I'm sure the Starr King student featured in the YouTube ad below is a lovely person, but I agree with much of what has already been said on the blogosphere about the ad itself. That the guy slips on his words at one point and nobody edited that out or made a second take I think about says it all. I agree with Joel that he has sort of a faux-ministerial blather thing to his speech. I suspect that if I listened to the man talk for any significant length of time and did a shot every time he said the word "oppression," I would be very drunk very quickly.
And I nominate him for the wise counsel of Peacebang as well, because honestly, something must be done with that hair.
And what's the deal with the part where the camera seems to be slowly zooming in on that girl's chin? And the "See? We have a black person!" photograph? WTF?
I said to myself "Self, surely this is the work of a couple of enterprising first years."
Ah, no.
As the video tells us it was "produced by Cheryl A. Bowlan." We all know that morbid curiosity is the only reason CC gets out of bed some mornings, so of course I googled our friend the producer.
She's Starr King's head PR lady.
CC smites her forehead. Hard.
So Starr King has a PR lady putting out crappy videos for the world to see and making sure to credit herself at the end.
Anyway, here's the video:
CC
Hat tip to Cuumbaya and the UU Enforcer
9 comments:
I think... I'm actualy glad that I'm stuck on dial-up.
I'm on high speed cable and can't get it to play but read CUUMBYA's transcript.
That's plenty.
I know the SKSM video is fairly lame, and it probably shouldn't be out there, but I remember how cheesy I was as a seminary student, struggling to find my voice, dealing with having cherished beliefs rummaged through and deconstructed (even though I thought I was pretty well deconstructed before I went, just because I was a UU). I too tried on the stained-glass language and the ponderous 50cent words.
The student speaking is in a process of discernment; he's not totally sure of himself and is trying to figure it all out while sounding as though he knows more than he does (which is where a lot of us still are).
It does surprise me that SKSM would put out something as amateur as this, but maybe they're caught up in the reality show craze.
I'm speechless.
The music was ... pleasant.
I don't hate it (although the music was a little stereotypical). I certainly don't mind the M. Div. student; he just seems like a regular, earnest grad student. Given the p.r. purpose, and the fact that it probably won't put off anyone who the p.r. is aimed at (i.e., not us), I wish we'd all just blog about something else >g<.
I wouldn't be so quick to give this student a pass. The Seminaries are keys to the UU Church surviving. If we don't hold them to very high standards were just adding more trouble for our Church.
My Profs at Grinnell would have torn me apart for that kind of writing (which probably sets me up for a charge now but I'll take that hit. Now I blog for myself.)
It's a shame SK allowed this posted.
I'd love to help, but I honestly couldn't bring myself to watch it all the way through. I agree with Bill that this kind of thing is more damaging than we can afford.
As a constructive suggestion, I would suggest that Starr King should check out the filmmaker who created the videos on the UUA Young Adult and Campus Ministry Web Site:
http://www.uua.org/ya-cm/resources/index.html#videos
Ben Ernst is one of the filmmaker for both films listed on their web site. Perhaps SKSM should contact him for help?
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