Bring on the documentaries
There’s an idea that television can provide a window on the world. If the world means endless rounds of golf, game shows, the search to see who is smarter than a fifth grader or a chance to see what the weather might be tomorrow, then it’s probably a window on a brick wall in an alley. Once in a while, though, the curtain does show places and people that are outside of the fence. Tonight, I hit a solid string of broadcasts that made me sit and watch.
The CBC is “test driving” a new documentary channel; if the demand is strong enough it will be available (at a cost as yet unknown) from local cable providers. No, I don’t have 500 channels, so there’s room. The programming is not mainstream. I followed in from the Fifth Estate, also off the beaten track of a hockey-centric world.
Hannah and her gang were following a news story from the last few days, presenting a view of a community in BC that espouses polygamy. In simplest terms, a lifestyle that is far too difficult for the average man to follow. It takes special characters, and their team found several. Try to imagine a really close-knit elementary school with a principal that takes his role VERY seriously. Now view things through a glass, darkly. There you go.
My next couple of hours were spent in Mississippi, in the town where Elvis was born. Here, a number of people try to live their own lives, among friends, through the community of a local bar. Now, the story would have little interest if the patrons weren’t part of a minority, but the documentary made it to the Sundance Festival. Small Town Gay Bar is thought provoking, because it shows the effects of generalized intolerance.
There was a short film by a Chinese author that gave a timeline of where Tiananmen Square fits into the life of someone from Beijing that has lived through the variations of political control in the country. For me, it provides the other side of an odd shaped coin; in university I came across my first copy of the “Little Red Book”, and was afraid that the government would find me reading from it and put me in jail. Disinformation is a tool of the rulers.
Now I’m off to watch an episode of the “Seven Ages Of Rock”. At least the names will be familiar.
