The Listening Project

Older Comments on The Listening Project

• Posted 01/08/11 by Rune
  To Joe D 1) While I tend to appreciate unedited information just like you,they don't claim or promise unbiased and unfiltered information. A lot of documentary and film-makers have an agenda or message in mind. It seems to me that the agenda behind this film is to encourage people to pay attention and to view themselves as citizens of the planet. To me, that is a reasonable and even positive message. ( I won't lie, to me it is a very important and urgent message) It may not be positive to you, but thats ok, because what one takes from a film varies from person to person. Every thing we hear, read, see, we should follow up with further research. I doubt the people behind this film want or expect us to take everything at face value, we should research and investigate other countries and cultures on our own. ( I believe that is part of their message, as well) 2) I hope that if you feel strongly on this opinion, you will one day make a documentary about this topic to further educate us of the antisemitism. Even if just a short video from your travels through the Arab world. I am ignorant beyond all doubt. 3) We as a people or we as a government? 4) That is a good question. I wonder too. 5) Did you watch the whole documentary? I can't claim to know much, but I know that there are many things wrong. I don't need to be CEO or politician or even a college professor to know it, I can just look out my window or into my television and know something is not right. Something is not right about the America I live in. Much more could be done, especially when you consider the strength of the sociopath that is Corporate America. On the flip side, I also recognize the many amazing and good deeds of America and Americans, and I see also that much of the issues and bad that comes from our great country are self-manifesting and are difficult to challenge (fundamentally starting with the education of children, and ending somewhere around the ethics of adults) As a future participant of the next generation of leaders, and I will admit I am very scared (Just finished my public schooling) 6) I agree.
• Posted 12/30/10 by Savan
  I like these kind of documentaries. Yes, it is necessary to understand and learn the cultures of others when conducting foreign policy. America should have definitively learned from the Vietnam War and shouldn't have made the same mistake in Iraq or Afghanistan by not learning about their culture. Nonetheless, there needs to be a documentary that addresses some of the same problems domestically. For instance, inability of African Americans to move out of the projects. Is the American government given up on them? The most frustrating thing is that some of the minority is racist to other minorities. Gang wars between Latinos and African Americans. In factories, each minority race favors their own race in hiring practices. There are many other things, such as affirmative action, that cause minorities to clash. Racism against Asians and usually no one speaks against it. If it was against African Americans, NAACP would file a law suit immediately. There are still stereotypes about minorities and they usually are the targets of scapegoats during the time of economic downturn. I am certain that in the past couple years people have blamed outsourcing and Mexican Americans for taking their jobs and not the filthy bankers who got bailout money and fat bonuses for screwing you over. This is sincere opinion and if I offended anyone, I apologize.
• Posted 12/22/10 by Joe D
  Films like this always frustrate me, for a few reasons. 1) I'm asked to trust that the documentary's makers are giving me an honest cross-section of the opinions they got, and not just editing down to the most photogenic critics or those with the best command of English. It matters a lot. 2) So much of what these people believe about not just us as American people but about our government's motives is so wrong that I wonder where their information comes from. In the Arab world, especially, the media are openly hostile to America, lie about us in the most shocking, unbelievable ways and spread anti-Semitism at the same time they fault us for the same thing. Incredible. 3) The theme of the crumbling Roman Empire hits me hard, because I see some of that, too, as a student of history. We are getting so soft. 4) This was made in 2008 (?) and I wonder if there would still be as much vitriol about the American government now after two years of President Obama. I am not a supporter of President Obama's, but he certainly has tried to address -- at least with words -- some of these concerns, especially in the Islamic world. 5) Yet a part of me thinks that it has always been like this: people in poorer or less dynamic parts of the world will always envy and resent us. Perhaps it doesn't matter what we do, how much we seem to listen to them or how much humanitarian assistance we provide to the world's people in crises and disasters. It's frustrating that they dismiss all that with comments like "America does some good things, sure.... BUT" as if they, too, are growing soft from expecting us to do these things. 6) On a technical note, I also agree that the music was mixed too high, and I sometimes had a hard time (on a computer screen) making out the subtitles.
• Posted 12/19/10 by David
  I liked this documentary a lot. We Americans need to hear this kind of honest feedback more often. I found the background music level to be too high which made it hard to hear some of the dialog. Other than that, I give it a 10.