Being bad on camera

[John E Clark]

There was a time when people behind the camera were comfortably anonymous. This is an attractive situation for me, because I'm one of the most ridiculous-looking human beings I've ever seen. I look like a diseased frog that's been blown up with compressed air, then allowed to deflate again, then left to putrify slightly. I also have a voice like a six-year-old girl and the awkwardness of that nerdy guy who's always in every American high school movie as a sort of pathetic comic relief. I am, in effect, Napoleon Dynamite, without the cool irony.

 

 

This worries me, because it's increasingly the case that people who would have traditionally been able to remain comfortably in the shadows are forced into the actinic glare of publicity. In some cases, it's even worse: things like kickstarter can require a group of people who are not only competent and experienced but also attractive and likeable, to a level most people can't reliably achieve.

 

Of course, attractive and likeable people have always done far better than lumpen sacks like me. What's new is that attractiveness and likeability are becoming essential to achieving anything at all. I can't appear in behind the scenes material - it'd be a detriment to the film. I can't use facebook or twitter; I'm too hideous. It's becoming, and I joke not, a very serious professional problem.

 

Yes, my grapes are sour, but whose wouldn't be - and no, this is not a fish for compliments, this is a genuine expression of concern over the way things are headed. If it becomes impossible to achieve literally anything without being a rock star, a lot of worthwhile things won't happen.

 

P

 

It is claimed that one of the reasons why the NSDAP leadership did not use the nascent television system that the Third Reich had put into place to televise the 1936 Olympics, was due to the realization that they just didn't look good on 'live' TV.

 

With film and news reels, the footage could be edited such that only their 'best side'... uh... would be seen.

 

And here in the US, in the same time frame, the fact that FDR was in a wheel chair was almost 'hidden' from public view. He was able with braces to walk 'short distances', and that capability was used for publicity occasions.