The Impact of Stories

You cannot see the sun if you stare right at it. It's too bright and you go blind for the moment. You don't take away it's illumination. Instead your vision is obstructed by neon blotches. Like the sun, truth is often more approachable from a scanted view.

They may not want to hear it but Bell Hooks is speaking the truth when she tells moviegoers that "giving audiences what is real is precisely what movies do not do" (1). This does not mean that movies are illegitimate or any less influential. Quite the contrary, I agree with Hooks as she goes on to say that "the reimagined, reinvented version of the real … That's what makes movies so compelling" (1). I would go so far as to say that the transformative power of the story has never been so powerfully distributed to the masses as it is today through movies and television shows. 

Why are these media so effective at sucking us in, wrapping us in their messages and spitting us back out laden with ideas that cling sheer to our skin like fresh sap?

Part of it is that lack of the "real". We can get closer to the truth when it isn't a threat to our actual lives. As Bell Hooks suggests later when she describes these "perfect vehicles" (2), movies serve as a safe space to explore new ideas which if approached first in real life might be too scary for the individual.Too real.

In addition, movies and television are especially demanding of emotional and cognitive transportation. Having both their visual and auditory fields consumed by a single story, the audience member is somewhat isolated from their own reality. One can evaporate into the other universe and usually identify with one or more of the characters. In this way, the viewer may come away with more than simple knowledge; one may grok a powerful message. 

Last semester, one of my classes visited Media Impact, an organization that specializes in transnational Entertainment Education (EE). The program director hosted a lecture and discussion in a small conference room in their offices across from the United Nations building. A couple of stories have stayed with me from that talk and I can't help thinking of them as we talk about the power of film to promote change.

One story which predated Media Impact (and inspired its creation) was about a town in India where girls' birthdays weren't celebrated. A radio show was created and produced in the 1980's, led by Indira Ghandi and Father of EE, Miguel Sabido with the intention of promoting family planning. Although the EE programming was initially aimed at population control, during one episode one character,  a little girl, asked why she didn't have a birthday. Although this is not specifically a film or TV show, it is a perfect example of a question that could be easily broached on a fictional program but would have been very provocative if tested out first in real life. The episode led to girls having birthdays across the town and was a contributing factor in the opening of discussions about other areas of inequality such as education.

Media Impact was inspired by this and other examples of early EE and now has over 100 programs in over 34 countries around the world. Possibly more significant than promoting what the organization sees as positive social messages, Media Impact is also helping communities to develop media voices of their own. Activist filmmaker Catherine Saalfield acted as the director of the Television Production Workshop at New York City's Heterick-Martin Institute where she worked with gay and lesbian teens. She is quoted as saying "I teach kids how media works and how powerful it can be, how they can use it for their own ends" (67). Saalfield emphasizes the importance of giving her teen students a voice. As they worked in foreign countries, Media Impact quickly discovered that they were not the most qualified producers of EE for these countries. There was no way they could become experts in these varied and intricate communities often speaking rare, specific dialects and sharing in unwritten heritage. Media Impact's "My Community" program incorporates EE drama, interactive talk shows where community members can have a voice and community mobilization campaigns to support initiatives with resources to create change in communities across the world.

The voices that rise from within a community have proven effective in many circumstances. One story the director told during the discussion with our class was particularly powerful. It was about a rural village in Africa where poverty was widespread and domestic violence was on the rise. In the community, the thin dwellings were built close together and members could hear what went on in other houses. However, it was an unspoken rule that no one would speak up in defense of a battered wife. One television show created by a collaboration between Media Impact and community members depicted a mass of neighbors coming out of their houses and banging pots and pans when they heard a woman who needed help, pressuring the husband to stop. Apparently this same sort of activity began to take place in nearby villages that saw the program. In one bar, when a woman was physically assaulted, the men at the bar began banging their beer mugs on the surface. 

Through the telling of stories, truths can be discovered and hopefully internalized. Stories lend us the capacity to look at varying reflections of our society and take away insight we may not have found on our own. Stories told by a community for its own people can be especially powerful. They can be tools for communicating notions of change and ending spirals of silence that perpetuate damaging norms. Although stories are not reality in themselves, they have an impact on real lives that can not be underestimated.

Works Cited:

Hooks, Bell. Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies. New York: Routledge, 1996. Print.

Redding, Judith. "Catherine Saalfield: Art and Activism." Film Fatales: Independent Women Directors.  Seattle: Seal Press, 1997, Print.

"About Media Impact." MediaImpact.com. Web. April 2012.