Look me in the eyes & say it again

TESTIMONIALS AND TRUTH

Let's question the storytellers

Bad Vegan captivated the internet for a week or so, even though we knew how the story would turn out, and even though it was just one in a recent line of white-women-behaving-badly scam stories. And while the fascination with documentary storytelling may feel very current -- Tiger King, The Vow (about the NXIVM cult), Lula-Rich and so on -- it exploits one of the oldest storytelling mechanisms: the direct testimonial.

Here, the storyteller is talking right to you, making eye contact that feels like it is unmediated, promising that the story is true. It creates a feeling of intimacy, the storyteller both capturing your attention and laying herself bare. In another version of this, we might hear the crackling campfire, imagine the storyteller's deep expertise on the emotional truth of the urban legend she's telling -- or her insistence that, no really, it was her cousin whose car was scraped up by the man with the hook for a hand. In Bad Vegan, Sarma sits, well-lit and center of frame, promising viewers that she had no idea what was happening, that she was hypnotized by love, that she was the real victim.

Notice how the camera is working in these stories: the interviewer sits beside or behind the lens, prompting the speaker with questions -- but the answers are directed to you, the viewer. We see similar structures in the fictional retellings that have been popping up everywhere: in Inventing Anna, again, the camera is often positioned over the (semi-fictional) journalist's shoulder, so that her sources are speaking directly to us.

A structure like this can invite us to interrogate the truth or accuracy of a speaker's words. Even better -- the rest of the story can create a tension between what the speaker promises is true and what we learn from other speakers and in other scenes. In The Dropout, scenes of the Elizabeth Holmes character speaking directly -- to an interviewer, to Congress, to a jury, to the mirror -- work to do just that. We see her practice her words, lowering her voice. We see the fumbles, the requests to edit things out. But the rest of the story shows the foundationless castle she has constructed; it's all tumbling down.

Back to Bad Vegan. The filmmakers exploit this same sort of tension by presenting the truth as Sarma claims she perceived it -- then dissolving that truth. They cast an actor to play a person that Sarma says she believed existed -- then fade him away when it's revealed that he has always been a mere sock puppet for the villain. What does that moment do for the trust between the speaker and the viewer? The trust between the filmmaker and the viewer?

We've spent the last year reading Villette and talking with our book group about the direct address that Bronte employs. "Reader -- " says our narrator Lucy Snow. She tells us her secrets this way. Reader, come closer, she implies. She admits when she's been withholding information from us -- even as she first withholds it for a damn long time. Reader, in my defense. As the story progresses, she uses the direct address to defend her judgmental perceptions as universal. That snotty little dog reminded me of my student and reader if you'd seen her, you'd've thought the same.

But would we? Maybe. And maybe not. The point is that she makes us question not only her judgments, but our own.

Writing Prompt: You've started a story and you know the (perhaps relative) truth of it. But is there a character who might disagree? For this prompt, let that character sit by the crackling fire and tell the story. Make it a first-person account, even if they are telling their cousin's bff's tale, and go ahead and let them lie. Once you've found their (perhaps artificially lowered) voice and their perspective on what happens, find a way to poke that story with the other version you already know. What character or artifact could appear (or disappear) to make the reader distrust this teller, or at least create a tension around the idea of truth?

Recommended viewing and reading: Bad Vegan; Inventing Anna; The Dropout; We Need to Talk About Cosby; The OA; The Haunting of Bly Manor; Protagonist; Villette by Charlotte Bronte; The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins; The Turn of the Screw by Henry James; Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov; Allen v. Farrow; The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler; Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Reflection: First-person testimonials are used everywhere, from political ads to hair clubs for men to Instagram influencers. They're used to pull the listener from one position to another. In Arabian Nights, Scheherazade uses storytelling to stay alive and shift her audience from murderous to amorous. In the first season of The OA, the main character weaves a story to a group of high school students (and one teacher) who gather around her nearly every night. She swears the story is true, gaining the emotional investment of her listeners -- and as it becomes more and more surreal, the listeners (and the viewers) have to decide how far they will follow this compelling tale. Once we've committed to believing an ostensibly unbelievable thing, we're more likely than not to keep believing it, to dig in and defend the beliefs against evidence to the contrary (e.g., QAnon, Pizzagate). How often can you spot the moment of no return when you're listening to a testimonial, a salesman, a politician?

And let's go one step further: presenting one perspective and then undermining it can inspire the reader/viewer to question their own moral framework and how they see the world. It's a strategy to make change. How can you use that in your own work?

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Event at Moon Palace Books

Remember those BOOKS we told you about last time? Want to hear us read from them, grill each other, and even answer your questions? OK, the good part is probably afterward when we relax and have a drink -- but you're invited to both and we'd dearly love to see you! We're arming our pens with invisible ink, ready to draw dirty pictures on the title pages!

Tuesday, May 3rd, 7pmMoon Palace Books3032 Minnehaha Ave,Minneapolis, MN

Masks required.

On December 1, 1946, Paula Jean Welden put on a bright red parka and disappeared into the Vermont wilderness; how many lives might she have led since then? Order Quantum Girl Theory.

A rhinoplasty model meets a phantom pregnancy meets a human metal detector in this humorous and poignant collection about grotesque and glorious bodies. Order Splendid Anatomies.

Minneapolis Storytelling Workshop is a project of professional writers Allison Wyss and Erin Kate Ryan. All rights reserved.