The Reagans

I'm not a Reagan-fan by any mean, I watched the documentary from a liberal minded European view. But I'm also a historian and value a balanced effort and fact-based telling of things. Because Reagan is such a mythical being it's good to be critical of that myth and most of the criticism in this documentary is based on reality.

Still, you cannot just push the narrative, you have to base it on facts and numbers which are not shown to us in the documentary. If you talk about economy or poverty, show the numbers! There are good moments in this mini-series but it's frustrating and too one-sided to be considered a great documentary.

As a film fan, I knew nothing about Reagan's career as an actor, and as a European, I knew nothing about his political career before the presidency catapulted him onto the world stage

So the early episodes of this series were an education in both, revealing his political journey as following the same path his party and a significant percentage of his generation took, towards identity politics and adopting the ideology of the market (and its corollary, limited government) as a sort of second faith

Although the insights into how his wife's adoptive father's extreme views influenced Reagan's early political development are illuminating, editorial attempts to cite her taste in decor and fashion as symbolic of hypocrisy when contrasted with the administration's welfare cuts are tendentious

The role of Reagan's wife in his career appears to have been that of most women of her generation - supportive but ultimately passive - which renders the premise of the series as a whole (a biography of the couple, rather than Reagan himself) redundant

Although I'm essentially sympathetic to the criticism of the Reagan administration's idolatry of the market and raising deregulation to the level of a belief system, I can't argue with reviews on this page from politically biased commentators, which describe this documentary as a hit piece

I think it's perfectly valid for film makers to adopt a critical tone when interrogating their subject matter, but this series approaches every single topic with the aim of demonstrating that Reagan was wrong about absolutely everything

Maybe the film makers feel the contemporary narrative around the Reagan presidency is too hagiographic and needs to be countered, but producing an act of propaganda as a counterweight seems an ineffective way to address this imbalance

Since those who most need to hear a countervailing version of history are unlikely to stay with such a nakedly biased piece of propaganda long enough to hear any truths it contains

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I thought this was a very well made, interesting, and informative documentary. I think it's important to look deeper at powerful public figures, especially those who are revered as much as Reagan. It's disappointing to me to see so many people angry about this, calling it left wing propaganda and defamation. It's not. If you can't watch a well made documentary and make your own conclusions without getting defensive and irrational, well that just concerns me a bit. I learned a lot from this show, but I didn't come out of watching it thinking Reagan was some kind of a monster. I still think Reagan was a good man and a highly successful president. That doesn't mean, however, that we should ignore his shortcomings or deny the dangers of his success.

This was a good documentary on the Reagans. I was a child and a teenager through most of Reagan's presidency, so I remember a lot of these events, (and even some of Carter's presidency) but it was nice to see it all narrated w/ more historical detail.

I think some of the good things Reagan did were downplayed (I mean he did turn the economy around significantly in his first term (compared to what a mess things were w/ Carter)). The program also had an overly ominous tone in general - as though the Reagan presidency was this dark awful time for everyone but the very rich - which was not the case. Things improved compared to Carter for many, many regular people too - thus why Reagan was so popular. However, these types of programs always like to make conservatives villains so the negative slant wasn't unexpected to me (got to just take it with a grain of salt).

I especially liked the commentary of Kitty Kelly, their son and Stu Spencer - was nice to hear their real life accounts. James Bakker was good too.

My Senior year in high school PBS aired it's American Experience special on Reagan. It a fairly nuanced, maybe even somewhat sympathetic documentary. This, however, is not. I don't think anyone can deny this is a critique of the Reagan's almost exclusively from a Left Wing point of view. That being said, it's not bad. It's fairly interesting, but as a mentioned just know going in it's not a puff piece.