Puppets, especially puppets portraying adult situations, can create a heightened sense of awareness about the construction of narrative and character as well as about our own meaning making and communication processes. I guess that's in part why therapists use them, and why they make storytelling funnier, as they certainly do in this series of web videos, Tales From Tinder, on stories from people's personal experiences of using the Tinder dating app--often with calamitous results.
For an adult learning group or college class, a discussion of how using puppets to tell these personal stories of dating misadventure offers an opportunity to examine the communication technique as well as the pitfalls of dating apps like Tinder. The audio is from interviews with Tinder users from around the world of different genders and sexualities. The themes are mature, for sure, and some of the language is profane, so be warned. However, it is fascinating to ask:
How does the use of puppets affect the story and the storyteller?
How does this web series comment on Tinder and other digital apps for dating?
How do you feel about mixing dating and digital media?
Sharing stories of misadventure in social media, and dramatizing the story and storytelling with puppets could make for a fun media literacy lesson as well, empowering learners to reflect on and share experiences through production while creating a collective examination of protectionist themes around the potential dangers of digital media use. My previous post on the muppets offers more reflection on how puppets and parody may support media literacy, and an earlier post about Tinder offers some ideas for creating critiques of new media. Thanks to the Junkee blog for pointing us towards this fascinating Tales from Tinder project from Melbourne-based TV producer Emma Watts.
What do you do when you feel disrespected by the views of a protesting crowd making a spectacle of their intolerance? In the face of insults from southern California protestors demanding tougher illegal immigration enforcement, the guy in the first video discussed below decided to burst into a joyful dance and wave a Mexican flag to elicit enthusiastic responses from passersby. This video makes a great discussion piece about the power of joy and laughter to subvert angry media messages.
People in the U.S. exercise their rights to free speech and public assembly, which includes protests expressing intolerant, racist and xenophobic views. When we encounter such expressions that oppose the basic notions of tolerance and respect upon which we design education for participation in pluralistic democracy, what can we do? We can talk back, fighting fire with fire, showing the same passion and outrage in expressing our own beliefs. But is anger as good as laughter for combatting hate?
The video above had been uploaded by an angry protestor to make fun of the joyful dancer, but was picked up by news agencies and blogs that celebrated the dancer's action, making this a rich topic for exploring the potential for using humor to counter intolerant views in civic action and viral video--and it offers great connections for considering core media literacy concepts of author's purposes versus the different ways people may understand, and repurpose, messages. The notion of humor trumping hate in public performances caught on video reminded me of a favorite moment for comparison where, last year, angry soccer fans directed racist chants at Barcelona FC star Dani Alves, and then this happened:
A video posted by DanialvesD2 My Twitter (@danid2ois) on
As shown in this second video, when someone throws a banana at Alves while he prepared to take a corner kick, instead of responding with anger or leaving the field as other stars have done, Alves picked up the fruit, peeled it and ate it, then kicked the ball to resume play. Here, instead of a user-generated video involving everyday folks picked up by mass media, we see competing messages of hate and humor from sports fans and a celebrity athlete broadcast in mass media, then excerpted for viral sharing by bloggers and digital media users. Last spring when this happened, Alves posted the video on Instagram, and he and his teammates and celebrity friends began to circulate their own viral tweets and Instagram posts with pictures of themselves and their families eating bananas with the hashtag #weareallmokeys and #SayNoToRacism. What a way to take the sting out of that insult!
[More after the jump with suggestions for leading analytic discussion and follow up production activities for young adults in any learning setting interested in understanding how to construct effective counter-messages in digital media and how to engage in civic action...]
