Camera, lights... misrepresentation

I could never appear on TV, particularly not in a reality TV show. Partly this is because I am shy and do not handle groups particularly well, but also it is because I think I am too good for it.

That's an odd thing to say, given that I profess to being an egalitarian, but the truth is, I feel there is something demeaning about becoming a spectacle. As with many feelings, it is quite easily dispelled by cold reason but reason does not fix, and, unguarded, I find my response is "yeuk".

It seems dispiriting, to give up your self to an audience that does not care about you, does not really want to know you, and will accept a vision of you that is lensed through the shadow of the programme's director and editor.

Germaine Greer is a deeply thoughtful woman, in some ways a fine intellect (although she has been allowed to presume herself far more broadly insightful than she actually is: an education does not alone make one educated -- it does not take a great deal to gain a degree when it comes down to it, and doctorates are gained as much through perseverance as anything else, not that I claim special knowledge -- I have a decidely limited education as it happens). But she has allowed herself to be imaged as a cranky, slightly foolish Branestawm figure. She has contributed, because she is often not quite cogent (anyone who has actually read The female eunuch will know what I mean: while the outline of her ideas was revolutionary, her exposition of them is sometimes painful to read).

But not all television is a game show, is it? Could I not be interviewed? I could but interviews seem even worse to me. They are too purposeful. When I am given or assume a purpose I talk too much. I would hector the audience, blathering about things I don't really care as much about as I seem to, because I am not on the whole a passionate person. It's a failing of mine, and I would be just that failing, and none of the other things that I am, to those who watch me. I communicate much better in writing than in person. Perhaps they would allow me to read something out.

Would I perhaps allow myself to play the scoundrel on a late-night panel show? Perhaps I could do well as the new Will Self (although rather less self-satisfied in my intellectualism as him, because I am not so good at remembering bits and pieces of what I have read)? That poet guy, Tom Paulin is it? The one who reviews everything from a lefty perspective to the bemusement of the rest of the panel on the Newsnight review show (and writes fucking abysmal poetry, I might add, and dreary "think"pieces that no one in their right mind -- and probably no one in any mind at all -- reads). Surely I could just get tanked up and perform like a seal and not worry too much about it.

*sigh*

But what if television was quite incidental? Let's say I win the Booker. Go on, say it. No, I mean it, say it. If we all visualise it, perhaps it will happen. (Only kidding. My mum is a great believer in visualising positive outcomes but I have no faith at all that the human mind can influence the processes of the outside world -- although I do think, I'm sure I've mentioned, that it is an interesting possibility in quantum theory that observers might create their own reality, so that we create our world by consensus, I suppose.) Well, I will have to appear on television, making my acceptance speech, won't I?

Gawd no. When I win awards, I will not so much as turn up to accept them. I'm going to hire my own native American to do the job.

Even better, I will employ an imposter. There will be a Dr Zen who picks up awards and everyone will be convinced it is me (because they know no different) except for those who know who I really am (by which I don't mean they know who I really am, even I don't know that, but that they know my real identity), who are thankfully few and unlikely to expose the deceit. He will act as he acts and those who see him on the awards show will think that that is how I am.

Hold on. Would that not mean that the same demeaning occurs? That my character is still equally besmirched by the television appearance? People will think they know me, will they not?

In a sense, it is exactly what Germaine Greer has been doing for years.

But I would not have to know, would I? I would not feel that I was being dispirited. In so many things, it is how you feel that counts, not what is really the case. Yes, we talk as though what is really the case was what matters (when we talk about politics and so on) but it just about all boils down to how we feel (ultimately, I know, my political beliefs are not what I think (have reasoned, if you like) the world should be like but how I feel about people (too warmly to welcome their being hurt) -- although it's true that I have reasoned the best positions consistent with those feelings).

I once did have a moment in the limelight, on account of receiving an award for a poem. I was interviewed on local radio. The poem was about the vivisection of rabbits; in particular, about the practice of pouring shampoo and poking makeup into their eyes -- done to rabbits because they cannot cry). The interviewer's line of questioning was to go from "you disapprove of torturing rabbits" to "does that mean you approve of animal activists who release rabbits from labs" (yes) to "so you approve of animal terrorists who make threats and commit violent acts" (erm). I was only a child, a bit frightened by an aggressive man who was in control of the interview, could terminate it when he pleased, would edit it to his liking...

I felt like crying. I said no, no, I didn't support terrorists. But I wanted to find a good -- an acceptable -- way to say yes, yes, I do, actually, because what sort of fucking savage thinks it is worth hurting a rabbit to confirm that their product will not give someone red eyes? I wanted to say that if I was bolder, it would be me with the Molotovs, if I knew where to go, who to join, if I could.

I learned then a lesson that has been confirmed by years of watching television (yes, I'm too good for it but not so good that I don't waste my life watching it! Still, the same can be said for porn -- I'm not volunteering for that either). The interview is not for you, it's for them. Unless you can see something in it for you -- a message you really want to impart, an opportunity to sell something and you don't mind whoring yourself -- you will likely walk out feeling a little smaller than you did walking in.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:18 pm