Documentary Project SOS

           I did my paper on Tobias Schneebaum, the anthropologist who lived with cannibals in the Peruvian Amazon. I have always loved documentaries and so I found the whole thing very interesting. He was seventy-eight at the time of the filming and was still very open and unreserved --- especially as far as his sexual activity went! He even confessed to everyone when he came back to the States that he did participate in cannibalism while he was there. It was interesting that while he didn't find that disturbing, he found the actual killing of the enemy tribe unsettling. So you don't mind eating deep-fried human but actually killing the human is worse? I suppose that makes some sliver of sense, but most people would have had problems with the cannibalism more. Besides, everyone dies and people are murdered every day. That doesn't make it okay but it kind of makes it "less abnormal". However, eating other people is usually considered taboo and inhumane --- not to mention completely rude. Everything about this documentary was enlightening and I am grateful for this project. I learned lots of new things about tribal culture and would not have a problem learning more. I am not sure but I hope that I was successful in creating an acceptable text. Usually I am very confident about my writing but I also believe that grading is particular according to each individual teacher so only time will tell whether or not my summary was good.
           


           For any of you who have ever been in other writing classes, writing a summary is a standard assignment. However, I feel as though there have been some mistakes made (by me) due to the excessive amount of information I was given during the documentary. Trying to squeeze over an hour of data into a small, comparatively ambiguous summary paper is no easy feat. From last year's writing class, I know that most writing should be objective and that summaries are to be written without superfluous detail. I tried to avoid analyzing the documentary as well which was difficult considering the fact that most writing involves some form of analysis in order to help the reader understand your thoughts. Thankfully, I remembered that summaries are dry and basic and that no one really cares about my opinions on the documentary. I am not sure but I hope that I was successful in creating an acceptable text. Usually I am very confident about my writing but I also believe that grading is particular according to each individual teacher so only time will tell whether or not my summary was good.