Ken Burns Hates Mexicans

Ken Burns Watch - On the Eve of The War

Six months after starting this blog, and two days before Ken Burns broadcasts his epic WWII doc this Sunday, it's as good a time as any as to explain why I titled this ongoing project Ken Burns Hates Mexicans.

A recent TV column critiquing Burns and his upcoming series, The War, began with a reference to this blog suggesting I'm implying the PBS filmmaker actually hates Mexicans. My bad for not explaining my intentions more precisely -- and for not including a definition of the concepts of metaphor and satire somewhere amongst my Led Zeppelin posts.

For the record: of course I don't believe Ken Burns actually hates Mexicans. Vato may have an issue with over-fried chimichongas (as I do) or derivative roc en espanol (as should everyone), but who knows?, I never met the guy. When I say "Ken Burns" I don't literally mean the so-called liberal white guy with the dorky bowl haircut who makes tedious so-called "American" documentaries for PBS. Instead when I say "Ken Burns" I'm talking about the total, whole, and collective so-called liberal white media bloviating across the multicultural landscape. About Latinos, about race and class, about "the other." This includes not only those with dorky bowl haircuts, but those making movies called...oh, I don't know, Quinceanera.

And when I say these types "hate," I don't literally mean dislike intensely, or having aversion towards, but instead I'm talking about the ignorance, simplistic reductions, misunderstandings, and/or condescension that generally define these gringos' opinions, statements, and, yes, even their documentaries about Mexicans. That is, of course, those few times these well-intentioned do-gooders actually turn their fickle gaze on Brown people. Indifference being another variation of the "hate" metaphor.

And when I say "Mexicans" I mean Raza in general. Brown people. Mi gente. U.S. Latinos primarily, but not always.

Finally, this is not to say that I don't disagree with much of the Latino criticism of the Burns series, because I don't. For me, a Burns film is like an Ansel Adams photo, middlebrow, pretty to look at, but devoid of real thought or analysis. But the issues raised by his latest series go much deeper than that.

Stepping back for a moment from the metaphoric and into the specific, for me Burns' The War embodies all of the issues mentioned above -- and more. Throughout his long career Burns has constantly talked about his films as being stories about "America." Sure they may ostensibly be stories about about Jazz, or baseball, he would maintain, but on a larger level they are stories about "us," "our history."

But with Burns's simplistic and retro Black/White reading of race in America and a filmography that demonstrates an inability to see Brown people as active participants in American history, these self-describe stories about America have always felt incomplete. And while this wouldn't be a problem if his documentaries were relegated to obscure film festivals, a Burns documentary series, instead, is a well marketed media event, complete with $55 dollar coffee table books for sale at Barns and Noble, study guides available for high school history teachers, and appearances on Keith Olbermann.

So the series starts on Sunday. I'll be TiVoing the episodes and will have more to say in the week or so to come, but with Ugly Betty starting again, and the finale of Top Chef coming up, no promises. For now I'll leave you with a couple of reviews and opinions: LA Weekly weighs in here (with a brief yet sympathetic nod to the controversy), Carlos Guerra opines from a Tejano perspective here, and for an especially thoughtful piece in the New Yorker (which pans the series) go here.

UPDATE: Cecilia Alvear has a great piece on the doc in the Washington Post here. Another WaPo story that reports about the historical experience of Latinos in WWII here. And a Los Angeles Times profile on an East L.A. Mexican American WWII vet that Burns was forced to include in his doc to here.

Ken Burns Watch

Ken Burns news has, admittedly, been absent lately on Ken Burns Hates Mexicans. But it's the calm before the September 23 storm, the date his series on WWII, The War (catchy title), begins to air. And since it's way too early in the morning to continue with any more lame battle references ("the impending D-Day broadcast", "a brown beachhead of noble resistance", blah blah blah) let me get on with an update...

First, make no mistake about it, the Ken Burns juggernaut has begun. A multifaceted, grand, and well-designed marketing plan in direct proportion to the epic story of WWII the Burns' doc interprets. Slick viewer guides can be downloaded. Clips available for online viewing. Press releases emailed to in-boxes sending viewers over to iTunes, where the entire Burns oeurvre is suddenly and conveniently available for easy purchase. The media onslaught of all things Ken Burns begins now. So get used to it.

But what's quickly becoming apparent in The War's current media deluge is the drowning out of the Latino critique of the series. Up to now no article or op-ed about the The War would be complete without at least one reference to the film's organized opposition by Latinos across the country. As critics pointed out, Burns once again erased Latinos in his purported stories about America. As the filmmaker did with his series on Baseball, and Jazz, the contributions of Latinos, much less their very presence, was literally given less than ten minutes of attention, if at all, in 10 and 15 hour documentaries. Only this time Burns was called out on it. And further, PBS, supported by public money, was taken to task for their complicity in the Burns project of simplified History. And for some reason the story had legs.

But as you start reading the official PBS websites, read the copy generated by the PBS press releases, and go over the fawning interviews with Burns, it's as if none of the critical opposition ever happened. Ken Burns Inc will not only rake in cash during this media saturation but his role as "America's storyteller" will get further credence. And with that power and critical capitol grows his ability to create more myths, pass them off as truth, and start the whole thing over again. PBS, for its part, gets ratings, artistic kudos, future viewers for future pledge drives, and a cut of the DVD sales. Available now for pre-order at PBS.org for $129.99.

It's going to be interesting to see how groups like Defend the Honor will be heard as the series builds up to its Sept 23rd debut. For now here's a few links I've collected over the past couple of days...

A USA Today story taking the optimistic opinion that PBS in their guilt at giving Latinos the shaft will now greenlight more Latino projects. Yeah, right.

Queen of Mean Sun-Times columnist Esther J. Cepeda who kisses Burns' ass and blames the systematic erasure of Latinos from his WWII story on Latinos themselves, "originally, no Hispanics who could articulate their experience and provide pictures, letters, etc. made it to the original cut. Surprising? Hispanics are raised by their families not to call attention to themselves -- a trait also shared by many others of that generation." Idiot.

And, finally, a press release by the American G.I. Forum opposing the Burns documentary. Gotta love the veteranos. Old school for days...

Ken Burns Watch

Geoffrey Dunn of the San Francisco Chronicle has a must-read review on Adrian Burgos Jr.'s new book Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line :

Most of recent baseball history has been dichotomized into a black-and-white morality tale, often with [Jackie] Robinson at center stage. The most guilty of such practitioners has been Ken Burns, whose nine-segment PBS documentary "Baseball" virtually ignored the contributions of Latinos to the game and oversimplified many of the complex racial constructions that established barriers around race.

Burgos argues quite convincingly that the formalized system of institutional racism in baseball actually featured "five major 'colored' racial groupings  --  white, brown, red, yellow and black"  --  and that the ways in which Asians, American Indians and, most centrally, Latinos broke down racial barriers blurred traditional concepts of exclusion and inclusion. "The existence of brown in a perceived black and white playing field," Burgos writes,  "disrupts the generally accepted story that only whites performed in the major leagues and only African Americans played in the Negro leagues."

Given Burns's dismal track record as PBS's most famous Latino Erasing Historian the only surprise is that homeboy's finally being called out on his lapses. About time, I say.

Ken Burns Watch

Ken Burns speaks. Finally. After months of suffering the slings and arrows of angry Mexicans, America's fave doc maker emerges from the editing room (that he was forced to reenter) with 30 minutes of new material for his 14 hour WWII epic movie. Mexican Americans are now officially part of the World War II. Speaking to an all gringo crowd of TV critics in Beverly Hills, Burns minimized the controversy over his PBS series:

“I think we’ve found the right balance, had the right compromise, that permitted us not to alter our original vision and version of the film and at the same time honor what was legitimate about the concerns of a group of people who, for 500 years, have had their story untold in American history.”

Either homeboy's naive or doesn't care if he thinks the Professional Latinos Who Care About Such Things are going to call it a day. He may have made a convenient deal with one self-appointed gaggle of Hispanics, but Defend the Honor, the group which first brought Burns's exclusion of Latinos in his WWII doc to the public's attention, has not signed off on this new version. And Burns refuses to talk with them. And they, in turn, want no part in meeting with PBS. Check out the Defend the Honor website to get a glimpse of the non-stop actions and organizing that continue to this day.

As events unfold not only are we grappling with the question of who owns History, but as various raza groups fight for the official status to negotiate and set the terms with Burns Inc. a bigger question emerges: who can legitimately lay claim as Official Spokespersons for All Latinos?

And, of course, it still remains to be seen if Burns will ever get a new haircut.

Same As It Ever Was Part III

A couple of weeks ago on Jimmy Kimmel, the talk show host ended his opening monologue with a spoof on the Ken Burns controversy, a doc parody done in the distinctive Burns style. It featured in one stupid and comically lazy minute references to Speedy Gonzlaes (Arriba Arriba!), the Cheech and Chong movie Up In Smoke, a fat mexican, archival WW II footage, ending, finally, with a photoshopped recreation of the famous image of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima -- only in this version it was vatos wearing sombreros raising a pinata instead.

What bothered me about the piece was not that it was offensive, it was, but that it wasn't very funny. It was like those mainstream articles you read in gringo publications who can't help but to make a spicy food reference in the headlines of their occasional pieces on anything Latino. Like I said, lazy.

When my friend Oscar tipped me to the bit I found it on YouTube, but hesitated posting it because the clip comes at the end of the Kimmel's nine minute monologue. Too much so-called comedy to wade through before the outrage. Fortunately, Defend the Honor's website has posted the edited version. Check it out their site here, and click the Jimmy Kimmel link under Resources. Note how the clueless gabacho mispronounces Hector Galan's last name.

And, finally, since we're on the subject of offending charactertures I leave you with an old Frito Bandito commercial from the 1960s.

In an effort to sell corn chips the Frito Lay company invented this singing cartoon Mexican bandit who would steal bags of Fritos because they tasted so delicious. They made dozens of them. My favorite, created around the time of the Apollo moon landing, featured the Frito Bandito on the lunar landscape robbing a moon-walking astronaut of his tasty snack treat. Here's a typical example. You may recognize the voice of the Bandito as that of Mel Blanc, the guy who also did the voices for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Barney Rubble.

The National Mexican-American Anti-Defamation Committee upset at the offending cartoon depiction, successfully organized a boycott of the character. Frito Lay bowed to the pressure and removed the Frito Bandito from its advertising. Maybe we should get these guys to reunite and turn their attention on Ken Burns.

And, finally, according to Wikipedia "Comedian Jimmy Kimmel lamented the fate of the Frito Bandito, while noting that 'he does my lawn now.'" Figures.

Ken Burns Watch

Not much happening on the Ken Burns front. I'm guessing the filmmakers are deep in production trying to get the additional Latino material ready for the September national broadcast. That or debating the other TV pedo in the news, the ending of the Sopranos.

In the Defend the Honor email/newsletter the only action of note reported was a meeting in Pasadena convened by the National Council of La Raza comprised of reps from various Latino organizations. Not sure who was invited but they wrote a letter :

The organization agreed to sent a joint letter to PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger. That letter was sent yesterday afternoon. It calls for a meeting with her within the next week.  It also calls for structural changes within PBS to prevent a repeat of the Ken Burns documentary snafu, in which no one, either within the Ken Burns camp or within PBS thought it might be a problem to exclude the Latino WWII experience.

Defend the Honor also reports that buttons are now on sale. Three bucks. Hm. I will reserve opinion on that one.

But the best recent comment I heard on the controversy was a filmmaker friend who shall remain nameless. Forget no Latinos in the WWII doc, he told me, what's up with Ken Burns' doofus haircut?

Enter Maria

Speaking of Ken Burns and his myopic white liberal worldview on race, Camille Pagila writes about All My Children in her latest Salon column -- page 3 of the long ass piece. Now don't get me started on All My Children. I have been a loyal viewer of the ABC soap since sixth grade. How badass, I thought, that the famed cultural critic was turning her gaze on my fave soap. Too bad the admiration lasted only, like, three paragraphs.

AMC has always had a rep of dramatizing so-called controversial social issues of the day. Erica's abortion back in the 70s, her daughter Bianca's coming out as a lesbian, and a mid 80s story about Cindy, a saintly AIDS infected mother. Seems Camille's been tuning into the show lately (as have I, coincidently enough) because of the soap's latest issue-oriented storyline...

My partner Alison and I have been recording and watching ABC's "All My Children" for several months now. Daytime soap operas, which I used to adore, have been declining in quality and importance for over a decade, and I gradually stopped monitoring them. But "All My Children" (on its best days) is currently being written with a speed and intensity that are remarkable.

We were lured back by publicity over a pioneering transgender theme, which was unfortunately treated with sometimes cartoonish hamminess and excessively ideological sermonizing.

Fair enough. But then Paglia doesn't know when to stop, and goes on to reveal her embarrasingly retro ideas on race in this country...

One huge problem, however, is that "All My Children," like most of the other major daytime soaps, has a deplorable record of integrating African-Americans into the cast. What the hell is the matter? Black actors are made to play to cliché (lily white or sassy street), and they're whizzed in and out of the plot without making a dent in it.

Considering the popularity of soaps with the African-American audience, it's grotesque that the entertainment industry, for all its vaunted liberalism, is lagging so far behind social changes in the United States.

How freakin' old school is that? While Paglia certainly has a point, patrinozing as it is, what's equally grotesque for me -- sad, really -- is the academic's limiting and tired Black-White view of race relations in this country. It's the same worldview that afflicts Ken Burns. The guy truly seems bewildered by all the fuss regarding his doc's exclusion of Latinos in the narrative, as if his cursory inclusion of Blacks in his WWII story is enough of a gesture to address that pesky race issue.

Anyway, like I said, don't get me started on All My Chidren. And if Paglia really knew her AMC soap history she would've remembered the Chicana character of Maria Santos, from way back in the day. Maria's short lived prominence on the soap was radical and a harbinger of some of the same issues of media representation we face today.

For a bit of latino pop culture history, this from an old SF Bay Guardian article of mine...

Once upon a time, and not a very nice time it was, Pine Valley, PA, pretty much resembled all the other imagined towns of daytime network TV -- placid, Cheeveresque burgs with corny names like Genoa City, Oakdale, Port Charles: communities all White; of way above average incomes; some with the occasional family-less Black detective character lurking about investigating the latest high profile millionaire on millionaire murder.

As for any permanent citizens of color living there, the resumes of countless New York actors -- “Drug Dealer” / One Life to Live; “Misunderstood Adopted Inner City Youth” / The Bold and the Beautiful -- belied a longevity that for them was rarely delivered.

Enter Maria.

March, 1993, Dr. Maria Santos (played by Eva LaRue) walks onto the set of the Pine Valley Hospital as the hot shot new neurologist. In a New England town populated by Trevor’s, Brooke’s, Tad’s and Wallingford’s, Maria, and her ongoing succesful presence, represented something completely novel and different from the retro gringo demographics of Pine Valley. Not so much that she was a strong woman (Since Daytime TV’s audience is mostly female, a major convention of daytime soaps is the strong professional woman) no, the novelty here was that Maria was a strong, Brown woman.

But as for myself, a loyal AMC fan since the sixth grade, Maria’s inclusion resonated beyond just another Raza’s well-deserved integration: Maria, like me, was Mexican American; her character, like me, was from San Antonio; and while Maria was a “Professional,” (nothing, I’m afraid, even remotely like me), the self identification, the recognition, was complete.

But like most Latino forays into the pop cultural mainstream (Livin' La Vida Loca anyone?), Maria's presence didn't last. By late 1997 she was gone.

Soon, the role of Maria apparently wasn’t enough for the ambitious Eva La Rue. Pursuing the dream of all daytime actors hoping to “graduate” to prime time and/or film, Eva left Pine Valley for a job on a sitcom. But unlike fellow AMC alum Sarah Michelle Gellar who hit the big time as Buffy on the cult TV hit “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Eva ended up on some now forgotten UPN sitcom set in Miami, which seemed mainly to consist of jokes about her breast size.

Maria’s sitcom, not suprisingly, disappeared.

The story, of course, does not end badly. I mean, it may have taken ten years, but where would Ugly Betty be without Maria Santos and All My Children.

Ken Burns Watch

Sucks.

Defend the Honor has a comprehensive listing of what’s happening with the Ken Burns story. Quotes, links, news of the Hector Galan hire, and a bottom line assessment regarding Burns’s flip flopping on whether or not he will change his doc: “so until the explanations go beyond the technical, the Defend the Honor core group is urging individual to continue voicing their concerns.”

It’s a much better job that I can do and it's included at the end of this post. For now, let me reserve this main portion to snarky comments about New York Post writer Adam Buckman.

In his latest column, after five or six lauditory paragraphs describing the series as the "best WWII doc ever," and Ken Burns the greatest American filmmaker since Orson Welles, Buckman then finishes with a lazy argument based on that tired and stupid racist comeback: "if you don't like it here, go back to Mexico."

Various groups representing Latinos - among them the National Hispanic Media Coalition - recently won concessions from PBS after protesting that the miniseries (apparently) does not include material detailing the experiences of Latino-Americans in World War II.

Earlier this month, when PBS and Burns announced they would produce a raft of material on the Latino war experience that would air adjacent to episodes of the miniseries - essentially caving in to the protestors - the NHMC gloated. In an interview with me, an official of the group declared "an unprecedented victory" in an effort that amounts to an act of trespassing on the hard work, great care and due diligence expended by Burns, who is one of the nation's most honored artists.

He is the one who sifted through thousands of hours of films, pored over thousands of still photos, performed hundreds of hours of planning and research, conducted hundreds of interviews, and oversaw the assembly of thousands of elements into a coherent whole.

The protestors expended none of these efforts, nor, by their own blithe admission, have they even seen the finished product that angered them so much. Instead, they bullied their way into a production that wasn't theirs.

It makes me wonder: If the story of the Latino community in World War II is so important, why can't the protestors finance and produce their own TV show?

Uh, yeah, right Adam. Latinos are financing this project. It's paid for in part by PBS, our tax dollars at work, and our network on your TV.

Ken Burns Watch

Latest news...

Fullfilling their promise to hire a Latino producer to assist them in their search for a Mexican, any Mexican, who fought in WWII, Burns and PBS hired Austin-based doc maker Hector Galan to introduce them to a few. That's the good news. If anyone can knock some sense into Burns and point out to the East-Coast-centric-filmmaker that the current conversation about race and ethnicity in this country goes way beyond a simplistic Black-White paradigm, it's Galan. After all, not only did his PBS piece Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement proudly include the word "chicano" in its title, but empahsized the matter by putting an exclamation mark after it.

The bad news, however, is that it's still unclear exactly what Burns has planned to appease his critics. Based on this recent Washington Post story the only thing certain is Burns will not re-edit his film.

A PBS official said yesterday that filmmaker Ken Burns will not re-cut his documentary on World War II -- a statement that disappointed and angered minority-group activists who on Tuesday said they believed Burns and PBS had committed to reediting the film to address their concerns about its content.

This is not what Latino leaders who met with Burns said was promised them:

"It does not satisfy our concerns to be an amendment or some kind of addendum" to the documentary, said Raul Tapia, a spokesman for the American G.I. Forum, a Latino veterans organization. Latinos "who contributed so much to winning the war deserve better. They are not an addendum. They stood up for their country, and we are standing up for them."

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus also met yesterday about the issue. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a member of the group, issued a statement last night, saying: "Ken Burns is a well-known filmmaker, and whether it's fair or not, his films are viewed by many as definitive histories. It is socially responsible and historically accurate to include the invaluable contributions of Hispanic Americans not as a footnote, but as part of the actual story of World War II.

Galan addresses this concern in an article by Agustin Gurza in Saturday's L.A. Times.

Hold your fire, says the Austin-based Galán, a WWII buff who has made many films about Latino politics and culture. He promises that the new Latino stories will be "incorporated seamlessly into the series so it doesn't feel it was added on or tacked on or anything like that."

Galán says he has seen the series and notes that Latinos appear in the footage but not as interview subjects. (If the film had aired with Latinos only in the background, I'm sure it would have exacerbated critics' claims that Latinos were seen only as faceless "cannon fodder" in the war.)

"I don't blame them for being upset," Galán told me after his selection. "I was upset too. But you have to give us a chance. I would just say wait and see the series."

(And for those of you L.A. readers reading the story on a real newspaper, you'll notice the misspelling of "Galan" in the headine. "Burns hires Gulán for WWII doc" it says. Ni modo. Nothing new. See Daniel Hernandez's take on L.A. Times history of Latinos and the paper's typos.)

Meanwhile, as news of the pedo spreads, editorials blasting Burns continue from across the country. And while most tread the same old ground this column by Carlos Guerra of the San Antonio Express News makes a new, valid, and obvious point:

How could it happen that a 14-hour documentary was made that didn't include a single Latino? What this is really about is that in 2007, too many Americans — like Ken Burns — still see Latinos as recent immigrants, history notwithstanding.

Finally, for those of you needing to catch up on the whole Ken Burns saga, I came across a post from a very cool site called The Unapologetic Mexican. It's my favorite kind of history: told from a definitive point of view.

Ken Burns Watch

The negative reactions to Ken Burns and PBS's "fix" continues. I especially like this one. Meanwhile, check out one of the most interesting quotes I've seen recently that truly speaks to the complexity of the issue. From Austin doc maker Hector Galan in a Saturday L.A. Times article:

"As a Latino, I'm thrilled," said the producer, whose work frequently airs on PBS. "But as a filmmaker, I'm saddened because I wouldn't want to be put in the same position to change content due to pressure. It smacks of censorship and it could be precedent-setting."

Not only that, but expecting Burns to reopen his Final Cut Pro files and re-edit a film six years in the making in five short months? Not going to happen. What, then, is a solution? Smarter minds than me have yet to figure that one out.

Till then, check out the third best Chicano film ever made: Bedhead. It'll chase those representation blues all away...