Speech: I’ll get on the MLK bandwagon.

Movie: I would have to use a musical, because they exaggerate human emotion to a point that words are not required. Off the top of my head, maybe Fiddler on the Roof. It deals with the struggle of the common man, the changing of old ways, and the way in which one culture is driven out of a place by another. I think these issues could be understood by any intelligent species.

YouTube Video: The Where The Hell Is Matt video, both for the geography and lack of dialogue. youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4

I’m not going to be picking a speech, because in my idea of these sort of things, it’d be pointless to aliens.

Song: Maybe it’s a cheat, but I’d send out Holst’s entire “Planets” symphony. It’s approrpriately space-related, but it also conveys such a broad range of emotions throughout the music that I feel it paints a picture of the range of humanity without saying much. The stern anger of Mars… the soaring joy of Jupiter… The meloncholy of Saturn. If I didn’t know what it was supposed to be metaphorical of, I would probably guess that it was about “feelings.”

If an entire symphony is too much, I would send the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s version of Carol of the Bells. It represents both humanity’s past (it’s a traditional carol) and its future (it’s done up in a modern fashion). It also represents that one time of year in lateish yearish in which we humans are actually pretty nice to one another–or at least ideally.

Movie: It’s hard to pick a movie that can be easily understood without language, especially since all my favorite movies are character-driven, but I’d probably send along Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” Not only does it represent what we humans are capable of doing with drawings and animation, but the story can be pretty easily discerned without hearing the speech. It also showcases one ideal that I’d like to get across to the aliens–that, hopefully, we humans can learn to love and care about things even if they appear to us to be monsters.

YouTube video: Something involving Google Earth, probably. There’s a couple out there and on Google Video, so I’m not sure which one to pick.

Movie: It’s a Wonderful Life
Song: Tainted Love by Soft Cell (C’mon, admit it…it’s going through your head now, isn’t it…)
Speech: General George Patton’s “Blood and Guts” speech.
You Tube Video: youtube.com/watch?v=mjAef7DXVbI (warning: adult language…)

I mean, it’s all kind of based on the premise that they want to meet us or know about us. What if they couldn’t care less?

Not that we shouldn’t include it, but I think it’s interesting that we think they would want to know about us.

I won’t even mention that the whole “Star Trek” prime directive thing…

Book King Lear or anything written by Shakespeare – then they will understand the human Psychology

Speech: Shakespeare’s St. Crispen’s Day Speech

Movie: The Shawshank Redemption

You tube: History of Dance, because it is music and history all in one.