A few years ago, the New Republic published an essay demonstrating that David Sedaris had lied in many of his recounted stories of his own life, both in his books and on his appearances on This American Life. I remember at the time that there were a lot of comments on the article, almost entirely deriding the expose as ridiculous. (Oddly, there’s only one comment there now. Not sure if my memory is faulty or what.) The general line seemed to be that of course it was non-fiction. This wasn’t another James Frey situation.
Sedaris readily admitted that he exaggerates, and the whole matter blew over with little fanfare.
It was raised again recently because This American Life is facing increased scrutiny after the Mike Daisey brou-ha-ha. The show puts no disclaimer before any Sedaris broadcasts that indicates that these stories might not be true. Apparently, this is because Ira Glass thinks that you have to be stupid to possibly think that Sedaris is being straightforward.
We just assumed the audience was sophisticated enough to tell that this guy is making jokes and that there was a different level of journalistic scrutiny that we and they should apply…It’s a hard thing to figure out how to do it in way that is respectful of the audience and is respectful of Sedaris.
I don’t think it’s all that obvious. I also find Glass’s dismissal of the entire issue odd, coming from a guy who just did a self-lacerating (but maybe partly self-congratulatory?) episode on how he got suckered by Daisey. What’s certainly not obvious is exactly what is true in Sedaris’s stories and what isn’t. And that matters.
We have different emotional responses to fictions than we do to reality. When a building blows up in a fiction, it can be loads of fun. In real life, not so much. Some things can be more affecting because we believe them to be true – especially when they involve some sort of social criticism, as so many of Sedaris’s works do. I think he sometimes relies on our belief in what he’s saying to make it funnier, or in some cases, more resonant.
So let’s take his most famous piece, his story for This American Life on being a Christmas elf at Macy’s. Here are some of the things in there that strike me as significantly funnier if true than if someone is making them up. And I don’t know which, if any, are true.
- During the second interview, we were asked why we wanted to be elves, which, when you think about it, is a fairly tough question
- We have been addressed by all sorts of instructors, who begin their presentations by saying, “This looks like an outstanding group of elves.” Several of the bosses have led us in motivational cheers, a concept which stuns me to the core.
- You can be an Entrance Elf, a Water Cooler Elf, a Bridge Elf, Train Elf, Maze Elf, Island Elf, Magic Window Elf, Emergency Exit Elf, Counter Elf, Magic Tree Elf, Pointer Elf, Santa Elf, Photo Elf, Usher Elf, Cash Register Elf, or Exit Elf.
- Ivy, the woman in charge of costuming, handed out our uniforms, and gave us a lecture on keeping things clean. She held up a calendar and said, “Ladies, you know what this is. Use it. I have scraped enough blood out from the crotches of elf knickers to last me the rest of my life. And don’t tell me, ‘I don’t wear underpants. I’m a dancer.’ You’re not a dancer. If you were a real dancer, you wouldn’t be here. You’re an elf, and you’re going to wear panties like an elf.”
These are funny because of just how seriously Macy’s takes its Christmas program, and of how unseriously the elves do. If those are just flights of fancy on Sedaris’s part, and Macy’s is actually not that serious, then it seems much less funny.
(Allow me to add how much I did not appreciate this gem: “At noon, a large group of retarded people came to visit Santa and passed me on my little island. These people were profoundly retarded. They were rolling their eyes and wagging their tongues and staggering towards Santa. It was a large group of retarded people and, after seeing them for 15 minutes, I could not begin to guess where the retarded people ended and the regular New Yorkers began. Everyone looks retarded once you’ve set your mind to it.”)
And the following have a different social resonance if they are simply figments of Sedaris’s imagination:
- Then the husbands sat on Santa’s lap. And when asked what he wanted for Christmas, one of the men yelled, “I want a broad with big jugs.” The man’s small-breasted wife crossed her arms over her chest, looked at the floor, and gritted her teeth. The man’s son tried to laugh.
- Yesterday, a black woman got upset after, having requested a Santa of color, she was sent to Will. “He’s not black,” the woman said. We assured the woman that, yes, he was black. And the woman said, “Well, he isn’t black enough.”
- “We would like a traditional Santa. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.” I sent her to Will.
- A child came to Santa this morning and his mother said, “All right, Jason. All right. Tell Santa what you want. Tell him what you want.” Jason said, “I want Proctin and Gamble to stop animal testing.” The mother said, “Procter, Jason. That’s Procter & Gamble. And what do they do to animals? Do they torture animals, Jason? Is that what they do?” Jason said, “Yes, they torture.” He was maybe six years old.
- To one child I said, “You’re a model, aren’t you?” The girl was maybe six years old and she said, “Yes, I model, but I also act. I just got a second callback for a Fisher Price commercial.” The girl’s mother said, “You may recognize Katelyn from the My First Sony campaign. She’s pictured on the box.”
Either people are really like this, or Sedaris suspects they might be. Which of those is the case matters to our emotional reaction. And the ending is definitely supposed to be poignant: “Once a child starts crying, it’s all over. The parents had planned to send these pictures as cards or store them away until the child is grown and can lie, claiming to remember the experience. Tonight I saw a woman slap and shake her crying child. She yelled, ‘Rachel, get on that man’s lap and smile, or I’ll give you something to cry about.’ Then she sat Rachel on Santa’s lap, and I took the picture, which supposedly means, on paper, that everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be, that everything is snowy and wonderful. It’s not about the child or Santa or Christmas or anything, but the parents’ idea of a world they can not make work for them.”
I think it’s totally plausible to say that there’s some internal evidence that he exaggerates. But I certainly don’t think anyone is stupid for thinking that this story is true. In fact, it’s not all that sensical as a made-up story. The funny bits are not as funny and the sad bits are not as telling or valuable. Sedaris relies on his audience’s belief, at least to a certain degree. Of course, the same level of journalistic scrutiny as a serious story isn’t warranted. But the idea that a quick heads up before the story that the events are exaggerated would hardly be an insult to the audience, and would be ultimately less manipulative.
I don’t know. My gut reaction is to rush to Sedaris’ defense because I love his stuff. And maybe some of it, especially the stuff about his family, like “The Rooster” which still to this day may be the funniest thing I’ve ever read that has the word “fish” in it 1,000 times, doesn’t really matter. But I can see where the literal veracity of the stuff can make a difference.
I’m still torn. And in a classic kill the messenger reaction, I’m a bit angry at you for puncturing my perfect picture of Sedaris.
: )
I guess my reaction is the same as Ira’s. It’s David Sedaris. He’s a bit ridiculous at times.
But some of the stuff he says are so fundamentally true, that well exaggeration might actually be understating it.
Six to Eight Black Men might be the classic example. Everything he says about Sinter Klaas and the Dutch version of Christmas is absolutely true, but no doubt he exaggerated the story of the cabdriver telling it to him.
I’m with Nob (and Ira) on this. I’m almost surprised people believed this stuff was totally true. Really?
Do you know which of those lines above are true? If any? If not, why is the last line about the sad state of parenting warranted?
Again, I think you could guess not all of it is true. But I took it as at least largely true. And I think it doesn’t hang together as a story if you don’t.
I don’t assume the story is totally false, but I also think it wouldn’t matter much if it were. It’s not hilarious because it’s true; it’s hilarious because it captures the kinds of ridiculousness we all shake our heads at in our lives. For instance, it doesn’t have to be the case that Macy’s takes its Christmas program hyper-seriously; it just has to be the case that we’ve interacted with people who think it’s very important to take something silly hyper-seriously.
In fact, what’s sort of funny is that everyone who takes his things so hyper-seriously is falling right into his trap. I would love for him to write a story about all the angry letters he gets from people because his father’s coffee isn’t really that weak.
This is TOTALLY unrelated to whether or not there should be a heads up before a broadcast. But there’s a clubbiness about Sedaris and Glass that bothers me, as Pierre was saying (although I actually like some NPR shows). You get it, or you’re stupid. You’re one of the people who’s dumb enough to take something too seriously that isn’t worth your seriousness. It’s a “trap,” as you say. Sophisticated people get this, I get this, therefore I’m sophisticated. I remember hearing that Christmas story years ago and laughing. But now it strikes me as really smug and superior. Look at all the idiot bosses who take Christmas at Macy’s seriously, look at all the idiot parents who want to take their kids to see Santa, look at all the retards who have the temerity to show their rolling eyes and wagging tongues in public.
Well, it *is* smug and superior. When you laugh at other people for doing silly things, you’re being smug and superior. That’s true even if you’re laughing at made-up stories about other people doing things that are fairly similar to the things real people do.
Sorry, one more example. Either someone really requested white Santa, or did not. I think that matters. And I have no idea whether it’s true.
Sedaris is a longtime contributor to This American Life, which has its roots as a radio variety show. In the beginning most of the stories were more in the vein of standup than reportage.
Gradually TAL started doing more hard-hitting investigative pieces interspersed with old school storytelling. At that point, it became necessary to become explicit about journalistic standards. They produced some terrific explanatory journalism on the financial crisis because, as Glass explained, nobody else was doing it. They’ve done great work on campaign finance as well.
I put Sedaris in the same category as Louis CK, or Sarah Silverman. These acts mine their personal lives for comedy, but I don’t take anything they say as unvarnished fact.
There’s a long tradition of the glorious bullshit artist who’s truthy but not strictly committed to the facts. The audience knows it, and thrills to hear his or her stories anyway. In fact, part of the tension is knowing that you’re hearing tall tales and wondering how much is real and how much is embellished.
I think TAL needs to be more explicit about which kinds of pieces are which. It would be pretty easy to introduce each segment as the kind of piece it is. So, “And now a reported piece by Alex Blumberg…” and now a monologue by David Sedaris…
Would you be disappointed to learn that a painter had altered the view in a landscape painting?
No. Nor a novelist or poet. Nor would I be upset to discover after listening to Peter and the Wolf that a duck doesn’t sound like an oboe. I don’t believe that these things are supposed to be true. It’s part of the contract I have with person creating it. We have expectations of certain kinds of works.
To find that someone had altered a photograph, depending on where it was displayed, might be a different story.
Thanks. It seems I just don’t know enough about Sedaris — I always took him as a humorist first and foremost. Is the larger complaint that Glass’s show is too much of a hybrid — we can never be sure whether his photos are displayed in a gallery or in a news magazine?
I’ve heard his show more than a few times (always while driving, however) and have always assumed a level of artistic license that some of your other commenters reject (and this rampant “anti-NPR bias” seems a bit over-the-top, too).
I haven’t read Sedaris’s Dix Hill, but based on the excerpted scene in the New Republic, and what orhets have told me about that particular essay, I have a problem with Sedaris and other non-fiction writers appropriating “real life” experiences for questionable purposes. For instance, many would argue that Sedaris volunteering at a mental hospital, and thus using that experience as an outsider to spin some slapstick yarn that reinforces stereotypes about the mentally ill, isn’t very cool.But for me, from a writer’s perspective, what’s most sad is that he had the opportunity to write about his experiences in a true way. Why did he have to “exaggerate”? I mean, geeze, he’s in a state mental hospital. Some of those people will never leave, have been disowned by their families, and some live on the streets when they’re not in Dorothea Dix. Why in the world would a writer need to “exaggerate” when he’s surrounded by people who have suffered such pain and heartbreak unless he’s scared to write the actual truth ?An essay that revolved around him organizing a party for some of the patients, and framing that entire essay around the party, and how hopefully the party allowed some of the patients to escape their condition for just a few hours would’ve been great. It would’ve shown the narrator, an outsider, realizing that the mentally ill are not always flailing against padded walls, drooling, and biting orderlies. That mental illness is insidious and usually subversive. So I guess for me, it’s really not about genre more than it is about writers not trusting themselves to tell the “simple truth,” which is often much more profound that some kind of silly exaggerated truth.
I’m not sure that the Macy’s piece is the best example, because Sedaris has always said that that was mostly fiction that he drew from experiences at a real life job. I remember years ago reading that and being a little disappointed. I first read it in a shortened form in Harpers, years before I was aware of TAL. And in fact, it is not published in a book of essays, it’s published in a book of short stories.
But beyond that, I think there is a big difference between someone telling a funny story about something they did, and “reporting” on the actions of other people. If I am telling a story about my trip to the DMV to entertain people, I’m not so sure I feel required to preface it by saying “The reader should be aware that this is a a humorous personal essay and is therefore subjective; also, I might exaggerate or reorder certain moments to improve both the entertainment value and the narrative flow of the story.” On the other hand, if I am publishing a piece on malfeasance and corruption within the Oregon Dept. of Transportation, I think I have a very, very different standard of absolute accuracy.
He does readily admit that he exaggerates. I think (not sure) he did this only after being confronted, and he doesn’t necessarily say this in connection with the piece. So someone could easily come across it without hearing that he said that. I did. And I think you were disappointed because he does rely on the audience’s belief for a special zing. I was. There really is a family as whacked out but lovable as his, etc.
I agree that you don’t have the same obligation in those two cases. Apparently, the New Yorker now fact checks his stuff, which seems silly. But there’s a happy medium, maybe.
I’m trying to remember which if his books it is… maybe Naked? … that is described as “short stories and essays,” and you find yourself thinking afterwards that you have no idea which are which. They all seem like personal essays about colorful people he has known.
I wouldn’t know Sedaris from Adam (in fact, I now resolve to refer to him exclusively as ‘Adam,’ no matter how many times I might be reminded that it’s not his name, should I ever meet the man), and I’m inclined to take him at his word until I have a reason not to.
“I’m a writer,” and “I spout off nonsense,” are two different things.
Maybe.
I’m a whirlwind of reassessment now.
Calmer by degrees.
Much better.
I never got onto the Sedaris bandwagon. It’s not that I think he’s bad, it’s just that I’ve never read nor listened to him, although I am aware of his existence. I do think I wouldn’t like him at all if I did listen to / read him. I’m kind of a knee-jerk reactionary to NPR: when I hear those hypercalm voices drone on ad infinitum into the radio (which is rare because I try never to listen) my knee jerks. The fact that Ira Glass responded the way he did–with the assertion that NPR’s viewers were “sophisticated enough”–just tends to reinforce the (probably mostly unjust) stereotyped image I have in my head about NPR being only a bastion of snobbery and condescension. (The quotation about “retarded people” reinforces that stereotype even more.)
But I certainly see Rose’s point. I don’t think I would have liked Sedaris’s Christmas at Macy’s story, but if I liked such stuff, I would like it a lot more if it were substantially true and would be somewhat upset if I found it had been substantially fabricated.
You should check out Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. My reaction to NPR in general is similar to yours, but WWDTM is amazing.
+1 on WWDTM. Hilarious.
Ryan,
Unfortunately, the few times I’ve heard it (I used to have a roommate who listened to NPR a lot), I didn’t like it. I quite readily admit that I let my own anti-NPR biases get the better of me, and I throw out the baby with the bathwater. It’s curious how I can see (sometimes, at least) my own bigotries pure as day and yet still choose to indulge them. In other words, WWDTM might very well be a good show, but I didn’t really give it a fair chance.
My anti-NPRism is strange, because I love PBS, especially the local news shows, the NOVA and NOVA-esque science and nature shows, and Friday night news panel shows, the latter of which can be just as pretentious as anything on NPR.
And Car Talk. But I have a weakness for people making awful jokes with no shame whatsoever. Victor Borge was the same way (“I wrote this piece in three flats. Because I moved twice.”)
The way Glass phrased that seriously rubbed me the wrong way, too.
I don’t think Sedaris is as funny as he’s cracked up to be, but I’ve found some of his bits really hilarious. “Six to Eight Black Men” is very, very funny, at least when I’ve heard it with his delivery.
My reaction is kind of similar to Tod’s. I view much of what he writes as the same kind of humorous exaggeration that many people give to their anecdotes. But IIRC, the New Republic story also focused on some of the more unkind things he had written about people, purportedly true. I think the more the focus is on people other than himself, the more of an obligation he has to keep the truth more or less intact.
But what do I know? I love NPR.
Ira Glass gas a voice made for silent movies.
When I hear someone recounting a story of their life I tend to take it with a grain of salt. A little bit of “you’re going to spin this as best as possible to make you look good/ me laugh/ both.” Rarely do I take someone totally at their word when they’re telling stories.
However, I think that when you’re on a broadcast network that (in my area) is 80% journalism (or similar to it) I think there’s an obligation to denote “fiction” from “reporting.” To say that “most of the audience” is savvy enough to know when people are exaggerating is unfair because it then says: “All NPR listeners: You are on notice that not everything you hear on this network is the truth.” and that then forces us to not just listen to This American Life with a careful ear, but to all of the network. When they’ve got someone on “The Story” am I hearing what they really believed happened or is it a gross exaggeration to play to my emotions? What about Car Talk? Are those real people with car problems?
I know when I listen to Prairie Home Companion that it’s entertainment. This American Life, I think, walks too close to the line that either it needs to step over and be “Journalism” or it needs to step back and be “Entertainment”.
This “Info-Tainment” thing going on is crap and if I can go off on a tangent is a HUGE problem for us as a nation. We’ve got people selling half truths as facts, and people buying it because they’re hearing it on what should be reputable sources. I don’t care if it’s Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Ira Glass: If you say it and you say it like it’s the truth you’d better have a link for me to verify the story or get the fish off my air waves for people who will actually do their fishing homework and give me the straight scoop. Rutting fishes…