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On the 15th anniversary of Overthinking It, Matthew Belinkie and Mark Lee overthink Avatar: The Way of Water with passion and sincere awe, while host Pete Fenzel harnesses active listening techniques to resist making fun of a 3+ hour movie he hasn’t seen about child aliens holding their breath. Cultural and psychological integration, Bruce Lee, anti-colonial/anti-capitalist resistance, models of personal, teleological, and ecological immortality, and the oversexed but sexless man-camp of Duke Nukem all play into the earnest, patient consideration of a sequel to a movie we panned on this site before it came out. (And after.)
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Further Reading
Further reading:
- How to Become a Better Listener, by Robin Abrahams and Boris Groysberg in The Harvard Business Review
- Previous Overthinking It articles and podcasts on Avatar
- The Official Duke Nukem 3D Soundboard on Voicy
Abrahams’ and Groysberg’s nine tips for active listening:
- Repeat people’s last few words back to them.
- Don’t “put it in your own words” unless you need to.
- Offer nonverbal cues that you’re listening — but only if it comes naturally to you.
- Pay attention to nonverbal cues.
- Ask more questions than you think you need to.
- Minimize distractions as much as possible.
- Acknowledge shortcomings.
- Don’t rehearse your response while the other person is talking.
- Monitor your emotions.
Abrahams’ and Groysberg’s seven behaviors for active listening:
- Hearing
- Auditory processing
- Reading body language, tone of voice, or social cues accurately
- Maintaining attention
- Regulating your emotional response
- Integrating multiple sources of information.
- “Performing” active listening (e.g., eye contact, nodding, appropriate facial expressions)
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