The Speaking Parts
My favorite character in the United Airlines safety video
is the narrator. In particular, his beard is something
to speak of. It’s almost as though he doesn’t have a beard,
the way he positions his face. And yet he does.
The boy whose mother secures her oxygen mask first—
we can’t overlook him either. His patience in the face
of danger we could all learn from. Every time I see that,
the mother attending to herself before her child—well,
it just feels wrong. It’s good, for that reason, neither
has a speaking part. Only the bearded man does.
The business traveler, who is animated, doesn’t even have
a mouth. Some, like the floatation-device demonstrator
and her seatmate, appear to be chatting—about what
we can’t hear. The sound might not have been recorded
or it was but cut out later. Or it could be they were mouthing
words, pretending to hold conversation before the emergency.
