"Why do you keep making Transformers movies when there's al-"
"oh."
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Megan Fox says there was a 'sense of disbelief' when she pitched her archaeology show "Legends of the Lost"
- Thread starter ZattMurdock
- Start date
"Why do you keep making Transformers movies when there's al-"
"oh."
Ancient aliens, Ghost Hunters etc. these are just light weight fluff, harmless background noise, old people and curious kids watch and have fun with it. It's not something meant to be taken seriously. After the raw mysoginist way Fox has been treated I hope the show is successful for her.
I would have been supportive of this but the further I read the interview the less interested I became. The first thing about trying to figure out if there were female warriors among Vikings sounded like a cool concept.
Then it got cray.
Like, totes cray.
Cray cray levels of cray.
Then it got cray.
Like, totes cray.
Cray cray levels of cray.
Read back the letter. Try and realise how shit and possibly made to retaliate and embarrass Megan Fox.
I mean, there was this paragraph:
When facing the press, Megan is the queen of talking trailer trash and posing like a porn star. And yes we've had the unbearable time of watching her try to act on set, and yes, it's very cringe-able. So maybe, being a porn star in the future might be a good career option. But make-up beware, she has a paragraph tattooed to her backside (probably due her rotten childhood) — easily another 45 minutes in the chair!
Of course it is. She's a lay person with no claim to expertise. Stuff like this isn't making things any better. Maybe instead of listening to random celebrity women as much as we listen to random celebrity men, we should just listen to random celebrity men less.
The Nazis' problem there, well besides placing any emphasis on it at all, was conflating Aryans with their idea of a Nordic-Celtic, that second bit being particularly bizzare, master race. The Aryans existed and the vast majority of Europeans, as well as Iranians and people from the Northwest of the subcontinent, can claim in a not incorrect way, though a rather meaningless one, to be their cultural descendents.
The Germans are Aryan in that sense, but then again so were the Slavs they thought of as a slave race.
Why on here of all places? I wouldn't call this place a bastion of pro-intellectualism especially when it comes to the social sciences or humanities.
I mean read this thread. Apparently archeologists that have problems with this are just jealous that they don't have a show...
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she just finesse a tv channel to pay for exotic traveling. so yes
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I don't know, but having watched the two first eps I think it's actually pretty surprisingly good, regardless the much ado and outcry of some archaeologists on twitter.
I honestly think it's a good entry point archaeological show, very bare bones 40 minutes of television and I ended getting to know the work of actual archaeologists that I'd probably would never have heard of if I wasn't amused by the idea that Fox out of all people is hosting the show.
For what is worth, here's what Sarah Head aka ArchyFantasies - archaeologist and writer of the first episode "review" and apparently Fox public enemy #1 because she has an archaeology show and not a more qualified archaeologist like her - said about the latest episode:
And here's what other archaeologist said:
And here's some of my favorite reviews I believe encapsulates well what the show is:
The "weirdo" is actually one of the most respected UK archaeologists that she describes as someone that went to middle-earth at least once or twice.
Then there's my favorite show review so far:
More at the link: https://uproxx.com/tv/legends-of-the-lost-megan-fox-review-travel-channel/
I agree with those. I actually got to see some pretty amazing stuff while watching this thing. Of course that it gets weird, but it's quite easy to separate the good from the bizarre. Fun show, I'll watch the last two eps.
The critiques in the blogpost seem fair unless they're completely fabricated. Not sure how calling out ignorance could be conflated with "slut-shaming". Very bizarre claim.
At least it's good that she's providing a platform for experts to share their findings.
At least it's good that she's providing a platform for experts to share their findings.
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Reading the interaction of a regular person that watched the show and the said reviewer is quite interesting:
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The way I see it, it's quite obvious to see who are grasping at straws to trash the show, and the why. The gist of their argument is that the show should have been presented by an archaeologist, not Fox. The "critique" seems quite juvenile and childish to me, when you actually take everything they are saying on social media and the review itself compared how other archaeologists are reacting to the show. It's a bad look to both "ArchyFantasies" and "Indyfromspace", imho.
I suppose the question would be, if it wasn't Fox, would they give the same critique of the show and the "celebrity/person" on it?
My guess is probably so..it's hard to tell if they're just extremely defensive of their field (and any "made up" findings) and how it is represented, or if it's something else. My daughter wants to be a paleontologist, but she also loves archaeology. I'd not heard of this show....I don't want my kid watching "fake" shows like Ancient Aliens though, so I'll have to screen this show first before letting her watch it. (with an explanation that some of it isn't true/made up)
The best thing I can say about Megan Fox is that her involuntary departure from the Transformers movies did not affect the quality of them in any way. This show though... whoo...
She won me over as Regan on New Girl but this show just looks like some wacky "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files" bullshit.
I don't think it's extremely defensive for people that have around 10+ years of training to be critical of random lay people making up random stuff about their topic.
That's such an incredibly low bar for not being anti-intellectual I'm saddened that I have to point that out.
All I'm seeing so far are emotional appeals on Twitter and vague insinuations without any concrete critique in this thread. Just a bunch of farts in the wind so far.
I stumbled on one of these over the weekend. It was the one about Viking warrior women and magic staves. I thought to myself that looks like Megan Fox, there is no way that is Megan Fox. Now I know yeah it was Megan Fox. Fascinating.
It was weird to watch. It was a combination of people you could believe and other stuff which was clearly nonsense
It was weird to watch. It was a combination of people you could believe and other stuff which was clearly nonsense
You're missing critique? What exactly do you want to hear? Basing a show off of ancient aliens is not something any academic would support.
Honestly this thread just reminds me of the one on GAF where some guy claimed that Gaels don't exist and were instead all black people that Oliver Cromwell deported in 1746, nearly a century after his death. He' had done "research" in a "library" so it doesn't matter what historians think.
Also I was in a cabal to keep this fact a secret from everyone/didn't actually exist anyway since the Gaels don't exist either.
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I suspect you haven't gotten around to watching the show like I haven't yet.
I'm not going to waste time prejudging a show based on what inspired someone to be interested in the subject matter and anyone who does waste that time isn't thinking critically. Nothing in the interview actually says the show is based on that other show to begin with so you're making an assessment that is baseless. All the interview got across is how the tailored the show so Fox can act as a stand in for the audience. This is standard practice that doesn't raise any red flags.
If you actually watched the show bring up issues you saw and heard with your own eyes and ears.
I haven't. But I'm also against lay people doing this kind of stuff as a rule unless it's being heavily controlled by academics and they are basically just mouthpieces.
I'm a historian, and let me assure you we spend lots of time analyze the effects of culture on what people do. You thinking that this is some beyond the pale thing to do is itself indicative of how there are large problems with the popular reception of intellectual work.
She's connecting the two themselves. I don't need to work very hard to infer a connection.
And like I said above I'm against a lot of this kind of stuff on principle. Edutainment whether that be in sciences or the social sciences is on the whole a bad thing. You can disagree with that if you want, but you're not even trying to really say anything here.
This might be fair if we existed in a vacuum, but we don't.
Frankly you don't have to go far to find out how this kind of stuff can be damaging. There are people in this very thread taking this as an opportunity to spread their anti-intellectual conspiracy theory crap.
I get that you think you're cool and above it all, but that's a really superficial way to actually examine anything.
Hell I'll even cheat a bit and bring up something I do know from the show description itself, which is entertaining any of this mystical nonsense with regards to ancient Britain feeds into an intensely anti-intellectual culture, as does pretty much all new age "spiritual" culture. Besides the work this kind of stuff does in demeaning the epistemological privilege of actual experts, and that's a fucking massive problem in itself, it perpetuates specific ideas that are often hostile to not just the position of experts but their actual sound historical/ anthropological/ scientific/ whatever work itself.
People here make fun of major news networks for pitting scientists and talking heads together and acting like they are somehow equal, but that's exactly what's going on here.
Frankly it's absurd that someone even has to point out what the problems are here, they are incredibly obvious.
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people are making a bigger stink of this than they need to, the show might be mediocre but the idea that it is somehow damaging the psyche of the public rather than representing it is pretty absurd. I do agree that pseudo-science bullshit is a major problem in the world right now but this be some mild shit. I wouldn't watch it tho
I agree. That's what I see when I read this stuff. I'd probably be pissed if someone was making a mockery of something I consider important and in need of proper representation, no matter who the person on the other end is.
This by itself isn't that big of an issue. It's that people here would defend it that's the problem. And let me assure you, as bad as pseudo-science is, it gets a lot worse when you get into fake history/anthropology/archaeology.
Meanwhile on most other issues people on this site do seem to be aware of the importance of media. It'd be nice if we could be aware of it when it comes to anti-intellectualism as well.
Not talking about a subject is more harmful than talking about it badly. During the discussion there is actually an opportunity to correct misconceptions and that's exactly what this show does based on reactions from people who have watched the show so far. Fox is the stand in for the clueless and inquisitive and the experts proceed to debunk.
The only way the show might be better for people like yourself if it took the format of some introspective podcasts I listen to that look at the history of why certain mythologies and wive's tales persist and shine a light on how bad conceptions took root. The financial backs in Hollywood aren't going to back a show with a professional until they find someone who is both telegenic and is competent at talking in meetings where the deals are made.
I mean is Indiana Jones an accurate representation of archeology? Is Harrison Ford an archaeologist? It's a TV show its first priority is to entertain. It doesn't sound like something I'd watch and it sounds like Fox is injecting Ancient Aliens type hokey-ness into the show, but there are people who enjoy that type of thing (or not, in which case this will be canned). There's a million other things to watch on TV if you don't want to watch this.
No, not at all. This is some much the opposite of what is true that it's painful. People already struggle to understand their epistemological limits, bad knowledge only makes things much worse because people wrongly think they understand something instead of correctly knowing that they do not.
In fact I think this line of thinking is incredibly disastrous on top of really not making any sense. Why is it better to say wrong things instead of say nothing at all?
You could say the same thing about my example above. It's in large part the framing that's the problem. People don't like eggheads, and they like hot women. Even ignoring that, simply posing the question as if it's meaningful to ask is dangerous.
The way it could be better is if it was better framed, which would require expert control from the ground up and not giving her the space to push absurd narratives. This, like most everything like this, will have been designed as entertainment first and foremost. The only way I could even begin to feel okay with it is if it was the Education first and for most.
There isn't going to be financial backing for actual historical work because historians as part of the professor are to be interested in the truth and good argumentation first and foremost.
Historians aren't generally not getting these sorts of jobs despite trying. In fact the field overwhelmingly looks down on those few that do stuff like this.
I mean Niall Ferguson is a joke at conferences and he's far closer to what a historian should want than any of this.
Is Indian Jones passing itself off as fiction or non-fiction?
Why are people bending themselves into pretzles to defend obvious anti-intellectualism.
I think the best argument is it doesn't matter that much, because that's true. This is a drop in the anti-intellectual ocean. But it's deeply worrying that people here are so interested in defending this.
This isn't about opportunity costs, I don't think anyone is saying they wish they spent the money elsewhere so they got another show. It's that stuff like this and the history channel are bad.
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