The neat thing about movie rolls staring method actors is we know their motivations and reasons for their dramatic transformations to play a character. They are acting to extremes to portray or dramatize a role. A troubling trend today is when news people, columnists, and hosts of opinion shows offer the public a persona of truth, but they turn out to be method actors, and worse yet, their motivations are obscured.
Audiences love when actors take on the challenge of becoming the persona they play on screen. This is method acting; if done right, it can earn an actor or actress an Oscar. In researching this column, I used The Hollywood Reporter to help explain the award-friendly technique. “Dating back to 1980 when Robert De Niro bulked up 60 pounds to play boxer Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, decades of Oscar-nominated and -winning roles have belonged to actors who have physically transformed themselves onscreen.” You will recognize the names of other method actors who do everything in their power to embody their onscreen roles: Tom Hanks, Hillary Swank, Matthew McConaughey, Daniel Day-Lewis, Charlize Theron, and Heath Ledger, to name a few.
The recent Dominion Voting Systems and Fox Network settlement is a case of method acting disguised as news. Although to acknowledge this goes on at more than Fox, you could highlight more left-leaning journalists or opinion hosts who also could be acting. The difference is that through the discovery process in preparation for trial, we learned with certainty that some Fox hosts are method actors. Because the case came so close to the trial, we knew from depositions quoted in court documents that despite what was said on camera, several Fox hosts were method-acting for our benefit – but the motivations were unclear. It left viewers feeling a sense of betrayal.
Why do we believe people whom we don’t personally know? We are conditioned to think that people in roles of authority are trustworthy and mean what they say. The Dominion v Fox Network case lifts that curtain of perception. Behind which are just well-paid method actors making money for themselves and their network, and the magic is lost.
How can we better proceed? Watching, listening, and reading with more objectivity is a place to start. Pausing to think about someone’s motivations for taking a position is also very healthy for reinforcing a sense of detachment. Objectivity separates us from other nations and societies where people have no alternative but to entirely accept whatever they are told. I lived in China; the Chinese Government made an enormous effort to woo foreign investors in the early 2000s by creating a veneer of economic freedom. But right below the surface remained an authoritarian government that told its citizens through almost every aspect of life what to believe.
We all have the luxury of objectivity here in the United States. Now that we know method actors can pose as journalists, don’t be fooled. Accepting this point might help us realize that we have a choice to think for ourselves while still watching and reading but with a small barrier between what is said and what we totally believe.
