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Behind the Scenes with Gwen Macsai, producer of Dental Déjà Vu
Interview conducted by Johanna Zorn
> How did you get your start in radio?
I dropped out of college after my sophomore year. When I went back to school, a
friend told me about a community radio station that held training classes and
let mere mortals on the air. I immediately signed up and got a three-hour,
once-a-week air shift. As graduation approached I had no idea what to do and
thought, public radio is sort of like community radio, I'll call them! So I
did. The program director at WBEZ in Chicago granted me an interview and said,
"Do you have a demo tape?" "No," I replied. "Can you bring one?" he asked.
"Sure," I said. Then I immediately called a friend who worked there and asked
him, "What's a demo tape?" He told me to interview someone interesting and turn
it into a 3-4 minute piece. I had never interviewed anyone or edited tape. I
interviewed William Warfield, who had just won an Emmy and upon replaying the
tape on the way home, discovered there was nothing on it. Anyway, after a long
series of mishaps, I got it done, turned it into the program director who
promptly lost it. I ended up doing another one, getting a freelance producing
job there and learning almost everything I know. Three years later I was
offered a job at Radio Smithsonian and while in Washington, started freelancing
for NPR.
> What was the first piece or essay you produced in which you exposed
intimate and often embarrassing things about your life? And what prompted you
to do it?
The first piece was in 1990, a treatise on why the third date is so different
from all other dates. From that point on, my work got progressively more
"intimate." I wrote an essay about why men break up with me after i knit them a
sweater, then I produced an essay about my chin hair. I'm most interested in
this kind of piece because it's what I'm best able to write about. For some
perverse reason, I enjoy taking intimate subjects and exposing what is
interesting or funny about them. This is good for laughs but bad when you find
yourself living your life as a third party, looking for material.
> Chin Hair!? I'd love to know what led you to that idea.
Excess body hair has been a source of frustration and annoyance to me for so
long, I can't remember when it all began. When I found out that other women had
similar predicaments, and it became the subject of many discussions among the
gals, I knew that it was universal enough to be the subject of some kind of
self-ridicule and exposure. At the time, my producer and I had complete
autonomy on Morning Edition so I did the piece without having to run the idea
by anyone. If I'd had to, I'm sure it would have been nixed. As it was, we did
the piece and it was one of my most responded to pieces. That's something you
find out once you start discussing things that other people are too embarrassed
to talk about. Everyone loves hearing about them because they can finally get
it out and laugh about it. If you have the nerve to say the unsayable, people
will carry you on their shoulders through the streets.
> Say more about living life as a third party...what's it like to be
constantly looking for material in your own life?
It's what every writer does to a certain extent, however when you start
removing yourself from your life and acting as an independent observer, this is
not good. Trust me, I know. But, this is what's easiest for me. I don't know if
it's because of something that happened in childhood or genetics or my diet or
what, but I just find it easier to confess things to millions of people than to
make a one-on-one personal confession. Perhaps it's because when I write about
something, no one's there to react. Then producing the story brings out the
frustrated actor in me, and by the time it hits the air, I'm done with it. I
don't recommend having better relationships with anonymous people far away than
individuals close up, but hey, it's worked for me.
> Do you think about the differences in peoples' senses of humor when
telling a story?
While everyone has a different sense of humor, most people share a general
sense about what is funny. Certain areas of humor, like blue humor or slapstick
or assaulting humor, have more limited audiences, I think. But in general, the
common denominator is pretty wide. Humor, done well, is always welcome in any
story -- even deadly serious ones -- and in my opinion, humor is never taken
seriously enough. Humor writing is written off because it is "light," but
anyone who has ever tried it knows how hard it is. All you have to do is watch
a sitcom to see how much badly written stuff is out there.
> So, is there anything that's truly, inherently funny?
I don't think there is much that is universally funny to absolutely everyone.
Someone is always offended by something. I'm the only person I know who didn't
like Airplane (the movie), but I don't like slapstick. I can't imagine someone
not liking the Marx Brothers, but I'm sure those people are out there. On the
other hand, I hate Don Rickles, but not because I'm offended by him, I just
don't respond well to "mean" senses of humor. Many people do. It's
un-figure-outable.
> How do you approach a subject through humor yet remain respectful?
There's a very fine line in remaining respectful while doing a funny piece. If
you are doing a humorous piece in which you're interviewing a funny character,
you have to be very careful that you don't step over that line and make fun of
them. If you're embarrassed to send them a copy of the piece, you've probably
overdone it.
> What are the most common mistakes people make in attempting to be
funny on the radio?
I think that the most common mistakes people make in trying to be funny on the
radio is that they're either not funny enough to begin with (and unfortunately,
there isn't much you can do about that) or they haven't found their own form or
"voice." Imitating those people whose work you like and respect is a great way
to start out, but eventually, if you don't develop your own style, the work
won't be as fresh, innovative or interesting. It also helps to have an
extraordinary editor who doesn't just trim and tuck but actually makes your
work better by helping you find that style or "voice."
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