Journal #4: Long Form Audio Documentary #2

http://www.prx.org/pieces/15305-rn-euroquest-48-sex-and-consequences


As being easily bored as I am, as well as highly appreciating spending my time doing things other than my school assignments. It is surprising that I chose a 23 minute documentary to listen to, when the assignment required a minimum of eight minutes. However, I chose this particular documentary to listen to, which is Sex and Consequences by Radio Netherlands because I found it highly interesting. I listened to the voicer at first, and I was immediately attracted by the energy of the piece I felt it was not going to be boring because of the choice of music that was chosen as a background to piece, also the voice of the announcer is far away from being boring. And most importantly the topic which is about the consequences of legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands as well the emotional consequences of terminating pregnancies.

The piece is full of interesting information, as well as facts. Like the fact that prostitution was not legal in the Netherlands till the year 2000. And why prostitutes in the Netherlands prefer wearing white Legendre’. The piece is full of interviewees, which are interesting to listen to. Amongst them was Saskia fenghainan, the editor of radio Netherlands world Dutch affairs who is an expert on the subject and she highlighted a lot of important points. She was introduced her she started talking; I thought that that was a nice way to do it as the listener became more ready to know who she was.
I like the variety of sounds present, the music, the natsound, along with the variety of people speaking made the piece really interesting. Also putting many people provides many angles of view to subject making the listener willing to listen more and more to see the opinion of other people.

Trafficking is still a problem in the Netherlands, and although it is legalized now a lot of women are working under the illegal sector.
By minute 7 and 30 seconds the topic’s focus changes and moves to Berlin and the situation of prostitution there. And forced prostitution during the world cup. Berlin another country where prostitution is legal.
At this point the piece became more serious and so no music bites were present anymore. At the moment the documentary sounds more like a news cast. These few seconds were informative, but the mood was kind of boring to me, luckily the serious mood did not go on for long. [the reporter here is Mike bouragada from Frankfort.]

Back to the Netherlands with Saski who was reintroduced. The mood broke into a looser one when the interviewer asked her what she thinks about porn.
And from now, we move to a different topic, and the music is back, yay!! The topic now is porn, and what are the issues with porn from a women point of view.
We are taken to the first porn film festival in Berlin with Cinnamon Nipart, and there we are introduced to a new concept which is feminist porn.
She interviews women are seemingly interested in porn however believe that it should be feminized, the mood here is very different than the rest of the piece it is more fun and more engaging.

The topic then moves to unwanted pregnancies but before so, a really creative transition was made. A calm lullaby was played and then the interviewer says that he is a bit sleepy and from then he moves to babies. And then to abortion, the music here is amazing, really relevant; baby lullabies!

He introduces a doctor to talk about depression and guilt that accompanies some of those couples who undertake abortion. Then the show moves to prenatal issues like checking the child for deficiencies.

In conclusion, I thought that the topic was quite interesting, however was a bit unfocussed; in the voicer he stated a two issues that he will be discussing but discussed around 4, partly related issues. I thought that was both good and bad. Good because diversity equals less boredom but bad because if a listener started listening for the latter point he’d have to listen for 20 minutes till he reaches it and that is not time efficient for him.

RN EuroQuest (#48): Sex and Consequences
Series: RN EuroQuest: Public Radio's Weekly European JournalFrom: Radio Netherlands Length: 00:29:59