37 min listen
Strange Fruit #255: It's Funny Because It's True (A Conversation With Dylan Marron)
FromStrange Fruit
Strange Fruit #255: It's Funny Because It's True (A Conversation With Dylan Marron)
FromStrange Fruit
ratings:
Length:
38 minutes
Released:
Aug 17, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Dylan Marron describes his childhood self as "a brown and queer kid trying to break into the entertainment industry." People told him he was very talented but was unlikely to get work, because of how he looked and who he was.
Dylan started paying attention to the movies and TV shows he consumed. "I noticed there was a representation problem," he said. "Universal stories were being told, but not using bodies that reflected universal stories. Universal stories are told, by default, with white bodies."
He wanted to bring attention to it in a way that wasn't preachy but factual. That's how he came up with his YouTube series, "Every Single Word." It shows popular movies edited down to only include words spoken by characters of color.
In the "Every Single Word" universe, the movie "E.T." is nine seconds long. It consists entirely of a character credited only as "Van Man," saying, "Hey, who are you?" and "Open the door, son."
The Harry Potter series clocks in at just over six minutes. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is 47 seconds.
It's absurdly funny. And it gets its point across.
Dylan joins us this week to talk about using humor to shine a light on social justice issues -- and how he does the same thing in his latest project, "Conversations with People Who Hate Me."
Dylan started paying attention to the movies and TV shows he consumed. "I noticed there was a representation problem," he said. "Universal stories were being told, but not using bodies that reflected universal stories. Universal stories are told, by default, with white bodies."
He wanted to bring attention to it in a way that wasn't preachy but factual. That's how he came up with his YouTube series, "Every Single Word." It shows popular movies edited down to only include words spoken by characters of color.
In the "Every Single Word" universe, the movie "E.T." is nine seconds long. It consists entirely of a character credited only as "Van Man," saying, "Hey, who are you?" and "Open the door, son."
The Harry Potter series clocks in at just over six minutes. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is 47 seconds.
It's absurdly funny. And it gets its point across.
Dylan joins us this week to talk about using humor to shine a light on social justice issues -- and how he does the same thing in his latest project, "Conversations with People Who Hate Me."
Released:
Aug 17, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Strange Fruit #54: 'Eenie Meanie' Examines Baby Boomer Racism & Louisville Busing Riots: "These buses came back from the West End with these little kids on them, and they were crying, there were windows knocked out. They had been beaten with baseball bats, they had been called every horrible racial name you can expect, right here in this town." It sounds like a scene we'd expect to see in the deep South, but this happened in Louisville in the middle of the 1970s, when public schools implemented the busing system. That's how performing artist Teresa Willis remembers it, and it makes up part of her one-woman show, [Eenie Meanie](http://eeniemeanie.com/). Because Louisville itself was so segregated, neighborhood schools were largely either black or white. Busing was designed to achieve greater diversity within school, but was met with resistance. "Racism really came out of the closet in my community," Teresa remembers. "There's crosses burning at the football field. Literally, we're at a by Strange Fruit