Ted Talk Storytelling

 Here's the video: https://www.ted.com/talks/julia_sweeney_on_letting_go_of_god#t-446329

 

Julia Sweeney's Ted Talk is an excerpt from her autobiographical monologue, "Letting Go of God." In this video, she tells two different anecdotes from her early life that explain to the audience how she came to be an atheist. Her first story begins with Sweeney on her 7th birthday. Her parents, who are Catholic, reveal to her that she has reached the age of reason and is now capable of committing sins. Later on, she finds out that she is a month younger than she was told for years. Consequently, Sweeney's astrology sign changes from Virgo to Libra and she realizes that she technically had another month of being able to commit sin. The next story picks up years later when Sweeney is visited by two Mormon missionaries trying to convince her to join their church. She invites them in and listens to what they have to say, not knowing much about the religion. After hearing the two explain the history of Mormonism, Sweeney reflects on how absurd it sounded to her because of her Catholic bias. She then has the realization that if she weren't Catholic, she would think the story of Jesus would sound just as absurd.

In this video, Sweeney is presenting her point of view on religion. She grew up Catholic, but started doubting her faith after several years. She establishes ethos by telling two personal stories that led her to her conclusion on faith. While giving information about her background and how she came to be the person she is, she also injects humor into the anecdotes, making them entertaining for the audience instead of just personal stories. Sweeney uses detailed facts/history about both Christianity and Mormonism, allowing her to come across as fairly educated on the topics. Julia Sweeney is also well known for her acting, most notably on Saturday Night Live. Her reputation allows her to have a certain credibility with the audience and conveys her as a comedian more than a serious theologian. 

Sweeney's intention in speaking is not to attack religion, but to expose people to her perspective while also entertaining them. The talk is also somewhat persuasive because of her use of storytelling to draw logical conclusions in life.

The intended audience of the presentation is the Ted Talk live audience, while the secondary audience is anyone watching the video online. The people in the audience could be either of the same religious belief as Julia Sweeney or interested in learning about a religious belief other than their own. Sweeney appeals to a certain sense of uncertainty and skepticism which aided her in reaching the conclusions she did about religion.

The speaker uses two anecdotes to explain why she began questioning her Christianity. Overall, she concludes that religion starts to sound unbelievable when it is examined from an objective perspective. But if you're raised with it, it doesn't seem out of the ordinary. Sweeney argues this point by telling personal stories that exemplify how religion didn't make sense to her, as well as using humor to entertain the audience. These stories and resulting conclusions employ logos, using logical reasoning to persuade the audience. Sweeney also appeals to emotion by causing the audience to feel not only amused, but also questioning toward their own belief system.

This presentation can be categorized under comedy; while the speaker tells her stories, she uses jokes to entertain the audience. She presents two humorous anecdotes in linear order (one that took place when she was seven and one that took place years later), and then reached her conclusion for the audience. Sweeney has both a sarcastic tone (when she tells her jokes) and a passionate tone (when she tells her stories). Her speech is somewhat casual, giving it a conversational style to better relate to the audience.

Usually, talking about the subject of religion would be more formal and reserved, as not to offend anyone. But Sweeney takes a much more casual approach, even going as far as making it comedic. This does not necessarily conform to a conventional storytelling for the subject, but it does complement the content well. It makes the mood relaxed with more of a pleasant, suggestive feel rather than a teaching, instructional one.

Julia Sweeney's intention was more to offer a new perspective on religion rather than force her beliefs on the crowd. Overall, she was able to fulfill this by adding humor and relate to the audience. Her stories were very personal to her, but presented them in a way which was understandable to the audience. However, a crowd in an earlier time period may not have been as receptive because of how informal it is about the topic.

I chose to analyze this video because I personally grew up in a Catholic setting, like Julia Sweeney, but started to wonder about the validity of religion and how it mostly depended on where a person was raised. I found that the story she told, although not exactly the same, is much like mine.