How to Tell Obama’s Story

Published: 2010 - April/June, Current Affairs

In an epoch in which we live in and consume numerous disposable sources of information, one of the most misused words is the adjective “historic.” Perhaps there should be a team of psychologists to explain this tendency and to assign greater influence to the reality to many events unable to leave marks on the history of a country or the world. Without fear of exaggeration, one can say that the DVD “Obama - An American Dream” is a concentrated substance of news, ideas and frames taken from the stream of information from the previous 2008, a year that has become important for the world’s history.
Or, in some cases, it might just be useful for the understanding of at least an important piece of history.
Probably, as you read these lines you are on a plane trip between Europe and the United States. When the flight obligates you to keep your cell phones turned off and the background sound of their routine moves away from us, we enter in very suitable position to structure our thoughts. If you begin to think, it becomes easier to remember what was important in recent times than what was not. Between reading and chatting with the person sitting next to you, you can contemplate and reflect upon  images accumulated during recent memories. You can probably remember the most engaging, the most serious, the funnest thoughts. Out in 2010, “Obama - An American Dream” may result, similarly, as the result of such an operation. Watching this DVD takes you on a journey back to a collective memory of the events in 2008 that have marked the history of the world: the campaign for the U.S. presidential election.
Many will remember the 4th of November, a night in which the first black president of the United States, a Democrat, was appointed to the White House. Many will remember the greeting of a gentleman who defeated his opponent John McCain, the Republican candidate. All these are images and phrases stored in this DVD. Not many people, however, will recall with equal clarity his speech in 2004; played four years later, when the African-American Barrack Obama stressed that the events which happened to him in the USA would not have been possible in any other country. The DVD contains those statements, as well. In addition to the collection of postcards, sound bytes, as the Americans call it, are also used.  
To provide a central focus, and indeed more than one, a series of snapshots, quality reports and documentaries that flowed into 2008’s sea of information will be featured by a dynamic team of professionals at “SkyTG24″ led by director Emilio Carelli. Collaborating with this team was truly a pleasure. A team of journalists, directors and technicians which followed the events a year before the election to the White House, a team which paid particular attention to new forms of communication that enabled Obama to win, via the Internet, the consensus of many young people.
The journey through time via DVD lasts 151 minutes, but is intended for those who would like to focus on the main parts only. The DVD reconstructs the phase of the  primaries. The duel between Obama and Hillary Clinton is not particularly a kind one, given the many declarative sentences used.  The vain and impetuous media coverage of Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate running for Vice President is also taken into consideration. The race for the White House in the summer and autumn of 2008 between a liberal Senator, son of a Kenyan, and an enlightened Republican McCain, a wounded veteran in Vietnam.
Services curated by the team of “Sktg24″ came under the lens of Corrado Maria Daclon, the ‘engine’ of the Italy-USA Foundation. The result is an electronic anthology that the “Corriere della Sera” decided to sell as an attachment to a newspaper of strong traditions and international recognition. It contains, for example, a description of how the “caucus” meetings work, during which the selection of candidates is possible moving from one to another point in a room. Those interested in the origins of some low blows of political competition, increasing although not improving the selection of the ruling class, will find  explanations about the American techniques of “character assassination”, or the killing of the character using both true and false revelations, sins or crimes of various kinds. One of the most interesting parts is  a satirical gem: the parody of a press conference with Obama-oriented journalists and an excessively mistreated Hillary, by both reporters and moderators. With a conformism that this DVD is confined to the play-o-sphere of fiction.