Choosing One’s Words Carefully – Update
August 23rd, 2008 by SocProf and tagged Media, Movie, Poverty, Social Inequalities, Social Privilege, Sociology
Commenting on this post, the better-informed-than-I-am Dangger points out that accusations of plagiarism have been made and that the video below could be the original:
Dangger also accurately notices the difference between the “Good Samaritan” in this original video (casual clothes, student look) and the one in my previous post (corporate-style, educated, wealthy).
I might add that there is another difference in the behavior of the blind man. In the original video posted above, the blind man never knows that the young man has changed his sign (which is the true nature of charity, to remain invisible) whereas in the previous post, the blind man recognizes corporate guy twice by touching his expensive shoes and expresses gratitude.
Thanks Dangger, for your acute critical skills!
Posted in Media, Movies, Poverty, Social Inequalities, Social Interaction, Social Privilege, Sociology, social marginality | 2 Comments »
August 24th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Glad I could be of service!
Sometime ago, a friend of mine sent me a link to the other video and I was really moved. Then, he asked me to watch this one.
Let me say a few things about the past video, the one being accused of plagiarism. For one thing, people are throwing money at the blind man, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen but It seems that just presenting a blind man sitting on the street wouldn’t make us feel as bad as this other situation. Also, the corporate-style guy, appears to be the so smart, or so educated, that he is in control of his success and the success of other people. When we read the sign “have compassion, I am blind” (in misspelled siego where it should say ciego) the guy takes out a Mont-Blanc to re write the sign, with correct spelling, and the looks at his Cartier when the church bell rings.
This video is not as pretentious as the previous one. The guy doesn’t have a Mont-Blanc, nor a Cartier, although I don’t know why is he carrying a marker around (but that is just funny). As you pointed out the man doesn’t need to tell the blind man what he did, and finally, there is no misspelled word in neither of the signs of this video.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Good call, you should send both videos and your brilliant commentary to Sociological Images!