'History Channel' more like the 'Red-neck Channel'

I certainly agree that the History Channel's content has been lacking, but I really enjoyed this miniseries. First of all, I consider the feud to be an important historical story. As a Southerner, or 'redneck' in the vernacular, I appreciated the depiction of the horrors of the Civil War's polarizing aftermath. The choice to have McCoy seem slightly unstable after returning from a Union prison camp (which, by the way, were horrible. Point Lookout basically was a death camp) and the following deterioration of the families as the feud escalates, depicts the desperation that pervaded through the South after the war. Reconstruction ravaged the Southern states (already ravaged by an unneccessary war bungled by the government) and left many people with nothing.

Also as an Anglo-Saxon enthusiast I enjoy watching the trends in different cultural groups. Most of the Southern states were populated with heavily Scottish, Scandinavian and Saxon descendents, and so to look at the clan cultures of these civilizations and then to look at this feud really shows how history repeats itself. Human nature is nuts.

So while I agree that History Channel should ditch some of those Trucker shows, I thought this was a step up. And no...not only rednecks like this stuff. Some of us are rednecks by birth, but we like to call ourselves 'Southern gentlemen and ladies.'

(I know when you say redneck you don't mean all Southerners...but you get my point. We like to hear about OUR history every once in a while - outside the school textbooks)

You're right! We need a miniseries about the arrogant, condescending, East and West Coast liberal urban sophisticates who are now tearing down everything that rednecks built over the past two centuries.

It's not even about the content on the station being "red-neck" but more the fact that there are reality TV shows. Absolute crappiest kind of TV.

I'm a southern, conservative, Christian, gun loving, beer drinking, simple life living, country music listening, camo wearing, backwoods raised redneck. I highly enjoy these programs mentioned as well as other history programming. Whether they are catering to "my kind" or not makes me no difference. If the show entertains me, I watch it. I'm sorry that our lifestyle & interests are too "low brow" for the uppity intellectual folk. But oh well, we are who we are and America would fail without us.

Two different things are being discussed that are separate from each other.

The reality shows that are throwing the History Channel's reputation downward is a "reality" of the entertainment industry. Reality shows are cheap and can get a niche audience. I don't like it either but Pawn Stars, Kardashians, Deadliest Catch, American Idol, and Jersey Shore are all part of the new age of entertaining cheaply. Some are watchable, most are not. Sure, we wish History was better than this but it didn't turn out that way.

The Hatfields and McCoys, by nearly all accounts, has some of the finest portrayals of 19th century America that have come along in quite some time. I do not fault the History Channel for airing this. Actually, I applaud them and wish that they could find the budget to do more epic historic stories.

Now, if you are someone that doubts the merits of the Hatfields and McCoys as a story that is important to the fabric of America's history, then you clearly grasp so little about this country that you should not be taken seriously on this message board in the first place.

You're all bigots

I agree with most of what you said, with the exception of the "red neck" comments. History Channel used to air quality programming (although some it was flawed), and I used to recommend it to my students. I haven't seen much on it in the past few years that was worth recommending to anyone.

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