PBS paints rosy picture of important Americans
It might be an accident of timing, but ''They Made America," PBS's new documentary series, comes at an opportune moment for the American spirit. Now that the bitter presidential race is finally over, it's refreshing to see someone tie our national identity not to politicians but to inventors and entrepreneurs.
Based on Harold Evans's thick book of the same name, this is a cheerful, uncritical celebration of the ''soft power" that helped America grow from rural backwater to industrial giant -- and that, for better and worse, symbolizes American culture at home and abroad. But translating a book to TV has its risks, especially since the producers hew to the tried-and-true ''Biography" style that, by now, feels a little flat. And so much boosterism comes at a price.
Evans's book, a combination reference guide and coffee-table tome, profiles 51 Americans, from the creator of the cotton gin to the cofounders of Google. The PBS series narrows the pool to 12, including some lesser-known figures such as steamboat inventor John Fitch and
Tonight begins, at 9 on WGBH, with ''Rebels," which features the most contemporary figures, CNN founder Ted Turner and hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons. ''Revolutionaries," which airs at 10, jumps back nearly two centuries -- and into the awkward realm of dramatic reenactments -- to profile Fitch; steamboat entrepreneur Robert Fulton; Sam Colt, who invented the revolver; and Lewis Tappan, who developed a system of credit reporting. Installments on the following two Mondays will include Ruth Handler, who created the Barbie doll, and Samuel Insull, who pioneered the giant electric power plant.
Squeezing so many characters into a few short hours means these must be Power Point profiles: Click! Ted Turner buys a UHF station. Click! He transmits with a satellite. Click! He starts CNN. Click! It's the Gulf War, and CNN reporters are broadcasting live from Baghdad.
Still, there's some great material here, such as footage of CNN's producers working behind the scenes during that war and realizing the newness of what they're doing. We learn that Barbie was modeled after a sexy Swiss doll that was sold to adult men, and that American commerce couldn't have taken off without a trustworthy system of credit.
And we see that these achievers share some particularly American traits beyond the usual bromides of gumption and stick-to-itiveness. Each promoted a form of democratization: bringing electricity and air travel to the masses, rather than just to the elites; providing news whenever people want it, instead of only at the dinner hour; marketing toys directly to children, rather than to their parents. Most of the pioneers gained success not by inventing something, but by understanding how to sell it -- which, in this country, is just as important.
But as the series speeds from person to person, it becomes vaguely unsatisfying. The temptation, it's clear, is to present an easy-to-digest story line, which often means treading into pop psychology: More than one of the men profiled, we're told, was driven by a will to please his father. And the neatly wrapped endings don't always click; it seems out of touch to suggest that Russell Simmons's greatest achievement is winning a Tony award.
Besides, condensing so many stories glosses over some of the better details from Evans's book. Tonight's segment on Ida Rosenthal, who popularized the Maidenform bra, leaves out some useful historical context: During World War I, for instance, women were urged to discard their corsets so the metal inside could be used to build weapons. The segment on Robert Fulton, meanwhile, passes swiftly over the menage a trois he apparently had with a wealthy American couple in Paris. ''Hey!" you want to say. ''Rewind!"
That's the risk of a feel-good series like this: It overlooks the small, sometimes salacious details that make biographies fun in favor of a unifying, uplifting message. It also spends precious little time acknowledging the two-sided nature of some of these inventions, alluding only offhandedly to the effect Colt's revolver had on society or the damage Barbie has done to girls' body images.
In fact, the controversy is precisely what makes many of these people interesting, and it should be possible to celebrate their work while still acknowledging their flaws. It's a shame, in the end, to see ''They Made America" teeter toward the trap that seems to have poisoned our politics, as well. Just as presidential candidates -- contrary to popular perception -- aren't all good or all bad, neither are most things American. 