Historical Reenacting Discussion: Key Aspects
Why Engage in Historical Reenacting?
People who engage in reenacting do so for a variety of reasons. Some just like to act while others enjoy experiencing history while others do so to pay tribute to their ancestors who died in war.
On the other hand, others enjoy figuring out how people of the past made themselves happy and comfortable under difficult conditions. In the process, some actually discover their leadership skills and use them for their personal development.
The term reenactment means reviving something that happened in the past. It simply implies recreating or reliving events that happened in the past. Mostly, reenactment covers numerous activities like restaging of olden day battles, daily life through the ages and the historical state of affairs as well as an array of historical entertainment.
Historical reenacting is a fascinating approach to learning and entertainment. In the past, enactors did it for fun. Reenactment, also referred to as living history granted actors a unique opportunity to enjoy recreating history. Re-enactors enjoyed it as a hobby but as its partakers, they discovered that recreating history became more of a personal experience.
Reenacting history not only teaches people lessons, it also grants them the ability of foresight in various respects, for instance, predicting what may happen based on what happened in the past. It also gives them insight on their genesis as human beings inevitably peruse into the past to understand themselves.
In trying to restore past events, people get to know how they evolved in terms of religion, politics and culture and how they relate to this elements in present day. Reenactments also come in handy during commemorations and civil war anniversaries.
How accurate do you think a re-enactor needs to be authentic?
Reenactment requires inquisitive and deliberate learning in which research plays a vital role in the process of developing historical performance. However, it suffers profound limitations in that time creates distance, memory fades and no amount of documented performance fully presents again.
One must be very enthusiastic about this course and must reflect on the past and be seen to be happy since a re-enactor gets to immerse himself in the deep world of the past, learn and understand the causes, events, environmental settings and the peoples’ way of life in order to successfully portray his recreation. In their quest for authenticity, they delve into the wild in search for sites where battles took place.
In doing so, they encounter wildlife, harsh weather conditions and stumble upon artillery, pottery, clothing and literature that depict medieval cultures. To achieve presentable and accurate reproductions, they train themselves on the use of tools that were used in battles. More than anything else, the re-enactors gain impeccably enriching personal experiences and growth.
Are there any particular aspects of reenacting that need to be more authentic than others?
According to Bronfen (183), reenactment needs to communicate facts. Given that reenactment aims to impart knowledge, authenticity is integral to reenacting. Nevertheless, there are particular features of reenacting that call for more authenticity. Learners and enthusiasts of history endeavor to gain an almost real life experience of the historical eras they enact.
The loyal audience in reenactment looks forward to gaining knowledge and entertainment. To experience this, it is of great essence that the display be as genuine as possible. The themes in, say a battle reenactment, needs to be true because the audience may also be knowledgeable in this regard.
Costumes or regalia that enactors use should be real. The environmental setting is another key aspect, however, it is not always achievable due to financial constrains involved in moving actors to the sites where those events that took place.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of hard core and re-enactors in preserving and remembering Civil War history?
The values of historical precision and authenticity have really heightened over time; the mind-set towards significance differs a great deal. In any recreated period, there are factions who strive to increase the authenticity of their work. Hard core living historians thoroughly comprehend their subject and stage terrific representation of the past to the public.
In contrast, majorities of re-enactors is casual and are just out to enjoy themselves. They make compromises in their performances and are hardly concerned about presenting their plays in accurate detail. For example, one my cite their productions where they use modern utensils, machine stitching on their cloth and even eating burgers which is quite an opposite display of the past that they purport to replicate.
Bronfen (184) articulates that a hardcore re-enactor searches for as much accuracy as possible. One the other hand, the casual re-enactor as the word suggests is careless and would hardly go into great lengths to achieve historical correctness.
Horwirtz in his book confederates in the Attic is a classic example of the hardcore re-enactor. In Virginia, he joined hardcore re-enactors who actually dieted to attain the hollow-eyed look of starved Confederates (Horwirtz 178). This instance goes to explain the pain hardcore re-enactors endure to uphold validity in their performances.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of both preserving and remembering Civil War history?
Since hardcore re-enactors go to great lengths to unearth history and past events that they want to reenact, they bring forth a wealth of detailed information from that past. In their quest for their authenticity, they meet people who participated when events like civil war took place. As a result, they gather true accounts of exactly what happened.
Thanks to recent technology, they manage to record that information in formats that will be relevant even in generations to come. When selecting their costumes, they are so thorough that they even count the thread in those fabrics. It is no wonder they were also referred to as thread counters. They undergo these rigorous endeavors to ensure that history is preserved and remembered.
Unfortunately, the lackluster re-enactor takes replicating history for granted. His research on past civil wars, culture, religion and politics is shallow since his focus is having fun. They can stage their performances using modern day costume to the dismay of a highly sophisticated audience.
Even more unfortunate is the fact that part of their audience are the remaining few who were in the war or even victims who were affected and have true facts of that past. In this situation, the mainstream re-enactor undermines and mocks his audience. This is of course detrimental to the preservation of history.
To the hard-core live historians, these waters down their serious efforts in historical research and keenness in displaying which is real. The casual re-enactors actions work against preservation civil war history in that they show faulty presentations of the past and as a result compromising the validity and authenticity of history for the future generations.
Regrettably, some antagonists belittle the gains of reenactment in upholding history. They argue that people are not able to engage with history impartially. Consequently, they insist on embracing it as a story about themselves.
Works Cited
Horwitz, Tony. Confederates in the attic: dispatches from the unfinished civil war. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1999. Print.
Bronfen, Elisabeth. Hollywood’s engagement with military conflict. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2012. Print.