Communication Skills

I watched the show American Crime that airs on ABC on Thursday nights (Ridley, 2015).

In the beginning of the episode a man is awaken by a phone call what appears to be in the middle of the night because he was in bed and the room was dark.  When the camera displayed his face after hanging up the phone the man appeared to be distraught.  The next scene is at the airport and is greeted by several police officers.  They take him to what looks like a morgue and he is viewing something from behind the glass.  He then goes in to a bathroom and is breaking down.  He is crying.  His body is lunging over in a fetal-like position while clutching his hands to his head.

Second scene is occurring at a club. A girl goes into the bathroom in which she gets attacked by another girl.  Her body is on the floor in a fetal-like position as the other woman is kicking and punching her.  She appears in pain and you can witness the blood on her head and her face.  A man walks into the bathroom and finds her all beat up.  He takes he what I assume is home and is bathing her gently.  She is smiling and he is washing off the blood and her hair.  Next scene they look like they are desperately looking around their place for something while arguing.  They look like they are drug addicts.  After arguing the man takes the woman and hugs her.  The wall in the bedroom is covered in pictures of different bi-racial couples that display happiness. 

I had assumed that the man was viewing a body.  It turns out he was viewing the body of his son that had been murdered.  He was showing anguish after viewing the body.  His body language was imperative of the sounds he was making with his body language.  Later in the show he told his ex-wife that their son had been murdered and she displayed her emotions in a very different manner.  She was more astounded and disconcerted (O’Hair & Dixon, 2011).  Her verbal communication was firm and she wanted answers from the police versus allowing herself to grieve. 

The second scene I was correct by being presumptuous and stereotyping this couple as being drug addicts.  They were looking around their room for a bag of drugs that had been stolen at the club were the girl was attacked.  What you could see was that the man with his physical actions did display both empathy and sympathy while caring for her in the bathtub and after the argument that they had.  He sat with her gently while in the background you could see the pictures that are a vision of how they would like their lives to be. 

I believe if I continue to watch this series that I would be more correct in my assumptions of what is going to happen based upon being able to identify more with the characters.  You attain a sense of how their personalities are in the initial episode and how they display their feelings through their body language.  Once watching the episode with the volume turned on you can put the body language together with their communication styles.

O'Hair, D., Friedrich, G. W., & Dixon, L. D. (2011). Strategic communication in business and the professions. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Ridley, J. (Writer). (2015).  Episode One [Television series episode].  Mc Donald, M. & Ridley, J., American Crime,  Austin, Texas: ABC Studios