Ethiopia v History Channel Pt.1/4

Does History Need Marketing?

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I am cracking up at the intro of this video. The hype-mystery music out there with its strange sounds and camera zooming in and out. And the narration: “A thousand miles away from Jerusalem is another holy land, Ethiopia.” I mean, one is a city, the other is a country, but let’s just move on. I want to get into this.

It’s difficult to. The music won’t stop and the camera is being managed by an intern. Let’s take stock of what we’ve seen and heard in the first two minutes of this 40-minute episode:

• “There are countless bodies all before me” (dude, do not go to Sicily)
• “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life” as he rubs his eyes
• “Rugged and isolated” as he is taking off the door to something
• He crawls through a very tight tunnel
• “It’s bat hell”
• “Inside this small, guarded church is the final resting place of the arch of the covenant”
• “Hidden in subterranean monuments… and nine thousand feet in the air, Christ’s underground kingdom is revealed”
• There is a radical intro to with guitar and 3D graphics from 1998
• Fast-paced and jittery panning of scenes at a market with the apparent host looking around
• Active, “thrilling” music is in the background

Then we get this:

“I’m Don Wildman. I’m in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia. It’s called the cradle of humanity. It’s one of the oldest nations on earth. Little is understood about the vast kingdoms that ruled this land for thousands of years, but during biblical times their remote highlands were an important safe haven for refugees escaping persecution and war in faraway lands. Relatively little study has been done here, so as this developing land moves slowly into the 21st century, many of its deepest and darkest secrets can still only be found in the underground.”

So across all this, I’m finding language that is typical to marketing. We have out of context quotes, moments that carry some danger (countless bodies), contrast (subterranean v 9000 feet in the air), and typical understanding of a non-western country (“as this developing land moves slowly into the 21st century, many of its deepest and darkest secrets can still only be found in the underground”).

Setting aside the fact that they have chosen a random, impoverished-looking market to stand for Addis Ababa (which also looks like this, this, and this), I am asking: does history need marketing?

What if someone from Ethiopia or who is trained in caring for Ethiopian history told this instead? I mean, I’m already looking for content on Ethiopia; I don’t need to be persuaded to give this video a chance (which is the main prospect of marketing efforts). I’m already here. Meanwhile, look at what was lost in that attempt to “make the case” for watching this video. There’s hardly any respect here.

Still I move on.

I have METEORIC praise for the kid at 2:38, who responded to the bullshit metal music with a running antler-tongue combo. When that kid is old enough, I’m buying him a beer.

At 3:26 we meet Fikro, who is given subtitles, even though he speaks fluent English.

We walk around a little bit while he narrates to us the history Christianity and Ethiopia and crusades until we arrive at St. George.

6:23 he is explaining how St. George was built in the volcanic rock:

“The 12th Century builders extracted the stone from all sides of the church, leaving a monolith inside a man-made canyon. Then they carved out the inside of the building, like a pumpkin, and carefully crafted the exterior details.”

Like a pumpkin is an interesting choice of words. The wisdom of a metaphor is that it blends the characteristics of two dissimilar things as a way to bridge understanding through the familiarity of one object to the next. So let us consider this. A pumpkin is carved as a child’s activity during an annual festival that has long-lost its original meaning. This is a place designed to be a holy site of worship that is still used today as it was intended.

One of these things is not like the other, but let us realize this was a deliberate choice in words. Of all options the English language provided them, this is the line they wanted to use. The issue is that the tone of this language is disrespectful. No grace is found here.

More soon,

Trevor