January 2011

Most Overrated Medical Breakthrough:

The most overrated medical breakthrough—overrated in its day, at least—was the announcement in 1925 that a daily cocktail of radioactive water would grant eternal youth. The Food and Drug Administration tried hard to stop distribution of the drink, sold in the stores as Radithor. However, since the ingredients, radium and water, were classified as natural elements and not as drugs, the product remained on the lips of customers—saved by a matter of semantics. At first the pricey Radithor did impart a certain youthful vigor to aging upper-class colts and kittens. After a few years, however, something began to happen. Radithor drinkers dissolved (not the fad, the people). From the inside out their bodies disappeared, leaving them without bones, faces, voices. People interested above all else in looking youthful spent their last days looking instead as though they’d been exhumed.

Most Overrated Movie Musical:

Show Boat . Although howls of alarm are likely to be raised by anyone who has ever sung the haunting tunes “OT Man River” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” in the shower, it should finally be acknowledged that Show Boat by Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern is the most overrated movie musical—twice ( three times if one counts an earlier, rarely seen version made in the twenties): both the clunky 1936 black-and-white version starring Irene Dunne (and featuring Paul Robeson) and the MGM Technicolor extravaganza released in 1951 with Kathryn Grayson and Ava Gardner (in a role that was promised to Lena Home). Show Boat may indeed have inaugurated the modern book musical, but it is loathsome in theme and spirit. In fact, it is impossible to watch today without wondering why no one defends, protects, or stands up for the beloved and beautiful Julie (the half-black woman) instead of allowing her to be driven off the boat by a Southern sheriff.

Most Overrated Indian Leader:

Doubting that any genuine American Indian leader has been overrated—the excess has been in misrepresentation rather than in evaluation (e.g., Sitting Bull, who has often been credited, or blamed, for Custer’s defeat, did not physically participate in the Greasy Grass fight, a.k.a. the Battle of the Little Bighorn)—I must choose from among the many phony depictions of great chiefs by Hollywood in a day when only Caucasian actors were cast in Indian roles. The choice is obvious: Cochise. Not the respectable Chiricahua Apache of history (c. 1815–74), but the cigarstore effigy on celluloid, a caricature of the Noble Savage.

Most Underrated Indian Leader:

Most Overrated Love Affair:

In terms of international media coverage, shock value to so-called Western civilization, and lack of distinguished true passion, I’d have to nominate the romance between the American-born Wallis Warfield Simpson and King Edward VIII of England.

He became the Duke of Windsor, and she the Duchess as a result. It wasn’t particularly what either of them had wanted. For Time magazine last year I listed theirs as one of the five great love affairs of the twentieth century along with those of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, and Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. The word great in this instance referred to public perception and press coverage.

Most Overrated Enemy:

The Soviet Union. During the mid-1950s we spent much effort working to counter a “bomber gap” that stemmed from nothing more than the fact that the Russians flew the same ten planes twice during an air show, fooling Americans into believing the U.S.S.R. was amassing a huge fleet. Then came the “missile gap,” which also proved illusory. President Johnson later admitted that “we were building things we didn’t need to build. We were harboring fears we didn’t need to harbor.”

Most Underrated Enemy:

Canada. During both the War of Independence and the War of 1812, American forces tried to annex this land. They failed, as British arms pushed them back. Had they succeeded, our flag would fly today from the Yukon to the Rio Grande. By rebuffing the American attempts, Britain drew the map of this continent as it appears to this day.

Most Overrated French Hero of the American Revolution:

In a sense, to call the Marquis de Lafayette an overrated hero is unfair. He was a hero, and he did fight for the Continental Army at his own expense. His fellow Freemason George Washington, whom the Frenchman idolized, wrote to Congress that Lafayette “possesses a large share of bravery and military ardor.” At Brandywine he took a t. British bullet in the thigh while helping check a British advance, he fought with distinction at Monmouth, and, of course, he lent no small share of moral support during the hardships at Valley Forge. Still, the Lafayette legend is more myth than substance. His record as a soldier was solid but superficial, and according to one of his later, less fawning biographers, Louis R. Gottschalk, he was motivated to fight for the American side less by idealism than by frustration back home and a longing for glory.

Most Underrated French Hero of the American Revolution:

Most Overrated Fictional Private Eye:

My nominee for that slot would be a fellow named Matthew Scudder, the creation of a writer who shall remain, Uh, nameless. I’ll tell you, if I were going to hire a private eye, Scudder’s the last one I’d pick. He’s either drunk or going to AA meetings, which leaves him with precious little time for work. His girlfriend’s a hooker, and his best buddy is a career criminal and multiple murderer. And he does weird things: In one book he clears his client of a murder the man really did commit, then frames him for one he didn’t have anything to do with. Who in his right mind would have anything to do with a guy like that?

Vastly overrated, in my opinion.

Most Underrated Fictional Private Eye:

It seems to me that all fictional private eyes are either over- or underrated. If we can remember their names, they’re overrated. If we can’t, well, they’re underrated, but how can we say who they are? As soon as we think of them, they cease to fulfill our requirement.

Aha!

Most Overrated City:

Washington, D.C. I detest planned capitals as a matter of principle, from the overblown Brasilia to the prissy Canberra, but with its pompous boulevards, its complacent plethora of monuments and improving texts, its awful climate, and its conceited young men, I dislike Washington most of all.

Most Underrated City:

On the other hand, Chicago is surely the most underrated city in the United States, especially among foreigners. It truly is one of the great cities of the world. Its setting by the lake is extraordinary—like a seaside city in the middle of the continent!—its architecture is spectacular, and its people, one and all, are delightful. It is also very stylish, and a walk down North Michigan when the weather is right—icy cold, that is, and brilliantly windy—is one of the most exciting promenades on earth.

Most Overrated Educational Initiative:

James Conant’s well-publicized campaign for comprehensive high schools. In 1959, aided by a large grant from the Carnegie Corporation, Conant, a former president of Harvard University, wrote The American High School Today . He recommended eliminating small schools and tracking students into different programs on the basis of their ability. Not only was the book widely hailed and a number one bestseller, but Conant got a cover story in Time . Today Americans are trying to figure out how to downsize the educational factories bequeathed to us since Conant, how to cut these huge institutions back to human scale so that the adults know who the kids are.

Most Underrated Educational Initiative:

Most Overrated Dating Trend:

Dating itself. The term date was originally borrowed from prostitution. Dating, which became widespread in America during the 1920s, inserted courtship into a money economy. The man asked the woman “out”; he paid for the entertainment, in return he received…? From the beginning, critics noticed an imbalance. Either a woman’s company was by definition more valuable than a man’s, or something else was required to balance the equation. As a teenager argued in 1943, “When a boy takes a girl out and spends $1.20 on her (like I did the other night), he expects a little petting in return (which I didn’t get).” The rise of the dating system offered American youth new opportunities for fun and for interpersonal and sexual exploration, but it also exacerbated the inequities between men and women in courtship.

Most Underrated Dating Trend: