Lost and found

The state of the Internationista is somewhere between lost and found. A state of losing one's identity before adopting another. It's first and foremost cultural identity but the lost and almost found cultural identity in turn affects one's personal identity.

The state of lost and found is most strongly experienced when ones natural instincts or their socialised norm is challenged.

Here is one case in point: tonight on Italian TV we were watching a human interest programme called Invincibles where a host, in front of a sympathetic live audience screens a collection of packaged stories on the lives of individuals who have displayed a type of invincible act before having the person on the coach for a one-to-one interview. The programme goes for three hours. This is my first lost and found experience.

Media trained in Australia and worked in the UK and US I am aware of the attention span rules of communication - average attention span of an adult is 20 minutes - so why have a human interest TV programme go for 3 hours? You end up losing most of your audience after the first story. As a result of the strain on my attention I find myself doing housework in order to keep my mind busy, irritated that the programme goes for so long against what is known by scholars to be an affective broadcast time.

Second lost and found comes with the content. Three hours of broadcasting features amazing individuals who have undoubtedly faced and conquered incredible feats making them invincible. The element that unsettles me though is that out of the six stories, five are stories of unknown individuals who have overcome or are excelling with a physical disability; the other individual is Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela? While all stories are truly inspirational and display invincible behaviour, I feel like I am taking part in a "spot the difference" game. Four physically handicapped people and one black revolutionist, the South African president to be elected in a full representative democratic election who spent 27 years in prison because of his ideology and recipient of the noble peace prize. My old identity makes me seethe with fury; by putting Nelson Mandela amongst this group could this programme unintentionally be saying that his physical disability is his colour?

Sure the one thing he has in common with the group is that he is invincible but why not showcase some other politicians, revolutionists or even able bodied people amongst this group. Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to say that Nelson Mandela is anyway better than this group; I am simply saying that his story doesn't fit into this group of physically disabled people.

This leads to a lost and found moment when I am arguing with people in the house. I automatically feel like this show, contrary to its intension, discriminatory. Discriminatory against race not disability. While the rest of my household scoff at me saying Nelson's story is a story of invincibility and so fits (most of whom I may add are checking their face book pages as they lost interest in the programme 2 minutes in).