COMMAND PERFORMANCE – Americans’ Willing Servitude To Cameras

Smile! 

Thus begins every child's career as an actor.

It wasn’t always this way. Look at portraits and group shots from the early days of photography. Folks look as I suppose they must have felt at the time: not scowling, but certainly not smiling.

        

So how did we get from that norm to today’s camera culture where kids, many of them now adults, feel that whenever they see a lens they must not simply smile, but start acting?

Is a child hamming it up for the camera really big deal? Not if it were just a few children on a few occasions. But the fact that it’s virtually every child on every occasion says something troubling about our culture.

DOUBLE EXPOSURE
One reason for those stiff, old sepia-tone poses was that, until the turn of the 20th century, the technology of photography required subjects to stand perfectly still for as long as a minute. With the development of inexpensive, hand-held cameras and faster-exposure film, taking pictures became ever less formal, more spontaneous.     

PHOTO: China Daily

Fast-forward to the turn of the 21st century. With 
the wide availability of digital photography, not 
only did exposure times become insignificant, but snapshots began to lose their preciousness. One could afford to take a hundred shots and throw away 
ninety-nine.

So, if a parent didn’t like their child’s expression opening a Christmas present in one shot, they could coach a better look of delight in the next.

  They strike the pose of someone they want others 
  to think they are.

OH-H-H THE BOREDOM!
Besides parents’ prompting, kids learn photo-emoting through simple observation. They see their family and friends hamming it up for selfies. They see it in movies and on TV, where deadpan is death. 

And then, of course, there’s social media, where the last thing kids want is for their friends to see them not being cool and having fun. So they strike the pose of someone they want others to think they are. 

PHOTO: iStockPhoto

Next time you watch any live—or taped-live—TV show (SNL and the so-called talk shows come to mind) watch what hosts and guests do while they’re being introduced. They’ve obviously learned that inaction induces boredom. And boredom is the media’s kiss of death. 

So they animate. A little dance, engaging hand gestures, mugging it up for the camera. Always moving; always an engaging expression.

THE WORD ESCAPES ME
The penchant for performance even shows up in our use of language. Used to be, when folks quoted someone, they’d use that person’s words. If those words were especially colorful they might have attached some colorful modifiers to describe how they said those words. 

Then in the late 70s and early 80s, with the advent of the “me decade” and the Valley Girl craze, the words “He/she said...” gave way to “He/she goes…” And instead of describing how a person said something, the adjectives gave way to...
you guessed it, acting. Tell gave way to show.

         

           How have we become not just the 
           entertained, but the entertainers?

ALWAYS ON
These days nearly wherever we go, indoors our out, we’re on camera. Someone’s always watching: the police, security guards, Google Street View vehicles, folks monitoring their Ring doorbell camera. I fear this omnipresent scrutiny is making us feel self-conscious nearly all the time. Obliged, even subconsciously, to be putting on a show.

If we’re not there quite yet, we soon will be. The point where we can’t tell any more whether Jimmy’s or Jill’s expression reflects genuine emotion or just their performance for the “reality” show we’re all starting to accept as everyday life. 
(By the way, “reality show” must surely go down in history as the oxymoron or 
our age.) 

Some folks will do just about anything to be on TV. Including, like most of their reality show favorites, making utter fools of themselves. Is this just light-hearted fun, or does it augur an age in which human beings blithely trade their every real, God-given faculty for stuff that’s artificial—yes, including artificial “intelligence.”

       Maybe…they feel better seeing others 
       who are even more pathetic than they are.

MIRROR IMAGE 
We’ve become so inured of performance in our own lives that many of us now expect it from others. Most notably, in the election, by a large minority of Ameri-
cans, of a U.S. president who has mastered absolutely nothing…but performance.

IMAGE: Busy Beaver Button Museum

This shallow, soulless little man has, more than any public figure in my lifetime, blurred the distinction between fame and qualifica-
tion, performance and lying. He’s famous only for his fame. How sad, when one might expect honesty to be a key asset for a political leader, that so many Americans have chosen performers for that role.

We know this problem has been building for decades, since now we have senior citizens (Trump is prime example) who have never lived a millisecond of reality in their lives. No looks, no brains, no talent, no humanity… It’s all an act. Trump, if nothing else, has validated his followers’ preference of show over substance.

This is the kind of audience that’s made the Real Housewives conglomerate a billion-plus-dollar enterprise. Maybe it’s that their own lives are so miserable and they feel better seeing others who are even more pathetic than they are. Folks whose job, it seems, is a celebration of ignorance, selfishness and vulgarity. 

PHOTO: Kathy Boos / Bravo

              I don’t think I’d relinquish control 
              of my body and soul.

SPORTS PROGRAMMING 
When I watch TV sports I always cringe when the cameras swing around for shots of fans. It’s as if someone flipped the “On” switch on a bunch of robots. Folks suddenly forget cheering on their team, stop mid-sentence chatting with their seat mates, and start performing.

PHOTO: Val Montanez / The Kansan

You know the moves: the aggressive bobbing of the head; the impassioned “Yeah!;” the “We’re-number-one!” finger; the jersey grab-and-shake. It all happens on cue, as if scripted by TV sports producers. If you don’t emote on demand, the producer won’t cut to that camera. And there goes your audition for the big time. 

And then there’s the Jumbotron. Your mug appears up there and you don’t perform, expect to be ridiculed by thousands of your fellow fans.

PHOTO: KickinItWithCarly / TikTok

Really? Shouldn’t folks be devoting every second in those $150 seats to enjoying the game and the com-
pany of those around them, instead of letting that ESPN camera flick the switch on their fake,”reality show” selves? 

I wonder what I’d do if, God forbid, that should happen to me. I’d like to think I’d not change my behavior at all. Okay, maybe I’d nod or offer a little wave, but I don’t think I’d simply relinquish control of my body and soul. Or would I?

Would you? We'd love to hear what you think; leave a comment.