The day before the Democratic Debate, a friend of mine said that they had serious misgivings regardless of which Democrat faced which Republican in November. They thought that the two opposing factions of the American people were just so full of differing convictions, so severely polarized, and so restricted to their own realities that there was little chance of anything constructive ever emerging, at this point in our history.
This notion popped up and stayed with me throughout the pilot episode of Mercy Street, a new television drama that premiered on Public Television during the last part of the debate on Sunday. The show is set during the American Civil War at a Union hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. As programming, it seems a somewhat self-conscious effort by American PBS to make something approaching the quality of Downton Abbey and the like.
And they’ve done a pretty good job. As a life-long Civil War Buff, I can only applaud the effort and painstaking care that have gone into the show. There were occasional bobbles – “Isn’t there some less invasive treatment?” asks one nurse, in words more 21st Century than 19th. But more often than not they get it so right. The temptation to use the widely recognizable “Taps” as the sad bugle call at one dramatic moment must have been overwhelming, for example… but in 1862 “Taps” would have been almost unknown. And this show used the right call – extra points for them. So in general, the attention to historical detail on Mercy Street is first class.
What furrowed my brow, though, were the storylines and the characters of this series. It looks like they are going to try for a very nuanced, grown-up, and complex reality. Different Union/Confederate, black/white, soldier/civilian characters act in Good/Bad ways; there’s a mixture of fractured “truth” going around, and indeed it looks like some individuals will turn out to contain good and evil within their character. So much for standard TV fare of Heroes and Villains: the novice nurse is a good Abolitionist, but is appalled that her hospital would bother treating Rebel wounded; the contract doctor is competent and caring to his patients, but brags about his thorough knowledge of The Shifty Negro.
I’m not sure that this approach will fly, in the current culture. There seems to be so strong a drive toward a take-no-prisoner, scorched-earth approach these days. It does remind me, uneasily, of the fractious and absolutist spirit of the 1850’s and 1860’s.
For many years I’ve been used to comfortably thinking of this as an attribute of the know-nothing teabagger side – and as a liberal person, I’ve been OK with that. Just as I believe, as a strong and unreformed Unionist, that “The Lost Cause” is and always has been a crock, and that it’s long past time the signs and symbols of an ancient failed rebellion are purged from the public sphere.
But more recently I’ve been alarmed at the joyous abandon with which some of my fellows of the liberal persuasion propose razing all statues, monuments, pictures, etc. relating to those former bad times of slavery and civil war - whether they are public or private, wherever and however they are visible. To me, this smacks seriously of the Islamic fanatics dynamiting Hindu monuments and other ancient structures – they would impose their vision of perfection by destroying “undesirable” works of the past. Some here seem to want to erase the Confederacy and its tragic aftermath from the historical record altogether. I think this is wrong. Warts and all, it is our past, and a good thing to bear in mind before chanting “We’re Number One!!” and “USA! USA! USA!” Shine the disinfecting sunshine of historical fact all over those preserved artifacts and let everyone recognize the Fail forever.
Likewise, Civil War Reenactments and Living Histories can be viewed as goofy, or immature, or whatever judgement one cares to render. But attempting to quash them on grounds of political correctness – as has now begun to happen – seems pretty much like the converse of the wingnut approach to gay marriage and their other pet issues: “I don’t like this so you can’t do it!”
So amidst modern convictions that may be diametrically opposed but equally as fervent and unrelenting as those of 1862, Mercy Street has chosen to walk a mighty fine line into the 21st Century. I applaud their gumption, but I remain almost as concerned about their future as my friend is about the coming election. I’m betting that almost anyone and everyone will find something about Mercy Street to offend them. Can any program run between the raindrops of such starkly competing views of political correctness and survive?
In the long run, it would probably be a good thing if we all began to appreciate a little nuance; a little creative delivery of truths even if they violate our own personal sense of the rightness of things. It’s something long missing from the public life, and in short supply on American TV. I guess happy malarkey sells more toothpaste.
