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It has grown out of viewing and reviewing some 300 films over the last several years and an intense interest in the study of "affect" and especially its implications in terms of facial display. The thought is that we are continually communicating huge amounts of information unconsciously through facial display. It is thought that we can improve interpersonal relations much by becoming more aware of this situation and becoming more attuned to each other's facial messages. Two of the most important displays are "interest" and "shame". Movies are a good place to practice picking up on these cues. Here is a fairly complete list of movie clips so far of my favorite scenes. As I go along I will l be presumptuous and comment and fill in the missing information. Almost all of these scenes have to do with shame and or humiliation and I am very specific in making that distinction and I hope these clips go far in helping us understand that difference. When they are distinct and when they are tightly bound. I think this would be an interesting course to teach. Obviously there are many movies and many more examples.

There is a whole other area that is ignored here and that is the role of positive affect. Well, not entirely ignored, as "Sunrise" is the oldest, but in some ways the most powerful movie. This most likely and obviously is because it is silent. In it shame, joy and interest-excitement are juxtaposed brilliantly. In some ways therefore it is the most difficult to watch.

There are listed here over 20 films with 46 clips from them. All of the movies, by most anyone's standards, are considered "great" movies. There are several films that are listed with out clips due to what I feel is their overall value.

Without any effort on my part I think what I ended up with is a very wide range of nuanced situations demonstrating how shame and humiliation are pervasive in almost any human encounter.

What also was in no way planned was how often it seems that at least one of the clips comes very near or right on the hour mark of the movie.

Obviously it is suggested that the whole movie be screened and that I am in no way suggesting that I caught all cases of shame and humiliation and again, one might do with this same list of movies a list of clips of positive emotion.

Early in my studies of "affect" or innate biological feeling it was suggested that we ourselves and our charges do exercises such as turning off the sound on the TV, or movie, and try and determine by facial expression and actions what emotions where being expressed and what was going on.

There is one TV show that is suggested and that is Desperate Housewives. One episode (Sunday, April 16, 2006, Episode 19: "Don't Look at Me"), as I point out in my separate comment that episode is all about shame, but I ask you to pay close attention to the subplot about the child "Parker" and his growing interest in girls anatomy. It comes in three episodes throughout the hour. The writer of this episode did not pull this understanding of shame out of the air but did some serious study of the concept.

Finally , there is general TV where it must be noted that humiliation most assuredly has become more and more a prevalent theme and theatrical device over the last several years . A very basic question is why?

The obvious answer is that it is an easy way to get peoples interest. But one might be able to argue that this is a good thing. It might be a good thing as it might be a progression that we have to go through. It is as if we are just now discovering shame and humiliation. We say that "the artist always gets there first" and in this case mediocre artists are going to hit us over the head with shame and humiliation and use them in unfortunate ways. But it might be said that at least it has gotten a lot of people into a debate. The word "humiliation" is on the lips of millions of people and they are debating whether or not such antics or dramatic scenes are acceptable or not.

I wrote a good deal about this in a piece I did after the 2006 New Your Meeting "Notes On A Conferences".

The Fox network is the leader in this area. Someone said you cannot see a prim time show or near any show on Fox that does not employ some aspect of humiliation. They are the network with a good number of the "reality" shows. They have many of the court TV programs and now performance programs where a panel of judges offer comments on contestants performances. Usually one of the judges is rather merciless. People are called "fat", "stupid", "silly" and "wasting their time" among these are "American Idol". It seems that this has somewhat abated as the seasons has gone along. Then there are the dramatic and comedy show. There are shows such as "Hell's Kitchen" that seems solely based on the premise of making "humor" out of a chef humiliating his workers.

In my "Notes On A Conference" I wrote about two shows Fox's "House, M.D" and NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent". I said of the later that I could no longer watch it and in any event I had been an accidental viewer, in the first place, of the few episodes I had seen. The problem with the series is that the whole purpose of each show seems to be to put the main prosecutor into a position to be able to corner his prey and humiliate them. Why? This is the question. It seems to me it is simply very much an equivalant to a "kill" scene. A new violence with the added payoff of moral revenge.

House, M.D. is a bit more complex. A brilliant infectious disease doctor cannot help himself from insulting his staff and patients at least several times per episodes while saving lives. The redeeming quality of the show is that he has redeeming qualities and his staff and not all patients let him get away with it. Humiliation is obviously one of the motivating forces of the show "who is this guy?", "what is eating him?" and "why does he keep pushing people away?" and "why do people keep loving him?". All that said it is unfortunate that humiliation most certainly is used as such a "hook" in the show, but if you if you get hooked they get you to think about it.