need to know

I was recently watching an episode of Law and Order and I noticed a certain child actor on it. This poor young girl had been attacked in one way or another by some evil, bad guy. And there you have another hour of riveting television. Thing is, I recognized the child from another show which my kids enjoy watching. On this show, her character is completely different. I guess not being attacked makes for a better personality. As much as I was transfixed by this young lady’s particular skill of being two very different people in different contexts, I also became annoyed. It started to dawn on me that in order to get this role, her parents, no doubt, hawked her around to every TV show, commercial shoot and who knows what else. Now I don’t know if she particularly enjoys either acting or doing auditions but it just smacked of so much manufactured persona. And if this is true for this one actor, it must be true for all of them. There seems to be a closed population of wandering faces who thirst for a moment as an extra or a small role which could lead to a larger one. The character actors who yearn to be leads. Whatever the deal, it just deflates, when I watch, the idea that I am immersing myself into any sort of alternate reality. I now see all these people as actors, not as the people that they are trying to be. Instead of losing myself in the stories, I keep imagining the behind the scenes machinations which allowed this particular person or group to be here.

This sense of the pulling back the curtain also hit me when I recent article about the people who are on the “game show circuit.” They specialize in trying out for game shows and knowing what the producers want from them. You might, therefore, see the same person on any variety of different game shows as the random person who simply tries out on a lark is the exception, not the rule. I can’t look at game shows as the triumph of the average person who gets a break and proves he is above average! I have to see through the cynical eyes thrust upon me by our constant fascination with knowing everything.

Reality shows, and the shows which reveal why the reality shows aren’t all that real, do the same thing. The Behind the Scenes exposes of my favorite movies and TV programs while titillating and sometimes fascinating, make it difficult to appreciate the shows anymore as simple storytelling. Watching the voices behind animated shows on Inside the Actor’s Studio simply confirms that these are empty vessels who aren’t what they appear (or sound) to be. It is disheartening. And cooking shows? Much the same thing – sometimes, I don’t want to see how the sausage is made. I need the illusion of something special and unattainable, almost magic. Sure, it is nice to be reassured that I too, if I follow certain basic steps, can make a good meal, but the plethora of shows mainly trivialize the artistry and turn it into an open process.

I know that I often fall out on the opposite side of this dilemma. Sometimes I want the openness and the admission that people are not magically special or different and that we all have the potential if given the chance to rise to heights. But there is an innocence that I admit I miss. A sense of wonder at what is all around me that I lose when I study the science behind the things. Cf. Whitman’s “When I heard the learn'd astronomer” and Seger’s “Against the Wind” (‘wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.’)