There's Always Helping

Commercials weird me out. And I'm not talking purely about the socio-economic trend catch puke element. Though--for sure--that's totally upsetting too. Often what scares me is the journeymen actors they utilize. You see these nameless and yet totally recognizable people in several scenarios and environments. There's that guy who fills the "I'm a somewhat emasculated middle-class father but I'm also African-American" role. There's the scamp white guy with usually kind of spiky dirty blond hair. The capricious brunette with the silky if somewhat nervous voice. I'm not talking about niche tropes--I'm talking about type-casting. These people always play the same role with zero glamor justifying it. Sometimes I find myself excited to see the same actor in a different commercial. There's this anonymous dependability in it. They have no ethos--these actors. There's no branding and they're really just tradesmen. I don't know if they all hang out with each other--if certain career commercial actors have complicated above ground relationships they shoulder for professionalism regardless of the outcome. I don't know what list of celebrity they're on--if they go to award shows. I don't know if they have bigger aspirations. I guess I just feel like it's honest. Let's be real here--no one reading this really respects acting as an art form on the same level as say--poetry or cello playing. Something so purely ego-driven and predicated on falsehood is ugly to those of us who fare the ocean of abstract profundity. And so these people are just people. Playing the person they really aren't but embody so well. And I guess these roles that these people play seem really hard and really contemporary and true to form. How does that one lady play someone who's so obviously befuddled by everything and yet finally satisfied by figuring out what she wants so well. Every time. Regardless of whether the product is at a party or an insurance office or an artificial endless white plane. And I recognize her and yet go into the commercial thinking "man--she never has any idea what she wants! Uggghhh." But I recognize her because every time I see her she figures out what she wants and its a really big deal to her. Whether that be toothpaste or Becks. Tabula Rasa is hard to cultivate in me but these actors do it. Albeit for a dollar. But they get results goddammit. Which is not to say that I brush my teeth or drink beer. You'd have to live with me to know those things. But I guess I respect them for doing their thing. At least partially.

Subbuz