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Pangea Day A Laugh
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People from London, Kigali, Mumbai, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, and the pyramids of Giza in Egypt shared the world’s first global guffaw Saturday.
It was the inaugural international Pangea Day. “Pangea” comes from the first super-continent, which theorists say broke apart due to plate tectonics. (Look it up if you didn’t pay attention in geology.) The concept behind the event is to bring the world back together virtually, through technology.
The four-hour program of short films, music, and inspirational speeches was simulcast around the world, streamed via Internet to computers, TVs, and mobile phones.
Goldie Hawn helped a “laughing club” guru lead the Chuckle Heard ‘Round the World. Meg Ryan, Cameron Diaz, and Queen Noor of Jordan were among those who took part in what organizers called the “World Cup of Storytelling.”
It was the brainchild of filmmaker Jehane Noujaim. The idea, he says, is a cinematic take on the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
"If we could read the secret diaries of our enemies,” Noujaim paraphrases. “We would find in them enough sorrow and pain to remove our hostilities.”
It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Cross-cultural commonality. A brotherhood of man. (That’s a sexist phrase if ever I heard one. Let’s hope a One Gender For All Day is next.) But I have a couple of issues.
First, anyone who’d spend four hours watching this stuff already believes in the One World concept, so it’s preaching to the choir. We’re not really peeking into the diaries of our enemies. We’re peeking into the diaries of strangers who want to be our friends. (And perhaps get their films noticed by a few Hollywood players.) Big difference.
Second, the event was poorly publicized, except among the love bead-wearing, filmmaking in-crowd who organized the whole thing. So again, I’m not sure if any enemies were won over.
Wouldn’t all of this effort be better spent on helping alleviate the conditions that turn people into enemies in the first place? Get food, medicine, water to them. The people who really need convincing probably don’t have Blackberries. If, however, after you’ve fed, satiated, and healed them, you’d like to show them the latest cut of your short, then be my guest.
