functions best as an introduction for younger viewers completely unfamiliar with the events of the time.
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1968 may have been "the year that everything changed" but "1968: With Tom Brokaw" goes out of its way to assure that in America it´s all situation normal, as it always has been and as it ever shall be.
Opting for a highlight reel approach rather than a fresh or even remotely critical perspective, this feature-length documentary from the History Channel presents a portrait of 1968 on familiar terms: the hippies vs. the establishment. Brokaw´s presence assures authenticity because he was there at Haight-Ashbury and other 1968 locales forty years ago. Unfortunately, Brokaw isn´t able to shake his broadcast journalism roots and the documentary is structured in the typical network news "fair and balanced" format with an equal number of "hippy" and "establishment" experts. This means, of course, that we are expected to take Pat Buchanan, who gets more screen time than anybody save Brokaw, seriously as a social commentary. Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal also shows up with her burning eyes of hatred to tell us how evil the damned dirty hippies were (warning to Ann Coulter: this is your future!)
Representing the damned dirty hippies is a random collection of singers and comedians including Michele Phillips, Arlo Guthrie, Tommy Smothers (the best celebrity guest of the bunch), Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, and James Taylor. Bruce Springsteen serves as all-American middle-of-the-road ballast. Brokaw strikes a perfectly balanced pose, acknowledging sympathy for the violent protests of 1968 while constantly reminding the viewers how much he loves America, apparently unlike anyone who would protest against it.
The documentary is much more compelling when Brokaw turns his attention away from celebrities to people like Nellie Harness Coakley, an army nurse whose worldview was severely shaken by what she witnessed in the military hospital. Brokaw also sounds genuinely sincere when he mentions the pain of losing one of his close friends in the Vietnam War. Another highlight of the program is the interview with Rafer Johnson, the former Olympian who worked for Bobby Kennedy and wrestled RFK's assassin Sirhan Sirhan to the floor.
I hope that wasn´t a spoiler. 1968 was a watershed year for pitcher´s ERAs (Bob Gibson posted a 1.12) and political assassinations. The program inevitably focuses on the shootings of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. Nationwide campus protests and the protests at the Democratic Convention in Chicago also get ample screen time. And then there´s, y´know, all that women´s rights (yeah, you guessed it, footage of women burning various undergarments) and black power stuff. Again showing its news media bias, the program ends on an assuring note: the Apollo 8 mission which sent Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders to the dark side of the moon. According to the program, this event united the entire country which means that even in 1968 we get to have a happy ending. No more silly protests, no more division. And with Richard Nixon about to be sworn in, all was well with America once again.
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