Memoir meets documentary 📓
Mark Pagán blends the personal with the universal
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The shows that have been drawing me in lately are the ones that mix reporting with personal stories: take for instance Lemonada’s Uncared For, or Bodies, or the brilliant new season of The Dream. There’s something so compelling to me about the ways in which a first-person narrative can bring color and humanity to a particular issue.
This sonic collage of documentary and memoir is at the heart of Other Men Need Help, a narrative non-fiction show that takes a playful look at the many facets of modern masculinity. The fourth season, which came out this past summer, examines male body image. Each episode tells the story of a man through a specific image or photograph - from the cover of a romance novel to the classic groomsmen photo - revealing to listeners how the men see themselves.
Host and executive producer Mark Pagán is an award-winning audio producer and filmmaker. His audio work has appeared on Code Switch, WNYC, Latino USA, TED, Radiotopia Presents, and more. Here we talk about how creativity can spring from restrictions; why he’s drawn to documentary over fiction; and how to use your experience as a listener when making audio.
Why did you choose body image as the topic for the latest season?
We've been doing this show for six years now. From the beginning, men have approached me to talk about a lot of things - but the most frequent conversation was the way men look, the way they feel about their bodies. There’s a spectrum - some men have people in their lives they talk to about it; some will only talk with a professional - but it seems to be a very quiet struggle. As somebody who is bald, a lot of bald men talk to me. As somebody who is ambiguously ethnic and has body hair, that shows up for a lot of the men who talk to me.
There also seemed to be a period, during the pandemic, in which men were overly observing their bodies - both because we were dealing with a virus, but also because we were looking at our changing bodies. Like we had all this time to scroll through old pictures and see how we had more hair or were thinner or heavier or whatever it was.
We put this lens on it to focus on the discrepancy between how we see ourselves and how we are photographed. And I was really fascinated with the mythology of political leaders, especially Trump at the time, heroically taking off his mask - or other leaders taking their shirt off - there’s this whole trend of Western leaders doing that. I feel there is a sort of trickle down effect of how men view themselves and also how we create and define ourselves by a certain iconography.
Tell me about the decision to use a photo to explore an issue in each episode.
Having something that was primarily a visual catapult was a fun way to find a new editorial mission for this season. Part of it honestly was out of necessity – we were inside [due to the pandemic] when we started working on this season. We wanted a way to explore an issue with somebody, but we can’t be in person with them. A lot of this season was done over calls, so this was a way we could have active participation from the guest/character, by having them share what their legacy was with this picture that was taken.
We wanted to see in what interesting ways have men defined themselves by a certain iconography. The first image [a concert photo that reveals a bald spot] talks about baldness [through the] “I met a celebrity” photo. The second image focuses on how social media can be used positively to provide images of body shapes you don’t typically see. We talked to somebody who doesn’t see men of his size in the iconography of hotness and of thirst traps. So he was like, I’m gonna create that. The sixth and final episode is a personal one about how I’m getting married and I’m having a very strong allergy to the iconography of the groomsmen photo.
Over the course of four seasons, Other Men Need Help has examined accountability, friendship between men, finding love as an older man, managing grief and more. How do you see the evolution of the show?
I used my experiences in the first season as a case study, unsure of where the show would go. I had seven or eight sort of essays about masculinity I wanted to explore. I really wanted to make a series in which gender and masculinity were explored very transparently through the host. There were no heroics, or “I’m so bad and awful” - but just something that felt warm, honest and wasn’t talking above anybody.
After that we went with concepts that were suggested to us. We really paid attention to the conversations that were coming to us and ways in which we could take a nuanced and honest approach.
Season two focussed on me personally and ethnic identity in the US. For season three we decided to pay attention to a really important conversation: friendship between men. We did nine episodes about best friends in adulthood - from two men of the cloth and the difficulty they had in maintaining friendship as religious leaders; to the difficulty in saying the words “I miss you” without adding a “man” or “dude”; to how friendships are often only vocally celebrated through a eulogy rather than in person.
The episodes fuse a little memoir and essay with documentary - sometimes there are vox pops in there too - how do you think about making this kind of audio?
This is not a satisfying answer, but it just makes sense to me. It's a lovely sweet spot and I think that's why I gravitated towards this medium versus other things. All of the elements highlight each other - I want to have my cake and eat it too. I think by nature, my radar or my muscle is tuned and conditioned to think of story in an essayistic form. I'm really not satisfied unless there's some level of observation that we can provide the audience, besides just a personal reflection.
I love nonfiction. I love field reporting. I love documentary work, because you can make sense of things as you go along. I like the way that documentary does that: it reveals, versus the gospel that is fiction. For OMNH specifically, I wanted something that could feel like a collage. Those felt like the right ingredients to me. I love that you can very naturally blend those and provide a satisfying template for an audience.
It struck me when listening that these are serious issues - but they don’t feel heavy. How do you achieve that balance in the tone of the show?
The first thing was, I was really paying attention to my experiences as an audience member. Something I always recommend to anyone who’s making audio is to ask yourself: “what is missing from your experience as a listener?” I wanted to have these conversations - but as a listener I felt like I was left with three options.
Number One was the very didactic: “Hi this is Mark and Clare. We’re here with the Other Men Hour and we’re going to talk about this thing that happened, and I’m not going to talk about my personal life - or if I do it’s going to be very serious. And we’re going to have this guest who’s a scientist.”
Number two is like: “What’s up Clare it’s the Mark and Clare show!!!! Oh my god Clare I did the most fucked up thing!!!” So that becomes very distancing and performative and super glib, but I’m not really owning up to anything.
And then Number Three is like an open mic version of the essayist, being so affected. Like an acoustic singer at an open mic who’s obviously processing a recent breakup but not saying ‘I was possessive and I ghosted on her’ because he’s owning the narrative.
Everything felt like one extreme or the other. So I looked at those and I asked, what’s missing for me as a listener?
I realized gender is a circus -it’s an absolute circus. So why not lean into that absurdity? We all know how terrible men can be, and we can own up to that - but that’s not going to draw the listener in. What’s going to draw the listener in is me offering something in which you are going to be able to place your own experience, and trust in me within two minutes.
We didn’t want to have a public mission statement like “listen to this show so you leave with a level of reflection”. That is our intention but the hope is that it’s a Trojan horse. The goal is that the episodes entertain, but the quiet mission is that each episode provides the majority of the audience with quiet reflection and maybe some action afterwards.
Tonally, the way we wanted to pull that off was… what if we did a show about adult issues - fear of your body changing, fear of losing friendships - but turned these themes into a children’s book? And then from there, how would you translate a children’s book about adult themes into a podcast. That was the creative mission: we call it Sesame Street about men for adults. That hopefully points to the zaniness that can exist, the fun - but also ultimately a groundedness. Like the authors of children’s books and the producers of Sesame Street are providing their audiences with an educational, reflective, positive experience.
What role does the sound design and music play in achieving that tone?
Oh, it's huge. My references from growing up are like that 1960s easy tempo, bossa nova sound. You have a visual of someone nodding their head, martini glass in hand. I mean a lot of that comes from a chauvinistic time so we wanted to lean into that and almost subvert the Playboy-ness within that sound. You’ve got the Mad Men vibe but take away the hubris and instead you get very quirky reflective storytelling. I think it's just a delightful combination. It’s very intentional. And I personally think that's what makes the show so successful.
What do you enjoy most about making the show?
It’s been one of the most meaningful creative experiences of my life. Hopefully this won't come off too egotistically, but it feels like the most ‘me’ out of everything I've made in my life. Episodes come out and I’m like, that sounds like me, that sounds like something I'd want to make. I mention that because it's like a lot of times, it takes us so long. And we also work on things at different stages in our life and go like, that just didn't feel like me fully.
It’s closing the Ira Glass taste gap, right?
Yeah, exactly.
And I can't say how meaningful it's been to have to have people find meaning in the show. A friend who was at a wedding a few months ago met someone who told him: “I started making friends by joining a volunteer fire department because of the show Other Men Need Help”. My friend relayed that to me. And I've gotten messages like that.
The show is meant to be entertaining, but as I mentioned we have our quiet mission. So it's really meaningful to know that people feel seen and less lonely. My own personal mission in life is to help people - but especially men - manage their shame better. So to get these messages and people reaching out - it’s extremely valuable and meaningful.
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