I've been the US my entire life, and still don't get what is so interesting about actors. Seems like people to not be trusted. Liars and deceivers. Hence, I rarely watch TV or movies. Precious few programs that I enjoy. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see how they think people should act and respond...

I just don't get the "schizophrenic" obsession with people who can put on different personalities and entertain people. — Wallows

Doesn't society require us to "act" all the time. I have to maintain a certain limited persona in front of my boss or else risk the likelihood of being fired. Here we have to play at being a philosopher, if we are not sufficiently educated as to know what a "proper response" entails and what kinds of questions are permitted or not. If I start dressing as a clown for work interactions, maybe no one will care... but I'm not going to do that empirical test, even though I day dream about it now and then.

Every domain presents a range of options for persona alteration.

Think about the way you might talk to your mother is entirely different from the way you might talk to your friend or anyone else for that matter. This could be viewed as compartmentalization of personas, that you want your "character" to be perceived properly with regard to others by intent.

"All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players..."

Beginning to some part of As you Like It by William Shakespeare.

Doesn't society require us to "act" all the time. — Nils Loc

Well, this depends on where you live. In Europe (Poland specifically), there was no real obsession with actors or movie stars. Here in the States, the obsession is surreal. People are obsessed with tabloids, gossip, and the lives of other people rather than their own.

I've tried to understand this psychologically; and can only surmise that people love escapism, cults of personality, and such. What drives this is the point in question in this thread.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Seems like people to not be trusted. Liars and deceivers. — Waya

No, that would be lawyers/politicians/marketers/lobbyists/PR pros. Actors are as benign as the rest of us creative artists. And as people in general.

(I don't watch TV or movies either, but not out of a disrespect for what actors do. I just can't spare the endorphins.)

I have this cognitive dissonance in my head. People demand that I act a certain way at work, school, college, and anywhere where you are paid to perform some duty or role. Acting out behaviors seems prelinguistic in terms of children watching some behavior and emulating it.

I understand all this; but, the degree to which this is performed, at least here in the US, is absurd. It's like nobody is comfortable in their own skin and needs to hop around and perform some superficial dance/show/entertainment for other people to feel respected.

@unenlightened, dear Sir, what's your take on this caricature of human behavior that is "acting"?

Logically, you might say you get no enjoyment out of watching people act out characters, and that sounds reasonable on the surface. But seeing as TV doesn't work on the basis of logic or reason but plugs straight into the emotional (and lower) centres of the brain, there seems something disingenuous about the criticism. Anyhow, my criticism of TV would not be that it's not enjoyable, but that it's too enjoyable. And it lives life for you, so you don't have to. It processes imaginative possibilities in a way that tends to ossify them. Or something along those lines.

...but, the degree to which this is performed, at least here in the US, is absurd. It's like nobody is comfortable in their own skin and needs to hop around and perform some superficial dance/show/entertainment for other people to feel respected. — Wallows

Not just the USA. And it's funny because it's like we're not doing it for each other (because we're not taken in by each other's acts), and therefore it's not really about gaining each other's respect (if we realize others are no more taken in by it all than us then they most likely disrespect us when we do it as much as we disrespect them when they do it), but it 's all for something in the air that we pretend not to believe in but can't help believing in. Because that's just the way we live now and we don't see any other options.

Put it another way, I think there's pressure on people not to reveal themselves because they fear what will happen when they do. And they fear it because it's an unknown, and it's an unknown because people like them don't tend to reveal themselves because... (repeat ad infinitum).

And eventually we all become actors who forget that they're acting.

Because that's just the way we live now and we don't see any other options. — Baden

You mean by this to assert that there are no more options than (not) participating in spectacle and charade that one must imbue themselves in society. There seems to be a deterrent implicit in all this. Namely, if you don't play the games that people play in acting out displays of confidence, postering, and the so-called "fake it until you make it" motto in the US, then you are limited to either becoming a bum and doing away with all fancies and routines that other people would demand of you, or simply moving to some society less absorbed with the all-important term in all this, being "confidence".

To the person who doesn't want to become a cog in the drama of life, there are few alternatives available. One of which is to show a degree of even greater confidence in banishing the wants and needs of other people (people appeasement) and create your own values. Many people have tried this, notably the American Transcendentalists.

Personally, I've situated myself to not have to deal with these charades at work, which I have experienced, and instead, work from home or try and find a way to not deal with this vacuous appeasement. I've worked for 7 years in customer service, and you come out of the whole experience quite unhappy. I hate this prostitutalization of my moral character. I suspect I will move onto dealing with people online, as that bypasses the need to emphatically show with mannerisms and communication what a stooge you are.

But, that's not the only issue. People use this, knowing that the customer is almost always right (which they aren't, actually, and can create fictitious and mundane complaints about their own personal satisfaction. I envy those who can put up with this character prostitutionalization in front of some Jimbo who just wants to see the other person lick his or her ass.

I guess I laid out the game theoretic undertones in customer satisfaction and their demanding nature enshrined in say to say business.

What to do?

Now, not to grossly overgeneralize. There are nice customers that show genuine interest in how you are doing.

But, the limiting factor in all this is that there is a greater satisfaction for some poor bastard at work to try and appease the customer. I have noticed this most prominently from elderly women, who feel quite entitled to make sure that you have done everything in your power to satisfy their demands.

Now, the issue with demands is that it never seems to be enough. Customers whine and bitch if a product in unavailable, and even threaten to go to some other store to see if they can get what they want.

This introduces a paradoxical situation, where the customer is not really that interested in the product they are searching; but, the interaction with the manager or employee to apologize and offer a tone of appeasement to remedy the issue.

Now, this is the part I can't stand. When someone comes to a store (gardening in my case) and demands that they have a product delivered that isn't in the store; but, at another branch. The resulting outcome from this butthurt feeling of not getting what she or he wants gives off an unpleasant dissonance over the whole interaction.

Put simply people are needy and meanspirited when they don't get what they want.

I can go on; but, I already laid out the basics of the whole schtick.

One prominent feature of the US that surprises me is the fascination with people who act out different characters on television and the movies. I don't know how to describe the fascination with actors. Why do people love seeing their favorite actor on television play out a cop or evil villain, or some such person on camera? — Wallows

I think what an actor is may have gone astray over the years. Actors play a part written by the playwright, who has a desire to express something through characters he creates, or through his understanding of a character. Those sort of actors invest a lot in developing those characters for the stage or screen. Sometimes they may even be psychologically affected by the process.

What you might be referring to is “Celebrity”, which has subtly taken its place. This has nothing to do with acting. Though all countries seem to have taken it up it seems to me that it’s originally an American phenomenon.

it seems to me that it’s originally an American phenomenon. — Brett

Are you trying to tell us that before America there were no celebrities? There have been celebrity singers, the heart throb actors, popular whores, the public's favorite gladiator, and so forth since the get go. What happened in in the 1920s up to the present is that the big movie / radio / television stars could parade their careers in print and electronic media, and not just here, but in Europe, Asia, and South America.

Look @Wallows, you are of course wrong to confuse customer service with prostitution. It's management's job to figure out how the customer will get fucked. Management is the Great Whore of Babylon, not the worms in customer service. Your job is to clean up afterwards. It's dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

What made your job difficult is that you weren't allowed to say, "Of course ma'am, this washing machine is a total piece of shit. You should know at your age that it's a bad idea to buy capital goods at K-Mart's Scratch & Dent, Remainders, and Clearance Warehouse. Did you somehow think you had walked into Macys, or something? And no, we're not taking it back. You see that big blinking red sign over the door that says "NO RETURNS! NO REFUNDS! -- EVER"? Now get off our property before we call the police.

Okay, maybe it’s not an American phenomen. What about the rest of my post, then? I don’t understand this response of jumping on a word or sentence that’s not the subject itself. The American comment is really an aside. The crux of the post is celebrities replacing actors in my response to Wallows post about actors.

I probably should have said that celebrity attained its perfect form in America.

My apologies for seizing on 1 word and running with it. Bad practice on my part. I'll slap myself around as punishment.

It's just that I don't think today's American celebrity culture is anything very new and I don't see a bold line between celebrity and acting. Over the years a lot of actors and actresses became famous because they were just really good at their work -- and incidentally became celebrities. But they weren't brainless manikins of the sort that show up on BrainDead TV shows.

What I do agree with is that there seem to be quite a few fairly attractive bodies-without-brains who have become famous for being famous without ever having done anything particularly remarkable. Aren't the Kardashians an example of that? But this isn't entirely new either -- people have lusted after fame (achieved by hook or crook) for a long time, whether there was anything fame-worthy about them or not.

What to do? — Wallows

I think you've got the most important part covered, which is don't get a job, make a job. As in view the concept of work differently, i.e. from a self-development angle, rather than a conformist one.

Do you dislike novels/fiction, too?

Also, I'm curious whether you like any forms of art or entertainment.

No, that would be lawyers/politicians/marketers/lobbyists/PR pros. Actors are as benign as the rest of us creative artists. And as people in general. — Baden

How many major actors are there that are not involved in politics? Perhaps it is a stereotype to assume that actors are generally involved politically and strongly influence the culture.

Foe very major actor, there are a thousand minor ones. And for every major actor actively involved in politics, there are probably a dozen who aren't. I guess the ones that hog the political limelight give the rest a bad name (supposing they do so in a negative way).

My sister's an actor (though not major and not involved in politics), so I readily admit to a possible bias in their favour here!

I think acting requires a lot of intelligence. It requires thinking in counterfactuals and requires a level of emotional intelligence in that a good actor will convincingly put herself in the shoes of the character. I think good acting is one of the most difficult skills in all professions. Unfortunately there is a lot of bad acting on screen.