Created by Kym Buchanan | http://KymBuchanan.org | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Summer 2004
Class: CEP 931 Qualitative Methods in Educational Research
Instructor: Steve Weiland, PhD
College of Education, Michigan State University, Lansing, Michigan, USA
There is something freakish about spelling bee champions. In a contrived, high-stress setting, they must demonstrate exact mastery of a long, esoteric list of words. Many people master the jargon of a few subject areas. But nobody needs all these words, or the letter-perfect, ritualized performance of the bee. Yet there's something transcendental here.
In their documentary Spellbound, filmmakers Sean Welch and Jeffery Blitz try to illustrate and celebrate the excitement and stories of the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. In the process, they also reveal some of its perversion. As Emily explains, "Most of the words that I learn, I don't know what they mean. I just remember how to spell them." What is the power of this bizarre competition, as seen through the eyes of the spellers and their supporters, and through the filmmakers' lens?
While the filmmakers often foreground the unusual nature of their subjects (the spellers and the bee), it is one among many themes. Overall, Spellbound attempts to present iconic stories: eight spellers as a cross-section of the bee and the United States. This is especially apparent in the first story, of Angela and her father's efforts to give his family a better life.
Some spellers' stories aren't so colorful. But color is a critical part of Ashley White's story. Her surname alone evokes the legacy of racism in and out of education. Her story opens on an ice cream truck with bars on the windows. Ashley's mom is the only person who smokes on camera. These are cues about how we should feel, but an ambiguous sense of contrivance interferes. Ashley is pictured buying a subway ticket and riding alone, but her family is at the bee.
Similar ambiguities pervade "sense of place" sequences for most spellers' stories. We see neighborhoods, houses, signs of socio-economic status, often without a clear explanation of what we're seeing. For example, in Ted's story we see a yard piled up with junk. Why? Ted's teacher says he's different, "because he's that intelligent." The filmmakers seem to want us to root for underdogs, like Ashley and Ted, peacocks among the refuse of their childhoods. But we hardly know these children. Harry is almost incoherently nervous, while Neil barely speaks.
Spellbound raises many questions and only flirts with answers. This is a respectable approach for documentary filmmaking. Our burden is assembling meaning from the subtext . The bee is more than just a competition, but its power is enigmatic. The April's mom grasps at one clue. "There's such a thing as coming too close, and not coming... close enough. ... [Yet] there has to be someone in third place, right?"
The reasons for the bee may be as numerous as the spellers. The ostensible purpose is only addressed late in the film. Throughout, spellers and their supporters demonstrate a tacit belief that the competition is a worthwhile. According to the national director (and former champion), the Scripps National Spelling Bee is "a great Americana tradition." The bee's pronouncer connects spelling with education, and education with the social mobility of America's mythology. Certainly, words are the building blocks of knowledge.
The film shows the busy-ness of setting up the stage, the ritual and ceremony of the rounds. The spellers are profiled on a big screen, like at a sporting event. It's a tournament, a scholarship competition, a televised event. It's a sober party complete with mixers and sight-seeing. It has the gravity of its newspaper sponsors, and the legacy of their giant, historic front pages looming over the spellers. "We are in a bankrupt society with respect to principles and character," explains the parent of a high-ranking speller.
It's faintly archaic to argue that memorizing and reciting words builds character. This may be The intellectual equivalent of ditch digging. It can be elevated, but only the individual spellers can do so, as when studying brings them closer to their parents. Ironically, the central metaphor is itself bankrupt: bees are synonymous with industry, as well as cooperation. Here, it's every speller for herself.
"The spellers are under a tremendous amount of stress and pressure," explains a local organizer. "It's more intense than any competition," opines April's dad. "One letter, and you're out." April studies 8-9 hours per day in the summer, 5-6 during the school year. A past champion studied instead of laying a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknowns. Emily bailed on a sight-seeing trip to study. Among the spellers profiled, she gives one of the most lucid explanations:
I do it because... I don't know, my competitive side kinda comes out. Um, I don't love spelling. I do it 'cause I want to compete, I want to say, Hey look at me. I'm good at this. 'Cause I ride with people who better than me, and I sing with people who are better than me.
Spelling discloses spellers' relationships with themselves and others. Ashley feels isolated in her daily life. Ted's teacher hopes he will see that there are other people like him, and that he can fit in some place. Says the mother of another speller, "When we come here, it's so refreshing to see all of these bright kids... Here, she's accepted, she's one of the crowd. Here she's popular. Everybody loves her here." We are left to imagine the contrast at home.
Parents, siblings, friends, and teachers are cheerfully mystified by their loved ones' peculiar talent and obsession. Angela is in interviewed with friends, a rarity. Neil's sister (a former contestant) decries the stereotype that spellers are antisocial nerds. Emily is "wary of sounding too smart."
Success at the bee might lead to college recruitment, or at least the chance that a smart kid won't be held back by peers or background. Many of the spellers are congratulated in hometown newspapers and sometimes-misspelled signs. Ted's younger brother looks up to him. Angela's success is a triumph for her family. The film casts the bee as the alchemist's stone, transforming memorization and recitation into many things for many spellers.
Neil's family has reinvented the bee as an epic quest of hard work, spirituality, and the American Dream. Spelling is war, Neil's mother explains. It's not clear how Neil feels about this, since he's mostly seen and not heard. After one bee, "I was seeing white flashes. I don't know why. I guess I was too happy or something." Something indeed. "'Well, I think it's a different form of child abuse,'" Emily's mom offers, recounting a conversation with another mother.
The film opens with the numbers: 9 million compete, 249 get to nationals, one wins. Harry is literally the poster child for the grueling process of elimination: he's on the cover, and his wildly expressive struggle with 'banns' almost captures it all: anxiety, fear, labored breathing, furtive looks, nervous gestures, voice fluctuations, ritualized dialog with the judges. Elsewhere we see surprise at success and at failure, tears, and hugs. The bee needs and has a comfort room. The spellers scrabble for equilibrium: they want to win, they don't care if they win, they love spelling, they're not geeks, they don't want to disappoint others, it's really no big deal. Some spellers clap for others, others are lost in their misery, most look intensely relieved to return to their chairs. Again, Emily's words illuminate: "There's so much luck in it... You can't not be nervous. It's too scary." With her parents, she muses on the randomness of it, tries to make sense of what qualifying, winning, and losing can mean.
Spellbound emphasizes the role of parents in how spellers deal with the challenges and almost-ubiquitous disappointments of the bee. Many spellers are shown studying with parents. April's mom confesses, "I think I worked pretty hard, maybe a little too hard." As the spellers squirm at the microphone, their supporters focus all their attention on them, closing their eyes, demonstrating their own nervousness, praying, sheepishly smiling at the camera.
Adults use the bee to teach. Ted's mom: "We tried to raise 'em that, 'Try. If you do it, great. If you don't... just roll on.'" Neil's dad: "What is valuable in life that is easy to achieve? Nothing." Nupur's dad: "This is not the most important thing in life, to be the best speller in the world ." The bee director suggests families should approach it with realistic expectations. Too late: the spellers and their supporters are only human. They have already made the bee personally meaningful in too many ways, and elimination is vividly painful.
This is the perversion at the center of the bee: for almost all the spellers, it's an exercise in disappointment, psychic as well as intellectual. It's supposed to just be about spelling, right? The spellers end up fearing and hating some words. They remember which words they misspelled in bees. They express relief at failing. Emily says, "I don't have to do this again. I can be a normal kid."
Perhaps the bee is mostly harmless, and that's the best we can hope for when celebrating the unusual without presenting it as a freak show. When Emily talks about finally throwing away "the books," her mom offers an ambivalent smile and shrug. Like all adults who care about children, some things are out of her control. There doesn't have to be a third place, or any places at all. But apparently it's worth the disappointment. As we watch and listen, smile and wince, we have to hope so.
Created by Kym Buchanan | http://KymBuchanan.org | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.