You couldn't make it up dept. no.55: beyond imagination

[fpb]

BBC News 13.00, 14.02.2007

I swear I heard the following sentence drip from the anchorwoman's pearly pink lips:
"Cleopatra is remembered as a raving beauty who made Caesar fall in love with her and brought down the Roman Empire..."

My head hurts.

Comments

[filialucis]

Well, of course she did. And then they ploughed salt into the ground where Alexandria had once stood.

(It doesn't HAVE to make sense. It's a freakin' historical myth.)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, but, point one, this is the BBC, which takes a considerable amount of money from us every year under the excuse of helping the people to knowledge; and, point two, this is Britain, Shakespeare's land. Uh, Anthony and Cleopatra, anyone? Didn't you dimbulbs read it at school? Or is Shakespeare too dead, male and white for the trendy, up-to-date (so long as the date is 1973) BBC?

BBC

[kasialilac.livejournal.com]

What makes it worse, actually, is that over here in the States the BBC is generally seen as being better-informed and more objective than the American media (at least by the Left). I can remember quite a few professors and classmates singing its praises during my undergrad years. I wish I had a tape of that anchorwoman saying that...

Re: BBC

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't be too hard to find, I should think. I have given you the time and date. The program is BBC 1, Thirteen o'clock news.

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

LOL

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I swear I heard the following sentence drip from the anchorwoman's pearly pink lips:
"Cleopatra is remembered as a raving beauty who made Caesar fall in love with her and brought down the Roman Empire..."

Proof that the media are imbeciles.

I mean, nothing in that sentence is accurate. Except that Julius Caesar did fall in love with Cleopatra -- however, she didn't "make" him do this, and it wasn't because of her looks, which were rather ordinary.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, actually that is part of the story, which is about a coin that shows both Cleopatra and Mark Anthony in rather unattractive guises. However, anyone could read in Plutarch that her charm was in her personality rather than in her beauty.

Incidentally, another popular view has Cleopatra as Egyptian. She came from a very restricted gene pool (her forebears had married incestuously or with other Macedonian aristocrats) of Balkan origin, and one of the founders of her dynasty, Ptolemy Philadelphus, is described as fair-haired. The black Cleopatras I often see in comics and such annoy me greatly.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, another popular view has Cleopatra as Egyptian. She came from a very restricted gene pool (her forebears had married incestuously or with other Macedonian aristocrats) of Balkan origin, and one of the founders of her dynasty, Ptolemy Philadelphus, is described as fair-haired. The black Cleopatras I often see in comics and such annoy me greatly.

At least one Oakland Public School System history teacher told her class that Cleopatra was black. Which makes me wonder where this woman got her "history" education -- off the back of a cereal box? Cleopatra is a fairly famous historical personality, and her Macedonian descent is hardly a great secret.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Quite. But I have long since come to the conclusion that history should not be taught at below university level. There has never been a time when it was not used and distorted to serve the prevailing values and mould future citizens into the shape that teachers desire - nationalist or internationalist, conservative or Communist, but never honest. I would replace it with classes in civic education, with an emphasis on the duties of the citizen - that would be less hypocritical.

[avus.livejournal.com]

Ah, dear fpb, you have discovered yet one more reason why my wife & I don't have a TV set. Unless, of course, you need it to find idiocies for entertainment. Fortunately, or not, I'm able to find plenty within myself.

Hope things go well for you. Sorry I'm not aroud much.

[mathiasroesel.livejournal.com]

Ah, dear [info]fpb, you have discovered yet one more reason why my wife & I don't have a TV set.

That makes us two already >:)

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

In my experience, the BBC isn't really any better than PBS, or the History Channel. They're reasonably spot-on in most things, but occasionally some aweful, gross fallacy will sneak it's way in.

*shrug*. It's public TV. What do you want?

Anyways, the BBC doesn't have Dogfights: The Last Gunfighters.