, which would be just as biased, but in the other direction.

Unfortunately, I don't have any recommendations. I don't think I've seen any Vietnam documentaries and if I had, I probably wouldn't remember if they were unbiased or not.
 
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boogiepop

Guest
I originally had a long post typed out but was unable to actually post it due to whatever problems the site had last week. That, combined with the fact that I've had quite a bit of time to cool off, means this will be very much an abridged version of that previous post.

First point: I think Micheal Moore films are a different beast in that they're meant to be shown to a theater audience. Since this was shown on the History Channel or PBS (etc.,) I assume it will have some educational value.

My second point in that the My Lai Massacre was widely known and had a significant impact on Americans' views on the war. There wasn't an information gap. Skipping it is like having a WWII documentary that never mentions The Holocaust.

Anyway, I was just very disappointed with the series and needed to share that. Thank you for responding!
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
boogiepop said:
Since this was shown on the History Channel or PBS (etc.,) I assume it will have some educational value.
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The History Channel is a joke. I can't remember too many concrete examples as it's been years since I actually saw anything on the History Channel, but I'm not surprised that you found something there lacking. Occasionally I've run into essays on the internet where actual historians found some show on the History Channel so egregiously wrong that they just couldn't resist writing a rebuttal. And invariably, the author will, as an aside, note that the entire channel is terrible.
 
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boogiepop

Guest
That's disappointing to hear. I haven't watched tv proper in many years, so I'll have to take your word for it. Since seeing 2003's The First World War, I've come to expect a lot from documentaries.

As an aside: Have either of you read Patriots by Christian G. Appy? It's everything Vietnam in HD isn't and more.
 
turgy22

turgy22

Nothing Special
The History Channel: Where the truth is history.

This is no different than Michael Moore trying to sell a film to theaters. The goal is eyeballs on the screen, not unbiased accounts. As long as a channel has sponsors, it's looking solely for ratings. Moreso, cable channels make money based on how many homes they're broadcast in and if no one watches them, they get bumped to a different pay tier with less subscribers.

I am surprised if PBS is guilty of the same thing, though, since as far as I'm aware, they're funded solely through government subsidies and viewer donations.
 
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boogiepop

Guest
Well, I checked and it was indeed a History Channel affair. I literally have not watched it in 15-20 years so either it's changed for the worse, or I was merely much less discerning in my youth. My expectations are still different. I've never watched a Hollywood "documentary" and expected anything other than an opinion. I thought the History Channel's niche market was a group of informed individuals looking for quick overviews of historical events. Apparently, it's actually for testosterone junkies waiting for the Monday night football game to start.
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
turgy22 seems to have a special "feeling" for Micheal Moore....... Did he cut you out of a scene or something? :)
What s a "good" documentary? I have friends who served in Nam and they all tell different stories about it.
Now I have not seen this one or a Micheal Moore movie.
Why is the History Channel so reviled?
 
turgy22

turgy22

Nothing Special
Mooseman said:
turgy22 seems to have a special "feeling" for Micheal Moore....... Did he cut you out of a scene or something? :)
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I don't care for Michael Moore one way or the other. He's just the only documentary filmmaker I could think of at the time and a pretty obvious example that documentaries need not be unbiased.
 
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boogiepop

Guest
I don't know a good documentary on 'Nam but can highly recommend both the book and series I mentioned in post #5. The latter is on youtube.
It's a little slow in the first episode, but gets very interesting soon afterwards. I only ever heard about the trench warfare in school so was suprised to learn that there was sooo much more.

As for the book, it's a collection of interviews with all different sorts of people involved in or effected by the Vietnam War. There are interviews with generals and soldiers on all sides, people involved in the protest movement, entertainers, nurses, draft-dodgers, POWs (again, on both sides.) Pretty much everybody gets a say. It's pretty awesome in that it's like reading an oral history of the war from all different sorts of perspectives.
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
turgy22 said:
I don't care for Michael Moore one way or the other. He's just the only documentary filmmaker I could think of at the time and a pretty obvious example that documentaries need not be unbiased.
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Actually, almost all Documentaries are unbiased, since they tell a story from some view point. Everything is like that, you can't just have a bunch of info or stories crammed together. I t needs to have a viewpoint and that is usually the documentarian. Some are more biased then others and that bias is magnified by the bias of the viewer.
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
boogiepop said:
Well, I checked and it was indeed a History Channel affair. I literally have not watched it in 15-20 years so either it's changed for the worse, or I was merely much less discerning in my youth.
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It could be a bit of both. I mean, I can't be sure either. But that's my suspicion.

I thought the History Channel's niche market was a group of informed individuals looking for quick overviews of historical events.
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Not much of a market for that, apparently?

Mooseman said:
Actually, almost all Documentaries are unbiased, since they tell a story from some view point.
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Hm, that sounds like my reasoning for why all documentaries are biased. So what you're saying is that the onus for bias isn't on the documentary, but on the human(s) creating the narrative, that it's not the documentary that's biased, but the documentarian. Well, if that's the case, it sounds like we're just using different ways of saying the same basic thing, which is fine. I would also note that while some are more biased than others, there are some categorical differences too. There's a difference between, for example, "I have a limited amount of time to present facts from a huge body of information on this topic, so I have to make my own (inevitably biased) decision as to what to include and what not to include" and "if I interview people under false pretenses and then creatively edit the interviews to make them look like they're saying thing that they aren't, I can make them look dumb."
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
Actually, almost all Documentaries are unbiased, since they tell a story from some view point.

I actually meant to type biased.
I meant that both the documentarian and the viewer bring biases to the work.
 
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boogiepop

Guest
That's quite the amusing read. Ancient Aliens, eh? I'd probably find that show to be more laughable than offensive, to be honest. Point taken, though.
 
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