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| Carmen Agra Deedy |
The TED Talk I picked out to watch was called "Once Upon a Time, My Mother..." and the speaker was Carmen Agra Deedy. She starts out by telling the audience about what she did when she knew she was going to come speak to them: call her mother. "I have to talk to them about stories. It's 'Technology, Entertainment and Design." That was her dilemma. Then, she talked about what storytelling actually was to the audience. "Good storytelling is crafting a story that someone wants to listen to. Great story is the art of letting go. So I'm going to tell you a little story. It's called, "You're Going to Miss Me." It's about human connection." That was the main argument of her talk.
This story was centered on the actions of her Cuban mother, Esther who drove recklessly without paying much attention to it. Carmen told the story of how Esther recently got her license renewed and so she wanted to drive to the mall to return her dad's underwear. Carmen had to go with her and when they got there, they had trouble finding a parking spot. However, Esther made a big scene out of it to the point where people were staring at them. Then, the most important part of the story came. A brother and sister came up to Carmen standing in the parking lot, asking her if that was her mother. After she says "yes", the boy says,"Well, what my sister meant" -- they look at each other, it's a knowing glance -- "God, she's crazy!" Carmen makes a frustrated fuss and the two siblings say, "I know, but, I mean, I swear to God, she reminds us of our mother." As they turn around to leave, Carmen barely hears the half-whisper that one of them say, "God, I miss her." Then, Esther turns to Carmen and says, "You know what, honey?" "What, ma?" "I'm going to drive you crazy probably for about 14, 15 more years, if you're lucky, but after that, honey, you're going to miss me."
Carmen's purpose in presenting this TED talk was to simply tell the audience a story. Through telling a story, she communicated the idea of the importance that storytelling can bring to people in realizing things about life. I thought that she wanted to tell the audience how important it was to cherish your family, even if they are the most annoying or frustrating human beings on the planet. It was a story that everyone could relate to. After all, we all have that "one" family member.
The speaker uses ethos when speaking about her family's history, how they came from Cuba, how she grew up in Georgia, and so on. It added credibility to the story because Carmen established the setting for us before even telling the story. Also, the fact that she spoke Spanish after her mother frustrated her added credibility to her story. For example, when the two siblings told her, "God, she's crazy!" and Carmen went off in Spanish. The way she told her story was with expertise, she used the element of humor to get the audience to laugh multiple times throughout.
Carmen used logos to create a stereotype of the typical "Cuban woman". That is what the arc of the presentation was structured on: Esther and the story Carmen told about her. For example, "I have a little Cuban mother -- she's about that big. Four feet. Nothing larger than the sum of her figurative parts." Another example is relating the idea that Cuban mothers always think they are right and/or intuitive, "[Carmen]:I have to talk to them about stories. It's 'Technology, Entertainment and Design.'" And she [Carmen] said, "Well, you design a story when you make it up, it's entertainment when you tell it, and you're going to use a microphone." Carmen said, "You're a peach, ma. Pop there?" "What's the matter? The pearls of wisdom leaping from my lips like lemmings is no good for you?"In my opinion, the entirety of the presentation was strong. It's always interesting to listen to other people's stories which is why I think it appealed to the audience so much. Her argument could have created bias among other Cuban mothers based on the way she talked about her mother, but other than that, the argument lead up to a strong conclusion: cherish the time you have left with your parents, no matter how much you dislike their personality.
In addition, commenting on the pathos used in this talk, it certainly helped Carmen's presentation out a lot. Not only was there humor that made the audience laugh (myself included), but there were a couple of other emotions that I felt for Carmen as she told that story. For example, sympathy, happiness, as well as the beauty of the story. I was sympathetic to how Carmen had to put up with the embarrassment of her mother. The ending touched my heart a bit when the two siblings related Esther to their own mother and got me to think about my relationship with my mother.
In conclusion, I chose this TED talk because I thought it had an interesting title and thought "Why not listen to someone's story about their mother?" It turned out, I hit the jackpot with an interesting and funny story and I really enjoyed it. I can relate to this talk because I have parents that come not from America, but from Russia. This may also create stereotypes of what a typical Russian mother may be like. In all honesty though, sometimes having Russian parents (here goes a stereotype) can annoy the mess out of you: "Katya, help me with ziss komputor, how do I turn ziss Skype on?" Or, "Katya, forget your homeworrk, I need you to fold ziss clothes and cook the Borsch ferst". Despite all the difficulty, I love them dearly and wouldn't trade them for the world. This TED talk made me think about the concept of duality in the way that I have two main personalities around people. The first, is how I act around those other than my family, such as being a student or friend. The second, is the way I act around my parents (pretty much following everything they tell me I have to do), such as being helpful and my role as a caring sister. This talk made me realize that sometimes, we humans get so caught up in our daily activities and worries that we sometimes forget to look in front of us and see how much we care about those we love.
