I watched that PBS documentary, The Ascent of Money, last night. I was underwhelmed. Now, to be fair, I wasn’t exactly devoting my undivided attention to it. (A girl has to email her family pics of her new apartment and field phone calls and texts from both of her sisters!) The interesting historic material on money was there, and it was definitely a relevant topic given the financial slide we’re in, but the delivery failed.
First of all, the host, Niall Ferguson, came off as pompous. Maybe it was just his Scottish accent. Or the fact that he’s a Harvard man. But the general attitude was, “My, my, what have these stupid Americans gotten us all into? And why must I pronounce filthy words like ‘De-troit?’” Granted, as a collective whole we have been pretty stupid, what with the credit card debt and buying homes we can’t afford and banks giving mortgages to anyone in sight. And Detroit’s never had a fantastic reputation anyway. But I have a general aversion to people who come across as elitist and snide.
Secondly, I forgot a lot of PBS documentaries employ the schmaltzy historic actors technique. Ferguson would be standing in a stone tunnel saying something about currency in Shakespearean plays or some such, when suddenly two actors dressed in Ye Ole English garb would fade in behind him. As Ferguson keeps yammering on, the actors are in the background mimicking the passing of money between hands. Fade out and…cue eye roll. I mean, come on. That’s just distracting.
I did pick up a few interesting factoids. Did you know that the term “credit” stems from the Latin word credo, or I believe? Or that the U.S. government basically underwrote the mortgage industry in the wake of the Depression, which led to an explosion in home ownership? Or that there’s something called “Chimerica” (as in “China” and “America”)? It has something to do with Americans relying on the savings of Chinese people.
In case you can’t tell, I didn’t make it to the second hour of the documentary. I’m noticing the commenters on PBS are going nuts over how good the show was, so maybe I should have shut off my cell phone and laptop and watched the whole thing. But if you want to watch and judge it for yourself, I’m pleased to announce that PBS has the full documentary online now. Click here to watch.
