Beck on Beck
Click to viewâAn asshole has no idea theyâre an asshole. Thatâs what makes them an asshole.â
I tell my students this so they can get the idea out of their heads that they have to show us something. What I mean is: if youâre playing a villain, you donât have to show us youâre a villain, you simply have to be the villain. Evil isnât about behavior, itâs about great need. Look at all the infamous villains on film: Margaret Hamiltonâs iconic Wicked Witch of the West in âThe Wizard of Oz, the witch from which all witches are still compared; Michael Douglasâ layered and complicated turn in âWallstreetâ; and of course, Streepâs bravura take on the boss-from-hell in âThe Devil Wear Pradaâ. All these people are actual people with actual feelings and desires and wants and needs, as we all are. On paper, they may read to actors as cartoons, but in order for them to come from a place of truth and in order for them to be authentic, an actor has to start from the only place they know: Themselves.
A villain weeps, they laugh, theyâre actual people. But sometimes when you put a villain in the hands of some actors, immediately they go to the behavior. They begin to Act. They put the character across the room from themselves and focus on their behavior instead of their heart. How could we know what itâs like to be a serial killer? A drug addict? Or mentally deranged in some way? We have to look closely at whatâs really going on. We have to side step what it is we do, and focus on what it is we feel.
Years ago when Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer who murdered dozens of young men and then chopped them up and ate some of their body parts, all the while keeping his job at a local factory in Milwaukee Wisconsin, stood trial. As Dahmer stood, hands clasped behind him, and staring blankly into the judge's eyes, he began asking him how Dahmer could commit these crimes, and then simply get up the next morning, and go to work. Dahmer answered, with in a peaceful monotone:
âI loved them. I wanted to be closer to them.â
There were no theatrics, no hysterics, and no tears. It was a simple, easy proclamation that landed lightly and with little warning. He loved them. That was all.
The Wicked Witch of the West is right: that is her sister Dorothy murdered, and those are her red shoes. She is right. All she is trying to do is take back what is rightfully hers. Dorothy and Glinda are in the way. She needs something that belongs to her and sheâll stop at nothing in order to get it. Itâs very simple.
To her.
You can substitute the word âassholeâ with anything, really:
âA Villain has no idea theyâre a Villain. Thatâs what makes them a villain.â
Orâ¦
âAn ingénue has no idea theyâre an ingénue. Thatâs what makes them an ingénue.â
The list is huge. It can go on forever and can include us all if we allow ourselves to be perfectly honest. And when you realize that most people are simply trying to do their best, the only way they know how, you can see through their eyes in a much easier and simpler way. It makes for a world that might eventually be filled with understanding as opposed to righteousness. Weâre not that different. Now, Iâm certainly not saying we need to forget the lessons people like Charles Manson, Osama Bin Laden, or Aileen Wuornos taught us. I am simply saying those people and some people like them, have little to no self-awareness or spend time analyzing right from wrong. It doesn't come into play when their behavior arises. But they are more than that. They are more than their psychotic behavior.They want what they want, and they need what they need, and that is true at one time or another, for all of us. We share that. We've been through that. The difference between them and us (hopefully), is that most of us won't kill in order to get what we need. Most of us end the even before that happens. We find something else. We realize it's not that important. We move forward. We know it's wrong.
But layered beneath all that, is the common thread of the desire to get it, whatever that thing is.
And so it goes with Mr. Beck.
Beck truly believes in his heart that heâs doing the right thing by warning us, by constantly standing guard at the gate. He is the sentinel thatâs been given an awesome responsibility. He is trying to help. But like the ingénue, or the villain, or the asshole, Beck has absolutely no idea what he actually is. I do not believe he intentionally lies to us. I have never believed that. He is completely unaware of his tactics or his behavior. He is simply speaking his truth. He is on a mission to rid the world of liars and betrayers and idiots. And he does this by exposing what he has termed as: âThe misinformed.â
The most telling moment of this particular clip, is when he repeats:
âI donât care if people believe me, or not.â
That would be really beautiful and heartfelt, if it were actually true. But people who donât care if they are believed or taken seriously, donât have cable shows or internet shows that revolve around them being believed and taken seriously. Beckâs built a career on being believable: his many charts, his expert guests, and his now infamous chalk board. These are all by products of his active imagination combined with his myriad of misguided lectures and speeches, all directed toward us for one sole purpose:
To Tell The Truth and for Us To Believe Him.
And that was always his ultimate goal. To be taken seriously, to be counted, to be heard and to be relied on is Glenn Beckâs mission. You can see it in the way he Gestures; his hands are usually clasped or folded. I imagine him studying very carefully what he believes to be the way a âProfessor of Somethingâ might gesture. And in his Tempo, his attempt be slow , to stay within the âsane-nessâ of everyone elseâ¦rarely does he allow himself to live in Fast, that might show panic and instill doubt, in some way. So here we have one of the great conspiracy theorists of the new millennium denying in perfect Glenn Beck fashion that he is definitely not one of the new millenniumâs great conspiracy theorists, by way of giving us an example from one the new millenniumâs great conspiracy theorists. It is a perfect storm and one that is a clear by product of our own doing. Remember, Beck wouldnât be well-known in the first place if people didnât tune him in. It is up to us who remains famous and who doesnât. That never happens by accident. Just ask Kim Kardashian, who by the way considers herself to be one of the great business woman of the 21st century, and resents being called a âfamous prostituteâ.
Because those are two completely different things. For her.