Tyranny of the Prevail

The last 24 hours have been a whirlwind of reporting in the wake of the death of Nelson Mandela. It is interesting how news organizations have covered his passing. Most organizations have, rightly so, glorified his life and his legacy. The South Africa of today might not even exist had it not been for his release from Robben Island prison, his election as President and his founding of the Peace and Reconciliation commissions among other achievements.

But Mr. Mandela was a freedom fighter before he was an icon. In today’s parlance, he was a terrorist. In fact, Condelezza Rice, former Secretary of State under the Bush Administration, was embarrassed that until 2008, Mr. Mandela was on a CIA Terrorism Watchlist. She ordered him removed from it.

Getting back to the coverage, I heard not an opposing word regarding Mr. Mandela and his excellent works until the Canadian based news magazine, “Q” hosted by Jian Ghomeshi, and even then, the discussion didn’t change until more than halfway through the broadcast.

Interviewers are not fools. They may see themselves as truthtellers, but sometimes, they know they need backup. Indeed, permission, before they can speak contrary to the prevailing wind. That’s what Jian Ghomeshi did, but only after the start of his conversation with Princeton Professor and Black Activist Cornell West.

Jian gingerly, and I mean gingerly asked Mr. West about Mr. Mandela’s early years and if he could be considered a subversive? In light of the current praising, that was no doubt a tricky question to consider, let alone ask. Fortunately, Mr. West, in his usual bold and unapologetic style, recapped Mr. Mandela’s history as a black nationalist who was a counter-cultural hero that railed openly and constantly against the oppressive white government of South Africa.

He shined much light on what some would consider Mandela’s shadow self, a self many might choose not to admit, lest it would diminish him as the icon they need him to be. But Mandela himself fought against being lionized and West told the story of how he warned South Africans during a speech that they must not be complicit in the “SantaClausization” of the man. In a later meeting, West was concerned that Mandela might have been offended. In fact, Mandela told West he agreed and told him to continue speaking his truth.

As West spoke, you could hear Jian getting more and more comfortable with asking about Mandela the warrior and Mandela the subversive. By the end, he almost sounded relived and I suspect, a little liberated.

When a person that we consider great dies, just like when a person we consider evil dies, we don’t do ourselves, let alone them justice, if we don’t stretch to understand the full measure of the man or woman. But an interviewer doesn’t always have the juice by themselves to look in both directions. Sometimes, they need help. But the fact the Mr. Ghomeshi knew he wanted to explore Mr. Mandela’s other side, and that he sought out Cornell West to help him do it gets him mass props from this interviewer.

Our Next Guest …

Sometimes, an interview reminds me of that scene from Top Gun where the jets are chasing each other through desert canyons. That was the one today between Janeane Garofalo and Jian Gomeshi.

Garofalo is a balls-to-the-wall stand up comedian with a long and impressive list of experience, from Seinfield to SNL. And she is a feminist and political activist with a passion for the free speech progressivism of Air America to the in-your-face activism of Code Pink. I walked by the radio and was caught by was seemed to be a building interview malestrom, so I dropped what I was doing to listen.

I came in on how she was adamantly refusing to let Jian praise or glorify her or her work. The impression I got was she felt it would seem pretentious and undeserved. I’ve talked to several artists, Squarepusher among them, who also want people to not focus so much on them but on what they are saying. I would guess that kind of self policing helps keep them humble and focused.

Jian stayed in there with her and was willing to take punches as well throw a few. And, it seemed for a minute like a mutual respect was building between them to where she started to see him as worthy of her because maybe she thought he “got” her. I don’t know if that meant he agreed to let her define the terms with which he would interact with her, or if it was simply because he knows she is professionally tough and doesn’t do weak. But whenever he pushed as is his style, she pushed back and harder.

Somewhere in the middle, she tries to throw him off by talking about how she breathes and how it sounds like asthma, and by saying she’s catching his HPV sounding breathing from him after he admits that he does, in fact, have asthma. At that point, the color of the conversation seemed to be getting a little dark, sliding a little downhill. But Ms. Garafalo seems to be not one for nuance. In 1991, she married a writer for the Ben Stiller show thinking it was a joke. She only realized it wasn’t when she tried to really marry somebody else. The fake marriage was dissolved in 2012.

When the conversation turns to peers like Sean Penn, she dismisses Jian Gomeshi’s assertion that Sean Penn worries about feeling respected as compared to her, a woman. She says she has always been fighting for her respect, at which point, she shouts him down from his rolling interactive style by telling him that although it’s his show, and she doesn’t want to step on his toes, she will (and does) because she feels he isn’t letting her finish her point. And when he makes a comment about lipstick and appearances, she reprimands him on his style sense of her like a grandmother reprimands a grandchild, saying,”Jian, Jian!”

At one point, he wants to play a clip of her standup and she protests, but weakly, saying replayed standup isn’t funny. He disagrees and, like a listener should, I waited for the seque to the clip. But in the meantime, he tells her that on stage, she is as much of an open book as she is being in the interview. She responds in what sounds to him like a condescending tone. He calls her on it and that’s when the interview turns. It seems to me that Jian has had enough, and an overly long stretch of dead air from him told me he was employing the interviewer silence. You can hear her try to recover the insult, but suddenly, the interview is over. He didn’t play the clip and he didn’t say his signature “Such a pleasure to have you here.” The next thing I hear is a utilitarian outro of the interview followed by his system cue for the network break. I don’t hear her voice again. It was very uncharacteristic of Q and speaks to how, yes, sometimes interviewers want it to be over.

And throughout it all, I was thinking, “My God, this is the edited version”. I can only imagine that Jian and his staff had gone through the time and effort to get Ms. Garofalo, had fit her into his production and broadcast schedule, and wasn’t going to omit the interview just because it was rocky. For sure, it let us all have a chance to experience her the way he did since what we heard was his edit.

It’s an example of how sometimes, someone known for stream of consciousness can be clueless and someone known for engaging can slam down a steel door – full stop. “Our next guest …

Mad Skills

This is about interviewing.

I just listened to Jian Gomeshi of Q talk with Jessica Pare, the actress portraying Megan on Mad Men.  Great interview for a couple of reasons.  One, Jian playfully tries to get her to reveal details of the new season, down to what she’s wearing on set, which she cleverly declines.  Next, he tries to get her to confirm publicity photos on the MM website showing her and her fictitious husband, Don, in Hawaii.  She politely declines to do that too.

Next, he gets her to talk about her character, and here, he is absolutely successful for one major reason.  Ms. Pare is Megan.  Megan is her life for as long as she is on Mad Men.  And, as Jian pointed out, she’s already been acting for 15 years.  So, she’s invested in her craft.  When interviewing, the best thing to do is focus on what the interviewee is focused on and you’re guaranteed to get full response.

That was Jian’s next good move, getting Jessica to talk about herself and her own feelings about her acting career.  He tied Megan and Jessica together in how they both worked hard to get to where they were and how neither of them may see themselves as neophytes anymore.  Ms. Pare elaborated on the necessity of the hard work and the breaks and the opportunities or how, just as easily, you can be dismissed, but how that can’t stop you.

Finally, he returns to the Megan character and asks how her change, and the changes in the people she affects on the show have affected Don.  Again, she goes deep into the character and the interactions because, to repeat, this is her life.  She is Megan.

And though she’s said nothing specific, the job of a good interviewer is to triangulate a reveal.   To use good intelligence, i.e., good research, to help the listener draw a picture of what the interviewee does and doesn’t want you to know.  It’s being playful w/o being familiar.  It’s pushing w/o poking.  It’s hitting the right button and listening.  It’s delivering good stuff for the listener and letting the talker feel like they’ve been really heard.

She’s good.  He’s good.