Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher

On Tuesday night, Simon offered a harsh, insensitive form of body language.  When a contestant explained that he had a rough time singing because of his friends who died in the Virginia Tech shooting, the American Idol judged rolled his eyes and sighed . . . Or so it seemed.  The reality is that Simon hadn't heard the contestant and was instead attempting to engage in a dialogue with the oft-loopy Paula Abdul.  Instantaneously, expert bloggers posted their outrage toward Simon.  Online forums lit up with disgruntled Idol viewers.  The newspaper, for their part, took their cues from the alternative media and wrote eloquent editorials describing the scene.

The previous week, Don Imus was fired for saying something racist about the Rutger's basketball team.  It is understandable that a syndicate would yank a guy who picks on a women's basketball team, yet no one seemed interested in whether he has a past record in making racist statements.  This began a debate about race and who is allowed to use what words.  In both cases, America missed something important: context.  The only ones who could really claim expertise in the case of Imus were the listeners (already declining in numbers) who heard the entire radio show.  With Simon, it required a replay of the television cameras focusing in on the Simon-Paula conversation. 

Both incidents point toward a larger American epidemic: the loss of context.  In church, the shift is toward topical, easily digested Bible studies (or worse, book studies) where a pastor handpicks Jesus soundbytes and crafts them into a catchy three-point sermon (always three points).  In politics, the lack of context means that two presidential candidates must explain their foreign policy in thirty seconds, followed by a fifteen second rebuttal.  Many Americans opt for the Cliff's Notes version of the "debate recap" offering short snippets of the best soundbytes – a sort of ESPN's Baseball Tonight of electoral politics. 

Knowing this, I struggle with the class in creating a documentary.  There is a sense in which the documentary becomes a synthesis of information, a blending of faces – it is in a gray area between fiction and non-fiction.  At times, it feels like baking, as student carefully slice up bits and pieces of conversations, tossing them into categories, connecting them with transitions, spicing them with music.  Other times, it's more like surgery, when students slice open a dialogue, pull out the "ums" and the stutters and the random ramblings, only to sew it back together in a newer, better fashion. 

Something is lost when we are finished.  The "ums" and the stutters and the random ramblings are part of what make us human.  The boring parts often provide the subtle gestures that create context and, therefore, deeper meaning.  Rip those out and we're left with sound bytes; which makes for great entertainment, but nothing more.