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The Gondolier

What happens when doing what you want to do means giving up who you really are?  We travel to Venice, Italy with reporters Kristen Clark and David Conrad, where they meet gondolier Alex Hai. On the winding canals in the hidden parts of Venice, we learn about the nearly 1000-year old tradition of the Venetian Gondolier, and how the global media created a 20-year battle between that tradition and a supposed feminist icon.  Reported by David Conrad and Kristen Clark. Produced by Annie McEwen and Molly Webster. Special thanks to Alexis Ungerer, Summer, Alex Hai, Kevin Gotkin, Silvia Del Fabbro, Sandro Mariot, Aldo Rosso and Marta Vannucci, The Longest Shortest Time (Hillary Frank, Peter Clowney and Abigail Keel), Tim Howard, Nick Adams/GLAAD, Valentina Powers, Florence Ursino, Ann Marie Somma, Alex Overington, Jeremy Bloom and the people of Little Italy.  Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.     You can find Alex Hai's website here, where you can check out the photographs discussed in the piece.   
Duration
55m
Broadcast on
15 Jun 2017
Audio Format
other

What happens when doing what you want to do means giving up who you really are? 

We travel to Venice, Italy with reporters Kristen Clark and David Conrad, where they meet gondolier Alex Hai. On the winding canals in the hidden parts of Venice, we learn about the nearly 1000-year old tradition of the Venetian Gondolier, and how the global media created a 20-year battle between that tradition and a supposed feminist icon. 

Reported by David Conrad and Kristen Clark. Produced by Annie McEwen and Molly Webster.

Special thanks to Alexis Ungerer, Summer, Alex Hai, Kevin Gotkin, Silvia Del Fabbro, Sandro Mariot, Aldo Rosso and Marta Vannucci, The Longest Shortest Time (Hillary Frank, Peter Clowney and Abigail Keel), Tim Howard, Nick Adams/GLAAD, Valentina Powers, Florence Ursino, Ann Marie Somma, Alex Overington, Jeremy Bloom and the people of Little Italy. 

Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.    

You can find Alex Hai's website here, where you can check out the photographs discussed in the piece. 

 


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--Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC. --Hey, I'm Jada Boomeran. --I'm Robert Krolich. --This is Radio Lab. --Today we have the story of just how hard it can be to be who you actually are, when it seems like the entire world is doing its best to make you who you actually aren't. --Well, I guess I could, I mean, this could be too many details, but... --The story starts for us with reporter David Conrad. --So, for me, it was back in late 2014, I was living in Philadelphia as a grad student. --And at the time David was applying for jobs, and one of the jobs he was applying for was at a radio show that was doing a series about international women's issues. --And so I had this on my mind, and I was taking a bus to the university, and I just overheard somebody talking about their recent trip to Venice. --And of course, the classic tourist thing to do when you go to Venice is to take a ride on the canal boats, the gondolas. You know, go down the canal, maybe someone sings to the famous song. It's very romantic, in any case. The person sitting on the bus next to David was telling their friend that they had taken a gondola ride with this first ever woman gondolaie in Venice. --Yeah, and then we were, like, poking around, and we realized, like, how... --But how did this become a "we"? --Um, no, I... --Who are you? --I'm Kristen. --Kristan Clark, also a journalist and radio producer, and she and David are partners and collaborators. --I mean, and this is what was interesting is, like, we realized, like, how big a deal it is to be a female gondelier. This is, like, it's like a 900-year-old tradition. --900 years. --Yeah. --All men. --It's always past, father-son, father-son, father-son, or, like, uncle nephew down the line. --So, this is, like, this has been no ladies now, no ladies then, no ladies ever? --No ladies in 900 years. --Yeah. --Just think about that for a second. Almost a thousand years of all men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, and then one day, you get a woman. --Right. --As a headline, woman breaks through 900-year-old glass ceiling. --I thought that sounds like a good pitch. --Are you kidding? It sounds like God kissed you in the lips. --Exactly. It sounded like the perfect empowerment story, I guess. --Yeah. And so we're kind of just, like, googling it, and, like, it's all over the media.

Transcription truncated.

What happens when doing what you want to do means giving up who you really are?  We travel to Venice, Italy with reporters Kristen Clark and David Conrad, where they meet gondolier Alex Hai. On the winding canals in the hidden parts of Venice, we learn about the nearly 1000-year old tradition of the Venetian Gondolier, and how the global media created a 20-year battle between that tradition and a supposed feminist icon.  Reported by David Conrad and Kristen Clark. Produced by Annie McEwen and Molly Webster. Special thanks to Alexis Ungerer, Summer, Alex Hai, Kevin Gotkin, Silvia Del Fabbro, Sandro Mariot, Aldo Rosso and Marta Vannucci, The Longest Shortest Time (Hillary Frank, Peter Clowney and Abigail Keel), Tim Howard, Nick Adams/GLAAD, Valentina Powers, Florence Ursino, Ann Marie Somma, Alex Overington, Jeremy Bloom and the people of Little Italy.  Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.     You can find Alex Hai's website here, where you can check out the photographs discussed in the piece.