If you watch enough television shows and movies, you might
start to notice that a bunch of the same props are used over and over
again. Among the more famous is a newspaper that has been passed around from show to show and has, in fact, been reused for more than 30 years.
I don’t know the story behind this prop newspaper, but I assume it
was created as a royalty free prop for television shows and movies. Somewhere along
the line, the prop became a recurring gag between propmasters or maybe they are just lazy. Don't believe me? Well, here is the proof - try and spot it the next tme you are watching TV.
To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. The State has
not produced one iota of medical evidence that the crime Tom Robinson is
charged with ever took place. It has relied instead upon the testimony
of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious
question on cross examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the
defendant. Now there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella
Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led, almost exclusively, with
his left [hand]. And Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken "The
Oath" with the only good hand he possesses -- his right.
I have
nothing but pity in my heart for the Chief Witness for the State. She is
the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance. But, my pity does not extend
so far as to her putting a man's life at stake, which she has done in
an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say "guilt," gentlemen,
because it was guilt that motivated her. She's committed no crime. She
has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code
so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to
live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But, what was
the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put
Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was to her a daily reminder of
what she did.
Now what did she do? She tempted a negro. She was
white and she tempted a negro. She did something that in our society is
unspeakable: She kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong,
young negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it
came crashing down on her afterwards.
The witnesses for the
State, with the exception of the sheriff of Lincoln County, have
presented themselves to you gentlemen -- to this Court -- in the cynical
confidence that their testimony would not be doubted; confident that
you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption, the evil
assumption, that all negroes lie; all negroes are basically immoral
beings; all negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an
assumption that one associates with minds of their caliber, and which is
in itself, gentlemen, a lie -- which I do not need to point out to you.
And
so, a quiet, humble, respectable negro, who has had the unmitigated
TEMERITY to feel sorry for a white woman, has had to put his word
against two white peoples. The defendant is not guilty. But somebody in
this courtroom is.
Now, gentlemen, in this country our courts are
the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I'm no
idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our
jury system. That's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality!
Now
I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the
evidence that you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this man
to his family.
In the name of God, do your duty. In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson.
'The Great Dictator' was Charlie Chaplin's most successful film and his first true talking picture. Released in October, 1940 it was the first film to bitterly satirize Naziism and Adolf Hitler at a time when the United States was still at peace with Germany.
At the very end of the film comes one of the great cinematic speeches - one that perfectly encapsulates Chaplin's disgust with greed, bloodshed and division. It is remarkable that Chaplin's speech of more than 70 years ago still retains so much relevance in the modern world and, perhaps, more than just a little sad. Here then, is the great master at work... Charlie Chaplin seeing the world for what it was and, in many ways, still is.
One of the biggest battles I face when dealing with CEO's is convincing them that their communication issues are not the result of what they think they don't do well but rather what they think they already have a handle on. In other words, when it comes to communication, it isn't the presentation skills or surface displays that are letting them down but the message.
It is an attitude that is the corporate equivalent of "sell the sizzle not the steak" but you can only do that if you are dealing with quality steak in the first place. Sadly, in the corporate world the "steak" or message is often quite awful. The fact is that if your message is overly complicated, irrelevant, discredited, boring and predictable then no amount of dressing it up is going to help and the proof of this is all around us - it's called advertising.
Think about it... the vast majority of advertisements you see on T.V. are slickly produced and beautifully made. They are well lit and cleverly filmed. They employ quality actors who know how to deliver a tag line and how to look good doing it. They are even scheduled for maximum impact in a timeslot specifically tailored to their target audience and they are repeated ad nauseum in case you missed it the first time. There is hardly a criticism to be made from a "sizzle" point of view but many miss the mark and fail to influence those that they were aimed at. Why? Because the "steak" is crap.
Just because an ad agency knows how to make an ad does not mean they know how to communicate a message. Seriously, how many times have you sat in front of your T.V. wondering what "creative" idiot thought that ad was a good idea and, more to the point, what kind of idiot executive agreed with them? As a counterpoint, stop and think for a moment how many porrly produced ads out there have actually done a realy good job of getting their message across. In fact, some of the most memorable ads are those that weren't slickly produced or employed acting talent - they just had a simple, credible, relevant message delivered with some heart in a way that left you pleasantly surprised.
In communication it ain't the sizzle... it's the steak!
