Too Many Personalities, Not Enough Hats: A Look at the Relationship Between the Social Actor and Docudrama

Grace L Freeze

Introduction to Documentary

Joanne Klein

May 4, 2005

Recently, I was asked to take part in a documentary in which women were interviewed about the way they perceive their bodies. Without hesitation I agreed, “Finally a moment in the spotlight” I thought. For days afterward I wondered what kinds of questions I would be asked, and I thought of a million responses. Each response catered to a certain persona. I imagined myself as this wild romantic woman talking about my perfect form in some low sultry voice. There was that nightmarish thought that I would breakdown and unleash my painful past with only the lens as comfort. And perhaps the worst of all that I would be made to talk about how my body affects my relationship with people, and I would have to come clean about all my insecurities. When the day of the interview finally arrived I took great pains to find a sexy top, put on flawless make-up, and to make my hair appear smooth. I knew that if I dressed sexy I would feel sexy and therefore people would perceive me as such.

The time had come for me to face the camera. Somewhere out there I was speaking to people about myself yet I went to such lengths to hide all those weird things I think and do. I wondered if others felt the same way I did about performing myself. I also questioned why I was so afraid to play myself, I had played countless roles, and this, by far, was the most difficult. It occurred to me that we have numerous identities each incredibly conditional, and increasingly unstable. I was not denying any parts of myself I was just unsure as to who everyone wanted me to be. Without the audience present I found myself trying to judge my performance through the various eyes of the passive voyeur, coming from innumerable experiences and thoughts. I was just trying to please every them and every me.

. The question of identity first entered documentary film through the feminist movement. Given the radical anti war climate, civil rights battles, and post Stonewall gay liberation marches the country was ready to question their current political structures. One of Marx’s suggestions on the subject of unification for revolution is identification. When people are able to identify themselves with qualities in another person they will view their own position in society more clearly, and will rise to end their current injustices. The engendered hierarchal status stressed that a woman bare the attributes that society laid out for her. It became increasingly obvious that people come from such a broad range that it is impossible to identify themselves by some sort of superficial attribute. The woman’s movement presented the world with four strong identifications: race, class, sexuality, and gender. Theorists soon found that people did not fit so cleanly into these categories either. For example, feminist theorist Cherrie Moraga identifies herself with her Hispanic heritage, her “femaleness”, her sexuality, her religious beliefs etc. To ask her to identify herself with just one of these categories would be asking her to deny that the other parts of her do exist.

The subject of identity has become a major issue for the docudrama filmmaker because every social actor has many “personalities” or identifications. It is the job of the social actor to communicate a personally acceptable image to the absent audience. The way that the subject chooses to present themselves on screen can be compared to a role that one plays in society. People are constantly adjusting to their environments and its ever changing conditions in an attempt to present a stable identity to the world. They make minor adjustments to their recollections so that they might seem more important or functional in the master narrative. One of the most obvious examples of the social actor adjusting their story to create self importance would be the bartender in “The Laramie Project.” In his interviews he seems to be trying to make sense of the whole situation. Remembering where the boys sat, recalling their plotful trip to the bathroom, and deciding that he (the bartender) has a gut feeling something wrong was happening. He attempts to portray himself as the “hero” type. Always looking for a damsel in distress, and instinctively knowing who needs to be saved.

The actor playing the social actor must portray to the audience a person acting out themselves. As the actor prepares to portray the multi- dimensional social actor the subject already begins to lose aspects of their personality. From the moment of reception we are taught to read and see things through the eyes created for us by society. We view and judge based on the experiences that have led us to that point so as the documentarian actor studies the social actor they are immediately applying their own background and life experience to the performance of this person. The way that they are taught to view the subject’s personality type subconsciously dictates the way in which the subject is going to be played. The documentarian’s background will also determine what parts of the speech should be edited and what parts completely rejected.

In Anna Deavere Smith’s “Fires In the Mirror” each subject was interviewed about a current national problem (“Twilight: Los Angeles” was about the brutal abuse of Rodney King, for example). Smith taped the interviews, and began studying each person. She paid close attention to movement, voice, and mannerisms. She was able to capture a certain part of the subject and recreate that for an audience. Smith’s performance can transcend the boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, and class. She proves that identity is a performative function, but that leaves her position as documentarian very troubled.

As in documentary film the subject’s personality is at the mercy of the filmmaker. I would argue that the subjects’ identity is endangered more by docudrama than film. The identity of the subject becomes completely reliant on the actor’s portrayal of that person therefore the audiences’ perception of the “character” will be based in part on the filmmaker’s perception. The gaze can not be manipulated through fancy angles, but through theatrical effects the subject can be completely altered. Because the audience does not view the interviews they assume that what is being presented to them is an accurate portrayal of the subject. Many of these plays have a transcript and can be recreated in different venues at different times. This becomes even more threatening to the social actor’s identity as the new company rarely views the interviews before attempting to portray the social actor. By the time the docudrama reaches this point the performance does not resemble any form of the subject’s actual personality. What survives is their words on a page to be read, and explored in any direction. The social actor’s actual identity becomes obscure, and completely subject to a random actor. Basically, the social actor becomes like a fictional character, completely subject to the imagination.

As I recall my perception of the bartender in “The Laramie Project” I realize I am remembering him as he was played in the HBO film by Joshua Jackson which I viewed before ever reading the monologues so that would dictate the way I would have heard him in my head. His entire image is subject to the way he was perceived and recreated. I imagine the bartender to be rather attractive, slightly cocky, but that is also based on my viewing of the “Dawson’s Creek” teenage heartthrob’s portrayal. Without the opportunity to view the interviews I assume what I can by what I am presented with.

Remember that age old saying “You can never have another first impression?” The social actor loses their chance to have a first impression. Once the performance of them has been repeated somewhere beyond the scope of their friends, family, and acquaintances they are forever judged according to that performance. Not only is the performance inaccurate, whether the interviews are shown or not, but it a precedent. I expect to see Joshua Jackson not some bartender in Laramie, Wyoming. This becomes indistinguishable from Hollywood fiction. You associate the actor with the character, but in this case there is no character, there survives a person. Docudrama preserves a person as they were in a single moment in time. It does not allow for growth at all. The words are fixed to the page, stuck in one moment in time, when the speaker thought and felt this way. It does not allow for change.

Theatre has long been a place where people could deliver a certain political message or idea. It could be argued that theatre’s function is to teach, motivate, and communicate to the masses. Many times theatre is more appropriate than film to argue these points because the audience is present with you in that moment in that space unified. However, docudrama attempts to recreate something or someone organically who, given the levels of personality can not be reinvented. The social actor becomes a present being in the venue, but in name only. It seems that there is a sort of slander here, or defamation of character.

I thought after my interview about what it would be like to have these people playing me. What part of me would they feed on to drive their performance? Would I become a comedic role, the overweight female archetype that is the eternal friend, but just not pretty enough to be a leading lady? I wondered if my friends could act me more accurately because they have been subject to all my personalities. Then again I think even their portrayal of me becomes troubling, an affront on who I have chosen to present to the world as “me.” They would be acting an already enacted being, giving life to someone already living, and perpetuating an image that is as unstable as the categories created for identification. The category of identity is loaded with jumbled juxtapositions therefore it is nearly impossible to portray a person. We simply possess too many personalities and not enough hats.