Between Red Paint and Blood

A man lies on the ground.

His clothes are tattered; his eyes wide with terror.

"Will no one help?!" (Source: 1917)

“Water,” he wheezes. “Water, please...”

Hundreds of people watch silently.

No one moves.

“Water.”

A commotion breaks out toward the back of the crowd.

“Excuse me, sorry, excuse me, coming through.”

A man hurries forward, elbowing his way through the masses. His right hand clutches a bottle. He kneels beside the parched man and, cradling his head, lifts the bottle to his lips.

“Drink,” he whispers.

Then he freezes.

Blood.

“My God, you’ve been shot! Somebody, call an ambulance!”

Heads in the crowd start turning; no one reaches for their phone.

“Will no one help?!”, the man cries as he presses his hands against the wound.

Crimson red stains his arms, his pants, and the ground.

Crimson red – markedly thicker than blood.

Crimson red – the same shade as his own living room walls.

Laughter erupts.

The lights turn up: stage lights.

The "wounded" man rises to his feet: an actor.

… None of it was real.

What happened here?

Our water-bearing hero mistook an awestruck audience for a callous crowd. He mistook an actor for a dying man and a script for a desperate plea.

His biggest mistake?

He mistook a play in a theater for real life: He did not correctly identify the genre.

Genre Impacts Meaning

A genre is a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.

There are hundreds of genres: action, fantasy, epic, drama, comedy, letters, poetry, essays, novels, etc.

Within genres, there are subgenres: fantasy novels, sci-fi novels, historical novels, etc.

These genres can sometimes be confused for one another, leading to misunderstandings.

Imagine reading a book about the Second World War as though it were a newspaper article:

Pearl Harbor is under attack!

“What? again?!?!”

Conversely, imagine reading the news as though it were a fictional novel:

COVID-19 continues to spread.

“I can’t wait to see if this virus will lead to a zombie apocalypse. How exciting!”

Imagine reading a cookbook as if it were a self-help book; a joke as if it were a Wikipedia article; Star Wars as if it were prophecy.

…doing this would leave you with no choice but to misunderstand the message that the author intended to communicate.

Genre establishes the framework within which meaning is interpreted. To understand the message correctly, the genre must be identified correctly.

Let’s now briefly return to the theater.

Red paint - it looks like blood, but it isn't.

Now he recognizes the lights, the script, the actor.

The audience member who offered the lead actor some water is ushered back to his seat, and the lights grow dim once again.

“Water,” the actor in tattered clothes wheezes.

The would-be hero watches.

Now he recognizes the stage lights, the script, the actor.

There is no dying man;

There was never blood;

Only crimson red paint.

It was always just paint.

***

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How language wins wars, the importance of context, and beyond simple communication: Click here to read more about language.

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