This American Life on Showtime
I don’t remember where I heard it. It might have been from Ira Glass himself on This American Life, but I think it was from Sarah Vowell in one of her many wonderful books. She was re-telling an early conversation Ira Glass, her then boss, had with her about what they did on American Life. What made them different. People could have their stories told anywhere — TV, with it’s Datelines, 20/20s, and so on, was full of that.
What was different was being on the radio. On the radio you can’t see people. So when someone was telling their story, people had to pay attention to the words. They had to make conclusions about people based on their words. On their stories. On what they shared with the audience about the lives.
That is, people couldn’t make the snap judgments that we so often do, based strictly on physical appearance. You couldn’t say “Oh look, at how they’re dressed” and fill in the rest with your own assumptions. For the kid from the wrong side of town, with the wrong type of dress, the wrong type of hair cut, this was a chance for people to listen what he said. Really listen, instead of having it shouted out by what he wore.
That lack of image, lack of being able to see them, made you listen a little closer, and perhaps get to know someone, or listen to their side of the story, in a way maybe you wouldn’t have otherwise.
Whenever it was that I heard whatever it was that I actually did hear, I was just starting to get into This American Life, so it stuck with me, and was one of the things I really grew to really like about the show.
So it’s with mixed emotion that I watched the teaser of This American Life on Showtime.
Finger’s crossed it’s even half of what the radio show is — that would still make it one of the best things on TV today.
