2008 Woodie Awards
Drama: It's not just for high school anymore
Kyra Sherwood
Issue date: 6/24/08 Section: Our Perspective
Let's face it: Drama is everywhere, and it isn't going away. It's when the so-called real world starts looking like high school that things get really ridiculous.
The thing is, probably 90 percent of the people we'll meet in our lifetimes have never shed the high-school mentality and learned to grow up. Knowing how to put up, shut up and get along with others is something most people are taught in kindergarten and then spend the rest of their lives forgetting, especially in the drama-incubating world of high school when every tiny slight and imagined offense becomes the biggest crisis in the world.
Drama goes by other names outside of high school, and people think they've grown up because they can give it more professional euphemisms. Even though communication barriers, interpersonal conflicts and personality incompatibilities sound fancy enough to merit the entire sub-industry that deals with them, half the time they just boil down to high-school drama queens playing dress-up.
Closer to home, chances are good that a lot of what goes on behind the scenes in UAA's administration can be attributed to drama. Hearing a few professors talk about Faculty Senate and problems dealing with Statewide sure make me see some decisions in a different light. How much were those decisions influenced by personal opinion, overinflated egos and pure stubbornness? It's a fair bet that drama played a part.
But the whole thing really stops being funny when you take a good look at politics today and realize that it's déjà vu all over again. Today's presidential campaigns are being waged on a basis of who's prettier, who dresses better or who can spin words and mesmerize an audience the best. There's not much in the way of actual policy or things real people really care about. Candidates are just jockeying for votes, not actually demonstrating their ability to lead.
For that matter, a pretty large part of modern politics is basically high-school drama writ large. Take a bunch of very different, very opinionated people, add the big egos necessary to run for office and hang onto it in today's political climate, and stuff them all into the same physical space so they're brushing up against each other and butting heads on a regular basis. If that's not going to replicate high school, I don't know what will.
The thing is, probably 90 percent of the people we'll meet in our lifetimes have never shed the high-school mentality and learned to grow up. Knowing how to put up, shut up and get along with others is something most people are taught in kindergarten and then spend the rest of their lives forgetting, especially in the drama-incubating world of high school when every tiny slight and imagined offense becomes the biggest crisis in the world.
Drama goes by other names outside of high school, and people think they've grown up because they can give it more professional euphemisms. Even though communication barriers, interpersonal conflicts and personality incompatibilities sound fancy enough to merit the entire sub-industry that deals with them, half the time they just boil down to high-school drama queens playing dress-up.
Closer to home, chances are good that a lot of what goes on behind the scenes in UAA's administration can be attributed to drama. Hearing a few professors talk about Faculty Senate and problems dealing with Statewide sure make me see some decisions in a different light. How much were those decisions influenced by personal opinion, overinflated egos and pure stubbornness? It's a fair bet that drama played a part.
But the whole thing really stops being funny when you take a good look at politics today and realize that it's déjà vu all over again. Today's presidential campaigns are being waged on a basis of who's prettier, who dresses better or who can spin words and mesmerize an audience the best. There's not much in the way of actual policy or things real people really care about. Candidates are just jockeying for votes, not actually demonstrating their ability to lead.
For that matter, a pretty large part of modern politics is basically high-school drama writ large. Take a bunch of very different, very opinionated people, add the big egos necessary to run for office and hang onto it in today's political climate, and stuff them all into the same physical space so they're brushing up against each other and butting heads on a regular basis. If that's not going to replicate high school, I don't know what will.
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