Switcherro, from This American Life radio talk show [in Chicago] is about people pretending to be people they're not: sometimes it's harmless, sometimes it's hard to tell. From world-famous artists to mail-order brides, to a practice that could change the face of American journalism (This American Life, Switcherro synapses).
The Prologue
The host, Ira Glass and his friend Etgar Keret visited a Cindy Sherman photography show when a woman claiming to be Cindy Sherman walks up to Etgar. Ira later calls up the real Cindy to tell her about the incident and her view on it.
This act relates to the theme of people pretending to be people they're not, by a personal experience from the host and his friend. A woman pretending to be a well-known photographer walks up to a random stranger in the room and starts talking to them and the stranger recognizes "the photographer" from a photo of them but it's not really them.
What was/were the reason(s) behind why this woman did what she did? To dress up as a well-known photographer and impersonate her for a day. Or has she been doing this for a while? If she has, her act is very ambiguous. It also shows the theme from an artistic view.
The music that is used towards the end of the act starts after Ira calls the real Cindy Sherman. It's a mix of drums and guitar music that fits in really nice; is a good transition from the prologue to act one.
Act One - Healthy Start
This act is all about what people would do if they mistake you for someone else, and you decide to just go with it. Actor John Conlee reads this story from Etgar Keret's book Suddenly a Knock on the Door. In the podcast version, Etgar returns to explain the real-life experience that inspired him to write the story.
It relates to the theme by a person pretending to be multiple people he's not at different times for a long period at a certain restaurant. It's a man who's lonely waiting in a restaurant for people who come in looking like they're trying to find someone. So, he waves the person over and goes along with whatever they say, making the person feel like they're really talking to the person they're supposed to meet. One time he meets a man who thinks he's cheating on his wife and, well, let's just say it doesn't end well for him.
The music that plays in this act is emotional piano music that's slow and sad. It plays when the guy is reflecting on the woman that he'll never get to have a life with because her husband will take her away from him. It happens after he gets beat up by the man in question. Then, more happy, quicker piano music jumps in and Etgar Keret comes back on to explain his real-life experience.
This story was inspired by a real-life incident Etgar Keret had in Berlin. He had went to meet his publisher in a cafe to talk and had arrived early. He had sat down and waited, and when he thought he saw his publisher come in, he waved him over. But the guy was actually a trader and thought Etgar wanted to give him something in exchange for 300,000 euros. Long story short, eventually they figured out they were meeting the wrong person and they parted ways. Etgar got a two-in-one that day; he got to meet with his actual publisher and he also came up with a new story idea.
Act Two - Forgive us our Press Passes
This act explores journalism and if a company called Journatic, is really journalism. Producer Sarah Koenig reports on it.
It relates to the theme by showing people who call businesses or schools across the US and gathers information to write a short story about it for another newspaper miles and miles away. In journalistic context, it's more important to know about small towns and villages than not know. Journatic gathers just facts about these small towns and villages that no one would have ever known if they hadn't read a well-known newspaper with a story on it from Journatic. It doesn't give the actual people who gather the data credit on the actual newspaper, it just says something like: from a special person. The editors who edit the articles the writers send them use aliases for well-known newspapers and don't give credit to the people who send them the data in paragraph form. They send each little story knowing that they'll get paid 35-45 cents per story, more if it's a longer one. They're Filipinos, and know that they could easily be paid less for their work. The editors at Journatic just merely fix the grammatical errors and edit the stories, then select an alias from a list.
Is this important? Is it really important to do this? This new type of online journalism where everything is over the Internet; where you might occasionally talk to your boss on the phone but never see or meet him. Have someone write about a small town or village that they know nothing about. Yes, in a way it is. Like I explained above, if someone hadn't read an article about a small town or village for another better well-known paper, they might have never heard of the news, or known about the town in general. But, also, in a way it's a little much. It's taking away from what journalism used to be. Where solely one person would work on an article by going to the place and interviewing people, then comprising the facts and conversations into paragraph form and editing it, then publishing the finished story with their name underneath the headline.
In journalistic context, it's more important to know about something than not know, and in the prologue it's more open-ended and taking the artistic angle of the theme than in this act. Does this make sense to my viewers? Send me comments on it.
Act Three - Runaway Groom
This act is about parents pretending to be parents. Comedian Jackie Clarke tells the story (This American Life, Switcherro act three synapses).
The story starts with a Jackie telling of how her mom died from cancer when she was young and her dad started dating a while after, then the catalogs started coming about mail-order brides. A Filipino woman named Cora was her new mother and wasn't very good at it; she didn't want anything to do with being a mom. And because of this experience, it made her become closer to her father.
This act relates to the theme because it turns out that Jackie's father was really a father to another family. That's why he was gone for months at a time (business trips, he told his family). It wasn't that he was pretending to be a father to Jackie and her two siblings, he already was a father, just to another family. He wasn't around full-time for them like most fathers are today. Surprisingly, Jackie didn't freak out. She wanted to be there for her dad. She knew that what her father was doing was wrong, but somehow she thought maybe my dad has a good reason.
The music is very up-beat and 80's-ish. It starts at the very beginning of the act. Then there's more music (seems a little like music that would be played during an investigator movie and then in an international movie) and it starts when Jackie is telling about how her dad wanted a mail-order bride. The next piece of music comes when her father is telling his daughter of his second family in the Philippines. It's kind of like Mario Bros/video game music just a bit slower and deeper in pitch. Piano music plays as the story is wrapping up, when Jackie is telling about how, years later, her dad called her from the Philippines where he had moved to after the court case that lasted five years with Cora.
A/N: That's the end of the episode for the week! It aired on June 29, 2012 and lasted an hour. The online version, found here, is longer than 59 minutes (it's actually 63). Sorry if this post seems very choppy, I'm not very good at analyzing things like this. I'm also not very good at describing music, so if anyone has any advice on how better to describe the music used, feel free to comment. And remember, this blog is for a class I'm taking in high school. The only reason I put the viewing status as Public was because I'm interested in seeing how many people would actually read my posts. And I'm very happy with how many have so far, considering there's only six. Thank you very much. A/N stands for Author's Note.
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