Sarah Vowell, the voice of The Incredibles teenage superhero spoke to a packed Griffith Film Theater Wednesday night about the quirks of forgotten American history and popular culture.
As the popular Pixar animated film The Incredibles tops the box office chart, the voice of the movie’s teenage superhero spoke to a packed Griffith Film Theater Wednesday night about the quirks of forgotten American history and popular culture. Sarah Vowell, a writer, social commentator and voice of Violet Parr in the film, educated and entertained the audience while reading excerpts from her books.
“The more history I learn, the more the world fills up with stories,” Vowell said. She used her own personal anecdotes to connect stories about contemporary America with the past. By accentuating her own eccentricities, Vowell drew her audience into her excitement for untold history.
Her style is “brave and really funny too,” said senior Jenn Davis, secretary of the Duke University Union’s Major Speakers Committee, which sponsored the event.
In one story, Vowell described how, as she was drinking her morning mocha latte from Starbucks, a variety of related topics scrambled through her mind, such as imperialism, genocide and Seattle lifestyle marketing—all related to her simple cup o’ joe.
While some of her stories ventured on the bizarre, Vowell managed to make historical idiosyncrasies relevant and entertaining for her listeners, urging them to seek new angles on history.
Vowell said she basically goes “day-tripping through the tribulations of the long dead,” in describing her weakness for unconventional history, but the audience credited her as being more than the average history buff.
“Not only is she funny and entertaining, but she’s intelligent and definitely has some insight into American culture,” said junior Tammy Tieu, committee chair of the Union’s Major Speakers Committee.
Audience members also appreciated her quirky style, evidenced in the topic of her upcoming book, Assassination Vacation, due out this spring. The book explores the link between the historical sites of murdered presidents and tourism.
“Maybe we all just secretly identify with the inner nerd in her,” sophomore Meenakshi Chivukula said.
In one of the handful of excerpts she read, Vowell described visiting a historic site where all of the tour guides used the term “enslaved Africans” instead of “slaves.” She said she was blown away by this attempt to “pretty up” a dark chapter of history. She questioned a tour guide as to why they used the term, only to be informed that it was because the site wanted to acknowledge the identity of “enslaved Africans.” The historian within Vowell pointed out the irony in the situation—that one of the main tenets of slavery was that slaves were not considered to have “human” identities.
Vowell illustrated the hilarity in the situation by comically impersonating and describing the tour guide’s voice. The tour guide sounded similar to a little girl who was fervently attempting to sound serious, but whose responses always sounded like questions. In cementing the audience’s attention with her characterizations, Vowell’s trademark gift for balancing humor and intellect shone through.
Seeing the accomplished radio personality, columnist, author and actress in the flesh was a treat for some audience members used to only hearing her voice on ‘This American Life,’ the National Public Radio that features Vowell.
“I love ‘This American Life,’ and just to be able to see someone in person is always so different,” said senior Charlotte Vaughn, On Stage chair for the Union.
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