While watching the OSU game last Saturday (I seldom watch modern TV otherwise), I caught a commercial for Colonial Williamsburg. Or, should I say, Williamsburg. The 'Colonial' being conspicuously absent. I found a commercial for Williamsburg back in 2021 that is pretty much the same (it might be the same, I just caught it once during the game):
Notice there is nothing - no thing - to suggest anything other than some variation on Myrtle Beach or Clearwater Beach or any one of a hundred tourist destinations. No history. No Colonial America. No Revolution. No historical reenactments. No shot heard 'round the world. No history at all. If you didn't know, you'd think it was a typical Disney resort, if that.
Compare to this:
That was the type of commercial in the 1990s that I saw when planning our first family vacation. In 1997 we took our oldest, then only a couple years old, to our first true vacation as a young family. We went to Colonial Williamsburg, in large part due to the commercials. It was magical. It was everything you want your first family vacation to be.
And the history! Like the commercial, it was all over the place. Everyone was in character at all times. The lessons were broad and detailed, from the ugly and bad, to the more emphasized bravery and the heroism and the sacrifice and the overall debt we owe to our founders. We went back in August 2001, and it was still good. A bit hot for my taste (our first time was in late September). But still fun, and with the three older boys (our third still being a toddler), it was a blast.
The last time we went, however, was in 2014 along with our youngest. Disappointment doesn't begin to describe our experience. Many reenactors stood about on their cell phones, paying scant attention to us. Some were still good, but many didn't seem to care. The tours were a mixed bag. The first time we went in 1997 everything was period accurate no matter what the subject. That time? Some tour guides showed up in jeans and jackets with flashlights. Much preaching of course. Naturally the lessons were exclusively negative: focus on persecution of Native Americans, sexism, bigotry and slavery in the 'every plantation and household was a gas chamber' template. That prompted my second oldest to quip 'how did they have time to fight a revolution, what with all the time spent killing Indians, beating slaves and oppressing women?'.
Now, to see the commercials, the history isn't even the point. Ignoring the history, if anything, is the point. And the newest trigger word 'Colonial' is removed. I have no doubt it's there if you visit. But if the marketers and advertisers have their way, we'll never know unless we go.
For decades - perhaps generations - we've been taught to hate the West, Christianity and America, though not necessarily in that order. There was still enough hold over from olden times to dilute the message, especially for those of us who are around our forties or older. But for the last couple generations, that is no longer the case. For many coming into college now, they see Lincoln and Washington the way my generation was taught to see Hitler and Stalin. And their nation, the United States? They see it the way we saw the Nazis. If' we're waiting for them to suddenly turn and start singing God Bless America, I fear we are going to have a long, long, long wait.
America, a completely wicked land towards all minorities, and it is the height of evil to keep any of them out of it.
ReplyDeleteI mostly mourn for the generations who will have no idea what they lost.
I mourn for us, when future generations realize what we caused them to lose. Our only hope is that they judge us more mercifully than we judge our forebears.
DeleteMy family went there in 1974 and we went again in 1997. There was a marked fall of in decorum and seriousness of purpose on the part of the interpreters. I later got a fundraising call and gave that unfortunate man an ear full. Sorry it's decayed even further. The culture just stinks.
ReplyDeleteIt must have been wonderful for 1997 to look bad. If you had gone back when we did in 2014, you'd have run off screaming into the night if that's the case.
DeleteI believe it was Goebbels who declared that if you told a lie long enough, most people would accept it as Truth eventually. Many "cultural elites" and academics seem to have learned that lesson rather well.
ReplyDeleteWell, why not? Even Catholic schools have tended toward reminding us how the Enlightenment "saved" us from medieval foolishness; we certainly saw Vatican II as saving us from "old-fashioned nonsense". One only begins to have cracks or dents form in these pictures if one grows irritated enough with something to learn more about where the idea came from.
I've been startled by what all we didn't learn about the Church and it's actual teaching a few too many times these last 30 years.
It makes sense that secular voices would pull the same tricks.
I can't recall if that was his quote, but he certainly popularized it. I sometimes say Goebbels is the patron saint of mass media. As for dropping the ball about the history of the Church, I fear it has been too easy to just take at face value what was given us, not only by education, but by our media cultures. In hindsight, I wonder why anyone in our country would still believe. That they do is a testament to the power of the Truth.
DeleteTo be fair, I think there is a difference between the city of Williamsburg and "Colonial Williamsburg", which is its own entity (a private foundation and living-history museum). The ad you posted seems to be from the tourism arm of the local community instead of an ad from the Colonial Williamsburg organization, so they're trying to show that Williamsburg is more than just a living-history park.
ReplyDeleteNow, that said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Colonial Williamsburg foundation goes woke enough to drop "Colonial" from its name in the not-too-distant future.
There is. But the commercials were never 'come and see the typical American city without much unusual going on.' In all my days, I can't recall a commercial for visiting the non-historical part, any more than I remember commercials for visiting Flagstaff, as opposed to that canyon nearby. The commercials were always for Colonial Williamsburg, as above. And given that it had, to use the phrase, 'gone woke' almost ten years ago at least, it shouldn't be surprised that the ads are for anything but the historical site of Williamsburg.
DeleteIt should be mentioned that other attractions, such as Busch Gardens and the historical triangle of Jamestown and Yorktown were also advertised in the day, though how those were funded or who did it is beyond me. But I simply can't muster the belief that this is just a blasé commercial for a town in America that happens to be next to an otherwise not promoted historical site.