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I. Introduction and Context

More Tears was a four-part, satirical television miniseries, which aired weekly on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from March 30^th to April 19^th, 1998. This miniseries was written and directed by Ken Finkleman, who also starred in the title role. The series revolves around the life of documentary director George Findlay and his attempts to distort truth into what he believes makes "good television". In later episodes, the series focuses on the chaos which results when George attempts to control and manipulate his wife and his two girlfriends in the same manner with which he tries to control his documentaries.

This paper will focus on the pilot episode of More Tears, entitled "Symbols". This episode runs for 30 minutes, without any commercial pauses, in order to give a continuous flow to the story. How does the selection of metaphors help communicate the underlying philosophies of the work?

The plot of "Symbols" is as follows: George, along with his reporter Diane and the rest of the documentary crew are called out to a rural area, where it appears that a young girl has fallen into a well. The media descends on this tragedy, and attempts to exploit its emotional resonance. As well, politicians try to impose their own narrative on the story. One specific example is a Conservative candidate, who uses the community's response to this crisis to show that spending cuts have not impaired the ability for rescue crews to "get things done". Throughout all of this chaos, the baby in the well is seen not as a human being, but as a symbol for the manipulation of the reporters.

In the end, it is discovered that the baby in the well is a hoax perpetuated by the mother in order to get people to send her money. When asked about her motivation, the mother tells Diane that she lied about the baby because she had AIDS. This sets in motion another chain reaction of reporters objectifying the mother as a symbol of the pain associated with the disease. Later, we find that this too, is a hoax, and the mother only wanted attention and money. The episode closes with an image of the mother, scantily dressed, modeling in seductive poses for a photographer.
 
 

II. Critical Method and Underlying Metaphors

I will be examining the pilot episode of More Tears using metaphoric analysis. Foss states that a metaphor is "a basic way by which the process of using symbols to know reality occurs". She goes on to say "we constitute reality through our use of symbols". In the case of More Tears, Finkleman has chosen not to examine how we, the viewers constitute reality, but rather how the media, through their use and exploitation of symbols can distort our vision of the truth. Metaphoric criticism is also about how language and the use of metaphor can affect life experiences, and how the choice in the delivery of metaphors can provide insight into the rhetor's worldview.

First, the work needs to be placed in a proper social-political context. More Tears is set in the present day, under a Canadian political system (this is shown by the references to specific political parties). Also, More Tears frequently makes allusions to news events from the past five years (eg. Princess Diana's death, the Oklahoma City bombing). The metaphoric content is examined in isolation, to discover the vehicles used and then sorted into groups according to their relationships. Through this, I will discover the core ideas of More Tears and be able to compare these ideas to the groups of metaphors in order to answer the research question.

III. Isolation and Examination of Metaphors

The episode opens with Finkleman's character, George Findlay, meeting with his friend Shaffik, a neo-European intellectual, in a small café. Shaffik makes reference to a novel in which a prominent politician kisses an AIDS victim on the mouth. His rival, seeing this action as a symbol of courage, wonders what he should do. By mimicking the action of his political adversary, the politician fears being seen as a sheep "only too willing to follow his political rivals in order to save face". By focusing on the "sheep" metaphor, the connotations of using sheep in conjunction with political interests is to imply a sense of being a follower rather than a leader, perhaps even someone who copies the behavior of another in order to score political points. This also foreshadows a scene later in the episode where another politician stands with the mother and kisses her, while reporters capture the moment with flash cameras.

Shaffik takes this metaphor one step further. When George seeks the politician’s decision, Shaffik silences him, and immediately brings up the Reform party, and likens the French politician’s decision to that of the House of Commons MP when Preston Manning tried to persuade them to stand up and sing O Canada. He further demonizes the Reform party, by saying "The MP’s, they were reluctant, perhaps they smelt the fascism in the air." This will not be the only time that Finkleman suggests that Reformers are driven by fascist impulses. His rationale for associating the Reform party with fascism is that they have associated patriotism, and love of country with nothing more than the symbol of the national anthem. Shaffik’s parting shot in this scene mocks the Reform party’s stance on religion and moral values ("Let them plant their cross on Parliament Hill, and see what darkness oozes to the surface").

There is one scene where Reform candidates are negotiating with George about who will get the first "shot" from the camera when the baby is retrieved out of the well. The Reformers put forth a proposal that if the child is not out of the well by sunset, that they be allowed to say "a prayer for Jesus Christ" on camera. Here, Finkleman is savagely mocking the tendency of Reform to use religion as a means of achieving faux-populist support. The candidates have no interest in the welfare of the child, but are only interested in exploiting the situation for political gains. They use the symbol of Jesus Christ in order to evoke an image of goodness and the purity of their political ambitions. Later, Diane makes an analogy, comparing the baby (who isn't) in the well to the Nativity scene, further objectifying the child.

 In the first scene when George meets the mother, he says, "We're going to do this in three acts, all good dramas have three acts". When making that statement he fails to notice that he is not casting a film, but instead is purporting to create a documentary, a reflection of the truth. The mother even asks, after George describes the layout for each act, "Is this how you always do it"? He replies yes. Regardless of the content of the story, the basic format does not change.

He chooses emotionally charged images from previous major news stories in order to describe how he wishes the scene to look. For example, when speaking to the Reform candidates, he says, "remember the fireman…in the Oklahoma City bombing on the cover of Newsweek?" George is saying that he wants to use the story of Baby Kate in order to replicate the emotional appeal of the tragedy in Oklahoma City. He realizes the power of image, the helpless child being dragged away from disaster in the arms of the fireman. By presenting this scenario he gives the Reform candidates a chance to assume the position of the fireman and play off the positive publicity associated with heroism.

Baby Kate herself is also a rhetorical object. As the story unfolds, we can see various television reporters speaking about the baby as purely a symbol. One says that "Baby Kate is a symbol of courage", Diane herself also states that the story exemplifies "the dignity of the human spirit" (to which George replies, "You’re very good".) As well, the baby in the well is also compared to the nativity scene. The image of the helpless child is transposed upon the image of Jesus Christ. The media uses this ludicrous idea to somehow relate the story to the common people.

The mother uses the public appetite for tragedy as a springboard to achieving her "fifteen minutes of fame". After the mother confesses her motivations for misleading the public, Diane asks, "you did all this, you distorted…exploited viewers…for money"? She is oblivious to how the crew's attempt to objectify the mother's "suffering" exposes Diane to that same distortion.

IV.    Underlying Philosophies/Tenors

By examining the metaphorical constructs in More Tears, we can see that there are two main ideas at play. First, politicians (specifically those of the right wing, as in Conservative and Reform candidates) are motivated by fascist impulses. This motivation is portrayed through the shameless attempts to get into "the eye of the camera", to be able to twist reality into a symbolic context for the benefit of television. On the surface their arguments appear to be logical, yet upon closer examination the contradictions between their use of symbols and reality become blatant. In a sense the politicians become demagogues, steering the people towards their political viewpoints.

The second idea that is inherent in the work is the metaphor that reality is drama. George attempts to make the scene fit inside his own vision of how it would best play out, to make "good television". While the layout of his "acts" is not what was expected, George still tried to fit the unexpected events into his preconceived idea of how the situation was to be portrayed. The frequent references to other works of cinema, and the use of the soundtrack from Fellini's Otto e Mezzo (8 1/2) visually and aurally enhance the dramatic metaphor. Everything that happens under the camera lens appears to be scripted, and shows no regard for the weight of the tragedy.

The mother is a slave to television. She instigates the entire media circus in order to gain notoriety, but ends up as fodder for others to manipulate. She allows herself to be exploited by the fabrication of the truth. She also sanitizes her story in order to make "good television", and hides the facts until it is too late. Then in order to maintain her image as the suffering mother, she must lie again, and the situation spins completely out of her control. The mother in this situation provides a mirror image of the media, as she too is creating a work of fiction, and displaying it as reality.

Using metaphoric analysis, we have determined that Finkleman uses two key metaphors in order to convey his ideas about the media. The two sections, political versus media satire seem to be intertwined, one playing off the other. Without television's dramatic influence, politicians would not have a forum to impose metaphoric rhetoric on the public. Television gives them the license to latch upon one symbolic ideal, and distort the ideal in such a matter, that any political philosophy can be viewed as consistent with the symbol. More Tears is about the victory of the fascist right, using the emotion-driven power of television to convince the public into buying into their personal worldview.