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Post by Dark Cloud on Jun 8, 2007 12:55:50 GMT -6
One of the issues that interests me about the LBH and its forums - and has been raised again by postings of recent vintage – is “…what style is appropriate for history….how are actual events deformed by the application to them of metaphor, rhetorical comparison, prose rhythm, assonance, alliteration, allusion, and sentence structures and connectives implying clear causality?” This from Paul Fussell. That was written thirty years ago, long before YouTube, or the Internet, or easy video, so all that needs to be added in and included these days. Video production methods can far more easily warp a viewer’s appreciation of time and appeal to not only the lowest denominator but the shortest attention spans.
It’s too easy to drop kick CSS’ productions as mere Josh/Donna scenes put to music (as anyone who’s had the misfortune to call up The West Wing on YouTube must know) by a besotted pre-teen, although I do just that (in the kindest phrasing), but one thing that does appear all through YouTube are historical newsreels put to music and edited to provide the viewer with an often melodramatic and totally false conclusion of what they had seen. Whatever good this will do in the long run is partially offset by the utterly bogus assumptions about history that the unread and/or unlearned will take away from viewing these things. And MANY people do just that, but posing their comments beneath. Some are as wrong as the video that inspired them, but they’re arguing - put up or shut up. Provided it doesn’t biodegrade into a mud fight, that’s potentially good and creative.
But my feeling is that few constructively argue because few know much of anything anymore. I’ve complained that Custerland would prosper towards truth with some more literature infusion that would show what the mental landscape of Custer’s time would have been, what metaphors and allusions they reached for to describe their world. I think a lot of the “lies” and distortions would appear as consistent with etiquette as then understood.
I would further contend that you need to know a fair amount about history, not just US history (although it sure would help) to have some idea of the times that produced, allowed, condoned, or condemned certain manners of presentation of the battle over the years.
I think if far more important to know more about this sort of thing than the correct thread to hold the correct button in this uniform or that.
It is suggested that re-enactors in their variations present viewers with an increased knowledge and appreciation of the soldiers, etc. I suggest the opposite, that it distorts it badly. They’re fat (by 1876 standards and sometimes today's standards) and healthy and much, much taller than the tubercular appearing young men in the 1876 7th. Their horses are better as well. Whatever ‘accuracy’ is displayed is way offset by the cleanliness, size, and different physicality, tending towards fleshy.
Carrying the point further, for example, Benteen was bigger than Custer, Reno shorter, but no movie I’ve seen to date has ever shown that. Custer is always a strapping six footer and not the gnarled, balding, very thin guy he was. Lesser officers are lesser men in casting and presentation.
So, that’s why I don’t like re-enactors, and much less under the title of ‘living historians.’ Or these videos, or much written on the LBH, where baseball card level trivia is memorized by people who can't play the game.
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Post by crzhrs on Jun 8, 2007 13:30:04 GMT -6
Whoops! I posted a respone in the wrong place. Here it is again.
With the onset of the Internet anyone today can create a web site with the "facts"
Like anyone shopping around . . . . it's buyer beware!
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Post by Tricia on Jun 8, 2007 13:49:17 GMT -6
But you know, DC ... and I tend to agree with your assessments of living historians and always have (though I applaud their volunteerism and service and stamina), I wonder, if as single-minded as CSS is, he is simply picking up what he thinks to be Libbie's legacy, the melodrama and all.
As I have often said, I think GAC would cringe at this rank reducton of his personage to that of an action-figure. Love him or hate him, he was--and is--a man worthy of attention.
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Post by Tricia on Jun 8, 2007 18:27:40 GMT -6
And just to further the discussion, whilst Bill Rini has a right to be a born-and-bred Custerphile in his private actions, I would think that his role as Myles Keogh would prevent that whilst working on the battlefield. In no way am I offering any criticism toward's Bill's fine, fine work. But, Keogh was one of those officers who could travel the divide between the Custer Clan--though never particularly in Armstrong's good graces--and the rest of the regiment. I'm thinking Captain Keogh was much more circumspect in his feelings towards the Boy General, and had he survived, though supportive of the mission, I'm sure he would not have been enthused about the outcome--or his lieutenant colonel. Of course, at that point, he'd be third in regimental command after Reno and Benteen ... and might have made a play for the lead. As the sole survivor of the Last Stand, it would make for a powerful battle for power--should he'd wanted it.
Bill, how do you feel about the historian vs. portraying the historical person? This can be a really great conversation.
--t.
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Post by elisabeth on Jun 9, 2007 0:07:28 GMT -6
Tricia, nice example of the sort of distortion DC's talking about. The "Band of Brothers" template is so powerful and attractive that it's been overlaid on this thing almost from the first. ("Band of Brothers plus one semi-detached sceptic" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.) The historiography of Keogh alone would make quite an interesting study. In the immediate aftermath, tacit celebration -- via Comanche, the naming of Post No. 1, etc.; in the Prohibition era he becomes a whipping-boy (Dustin et al); in the post-Glory Hunter era he's romanticised to offer an "acceptable" LBH hero for those finding Custer harder to swallow in that role (as in Luce, Miller, Kuhlmann, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon) or beginning to feel sensitive about the government's treatment of the Indians (Tonka); then, in modern times, a giant leap back to the Dustin view in order to award him the role of weakest link and cause of the disaster (Fox). Little to do with the reality, much more to do with the narrative needs of the times. Fascinating.
DC has often mentioned Arthur and Roland as models, quite rightly; perhaps more popular literature may have played a part, too. Right from the start, newspapers were fond of describing Custer's command as "the three hundred" or similar, in a conscious echo of Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade". That's one reference everyone would have picked up on. What I don't know -- maybe someone's done a study of this? -- is what else was floating around at the time in the way of more ephemeral literary influences: the now-forgotten dime novels, tear-jerkers in the East Lynne mould, sentimental plays, and so on. Could be useful to look at the lower-level stuff as well as serious literature. (One thinks of how public reaction to the death of Princess Diana may have been partly shaped by the soaps -- a licence to emote.)
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Post by shan on Jun 9, 2007 4:38:30 GMT -6
Elizabeth,
I have to say I agree with what both you and DC have to say. Most people not only look at the assembled characters in the little soap opera that we all love discussing on this board in terms of contemporary characters, be they soldiers, media personalities or indeed the people they know and work with, they some seem to get positively upset when these icons are actually portrayed as historical characters embedded in their time, with all that implies.
If I can mention some personal experience, a common criticism of any painting of mine on this particular subject, would be that Custer especially, { no matter how attention I pay to any of the other who were there, be they white or red, it's always Custer, } tends to look tired, disheveled and not at all noble the way I tend to portray him. Now whilst I maybe reacting to 130 years of paintings that have cast him in the Arthurian role of noble hero defending his nations values, lack of food, sleep, heat exhaustion and the grime accrued moving through that country would have left us with a man that was hardly recognizable from the one we are familiar with in the photographs.
As a child of the fifties I well remember imagining I was John Wayne or Randolph Scott should I happen to be cast as a cavalry soldier in the street games we played as kids. The Indians were a little more difficult, but a vague stab at an Italian persona seemed to be the best one could come up with at the time. Later, as an adult, when I became interested in the west in general, I remember first coming across photos of people like Low Dog and Sitting Bull and finding them far more interesting visually than I had ever imagined. In contrast, the photographs of soldiers, those of Crooks army for instance were a disappointment. The problem was I couldn't shake my head free of those giants of the silver screen. As DC says, the reality was a load of short, skinny hobos with silly beards and mustaches that made them look like the villains in silent films. It took a long time for me to see them for what they were, and to realize that what I thought looked stupid, was for them at the time, the height of fashion. In their eyes those odd shaped beards and twirly mustaches were cutting edge= fashion statements that made them feel they were the bees knees as we say over here.
I find I have turned full circle now, and find myself staring at the faces of these men and wondering what they thought, read and talked about. Your right Elizabeth, if the average soldier read anything at all, it would have been the dime novel and tear jerkers. As far as paintings are concerned, our average soldier wouldn't have come across art as such, but the those officers who were aware of paintings, would have-probably been familiar with those romantic Victorian paintings, which themselves harked back to a romantic period that never existed.
Did they, one wonders, array themselves in the sort of poses they had seen in those paintings when they realized that they were doomed? Of course they didn't. They got as close to the ground as it was possible without being a mole, prayed, and cried out for their mothers like soldiers since the dawn of time.
Shan
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Post by elisabeth on Jun 9, 2007 5:57:39 GMT -6
Shan, interesting re the reactions to your paintings. So even after all this time, and all the changes in attitudes, people still want the familiar icon ...
Reminds one a little of the shock-horror reactions to the first of the Spaghetti Westerns. "But the hero's got to be noble!", the critics howled. And they seemed to feel that even the villains should have had a good wash and combed their hair nicely. Too many decades of westerns, however fine, in which all shirts were freshly laundered, all characters except the comic-old-man one clean-shaven, and a bullet hitting the star invariably produced just a mild wince and an airy "it's only a flesh wound", had done their work. The laundry and blood factors were fairly quickly accepted; but I think Gettysburg was the first movie to be brave enough to show authentic facial hair. Deadwood has slightly picked up the challenge (along with authentic language, of course); even so, we're still a long way from complete authenticity being taken in people's stride.
I was heartened to read a story in today's paper about our latest potential Victoria Cross winner, an excellent and very young lad from East Anglia who's just done heroic deeds in Afghanistan. He'd been asked the usual crass "how did you feel?" question about killing the enemy. "That's what you do, it's your job", he replied. "It's like fixing a car for a mechanic." His generation has (to the shame of our country's education policies) been brought up virtually innocent of history or literature, so has not imbibed the attitudes that have shaped our responses to war from WW1 through Vietnam and onwards; his pragmatic approach may be very close to that of the 19th-century trooper. It seems to fit with the voices that have come down to us from LBH.
You're right about the paradigms in the minds of the average soldiers; even more crucial to the creation of the narrative, though, are those in the minds of the public at large -- those reading the newspaper accounts, or going to view the Cyclorama or whatever. They're the audience for the Heroic Last Stand etc., and they too will have been reading the dime-novels and tear-jerkers and poems like "Casabianca", singing sentimental songs, and (if well-off enough) going to the sort of plays that made Custer weep uncontrollably. It'd be nice to have a better feel for the popular culture of the day.
I'd like to put in a word here for the much-maligned "Tupperware gossip", too. It's my view that we're never going to understand this time if we just look at the veneer of Victorian propriety. We need to have some sense of what was really going on, what people's relations were, how they really thought and acted -- and the gossip gets us closer to that. So I, for one, will continue to pursue it. With relish.
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Post by Tricia on Jun 9, 2007 12:09:04 GMT -6
Elisabeth--
Keogh ... the weakest link? Someone has been drinking too much Kool-Aide! He's right up there in my book of the heroic.
And I'm right there with the tupperware gossip clache. A person's person is necessary to further understand the character, warts and all. You can't really say you study Custer if you haven't the ability to read about and evaluate his private life, as abhorrant as that sometimes seems ... of course, I've taken it to the extreme in my writing, but I think I have a pretty good picture of the fellow.
--t.
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Post by Banned on Jun 10, 2007 2:26:35 GMT -6
re-enactors in their variations present viewers with an increased knowledge and appreciation of the soldiers, etc. I suggest the opposite, that it distorts it badly. They’re fat (by 1876 standards and sometimes today's standards)   Darkcloud's insults against reenactors, he are reaching a new low
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jun 10, 2007 6:52:39 GMT -6
Actually, I'm far from the only one who laughs at re-enactors (not unoften starting with their wives...). And I've said nothing inaccurate: they often are fat and preposterous looking in their husky uniform recreations, glasses, with the skin on their face vibrating in waves with each step of the horse. The facial hair, in correct waxed styling of the time, doesn't add to the impression of hardened men of the day.
That they are wearing correct buttons sewn by authentic method of the time, and bellow commands from field manuals correctly, is quite often not the primary impression the public retains once confronted.
While there are a few actual amateur historians of note who - go figure - are also periodic participants in these festivals of dress up and play acting, as many or more can barely suppress snickers and often do not try.
The inability to laugh at themselves and endure it from others is not a sign of a healthy attitude towards the thing. They wrap themselves in the gossamer of doing something important, barely stopping short of saying "for the children." Eh.
Again, CSS, your subject-verb agreement needs work, and points the way towards the source of your many inaccuracies and silly assumptions, one of which is that Nelson Miles are - no, wait, singular - is held in high regard by history, and a formidable source. Your reliance on him distorts your views greatly.
What I'd hoped would emerge from this, at least, is a reflection on how the very use of the term Last Stand, early inserted, warped consideration, and how all impressions had to be subordinate to that image - based on nada but consideration by the 7th to their commander and regimental honor. To be correctly used, a Last Stand has to be a proactive decision, not a coincidental event. Thermopolae in history and Roland and Arthur in literature are mythical instances. Masada may have been an actual last stand, but there were smaller instances, like the Battle of the Last Cartridge in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
A proactive decision has to be assumed to have reason behind it, some constructive end to the self sacrifice. If not offered so others can escape, it must have been offered for thus and so. This is the sandy ground upon which all the condemnations arose once installed. If the term had never been used, there'd be no, I don't think, controversy today.
With no small irony, once you redo the markers on LSH by early photo and testimony, it doesn't look like a stand at all, certainly not an proactive act.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Jun 10, 2007 9:46:19 GMT -6
DC Let me see if I get it. The Alamo was a last stand.
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Post by harpskiddie on Jun 10, 2007 12:08:05 GMT -6
I believe I may have mentioned this book somewhere previously: CUSTER and the EPIC of DEFEAT, Bruce A. Rosenberg, Penn State Press, 1974.
Rosenberg delineates how the Last Stand came to be, because it had to be. It had to be on a hill, with Custer on the top, he had to be among the last to die [if not the last], there had to be insurmountable odds, he had to have a sword, there had to be a lone survivor, a little betrayal wouldn't hurt, and etc etc etc. This because of the traditional concepts of the times.
Rosenberg devotes almost as much time to other "Martyred Heroes" of both history and myth - Saul, The men of the Alamo, Roland, Leonidas, et al.
It is well worth reading, especially if one is interested in [one interesting opinion of] how Custer's Last Stand became that.
Gordie,
'Twas Custer with the grays, a sorrel troop and thrice as many bays....................................
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Post by Banned on Jun 10, 2007 12:13:38 GMT -6
What I'd hoped would emerge from this, at least, is a reflection on how the very use of the term Last Stand, early inserted, warped consideration, and how all impressions had to be subordinate to that image - based on nada but consideration by the 7th to their commander and regimental honor. To be correctly used, a Last Stand has to be a proactive decision, not a coincidental event. Nonsense. Who put 39 horses, close to each others, on the hill ? Your grandma? |
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Post by Banned on Jun 10, 2007 12:15:33 GMT -6
It had to be on a hill, with Custer on the top, he had to be among the last to die [if not the last], there had to be insurmountable odds, he had to have a sword, there had to be a lone survivor, a little betrayal wouldn't hurt, and etc etc etc. This because of the traditional concepts of the times. On a hill, with overwhelming forces around, in the center of a circle of horses... It's just what REALLY happened. Nothing mythic about it, it's totally true. That's how they died. |
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Post by Banned on Jun 10, 2007 12:20:55 GMT -6
one of which is that Nelson Miles are - no, wait, singular - is held in high regard by history, and a formidable source. Your reliance on him distorts your views greatlyI have the choice between General Miles, general in chief, with Medals of Honor, and... you, nobody from nowhere, with nothing interesting. Choosing between the useful man and the useless one. 
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Darkcloud's insults against reenactors, he are reaching a new low