beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2008-07-07 09:27 pm
beccaelizabeth) wrote2008-07-07 09:27 pm
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Also: John Barrowman's acting, or to be more precise Captain Jack's theatricality
It seems like I keep bumping into reviews that think John Barrowman is too musical theatre.
There's this standard little paragraph that goes in about how there's a major difference between stage acting and television acting and things have to be unlearned and relearned and blah blah blah and somebody mentions camp and over the top and it all goes downhill and I stop reading.
I don't want to talk about JB. I like his acting. But just saying that isn't going to change anyone's mind.
What's a more interesting question though is: Why is Captain Jack theatrical?
No, ignore the this-world reasons. That's like saying 10 is bouncier than 9 because DT is. Boring. You get no character mileage out of it and it doesn't do much to inform writing.
Why would Captain Jack Harkness develop those mannerisms and means of communicating that seem to irritate some people?
They're theatrical, meaning they're big gestures, meant to be seen and understood from far away. Lots of head tilts and communicating with your chin. Big body language. And what's he doing with personal space and how far away he stands? And when he wants to talk to someone on the other side of the Hub does he tap his earpiece or raise his voice?
Jack spent a century in contexts where mobile communication just wasn't practical yet. Maybe soldiers with big backpacks could communicate with other groups of soldiers, but within that group there's a lot of yelling going on. And calling that theatrical brings up some amusing images, but it's a context where you need a communication style based on big gestures communicating clearly from far away. And the chin communication thing, whole head gestures instead of just facial expressions, that's partly distance again, but it also reminds me of bikers, in my small tiny subset of observations there. Bikers wear helmets and have their hands full a lot. So what my friend the biker told me, and what my observations seemed to support, is that bikers will do the throat flash to say hello way more naturally than they'll wave, and in general their gestures are the sort that are amplified by the helmet rather than cancelled out by the mask. Body language is shaped by habitual equipment. So does Jack wave? Does he keep his hands more gun adjacent and use big gestures elsewhere? When the gun does come out are you in any doubt who it's pointing at? It's big, it's clear, it's communicating within a set of constraints he's been living with for years. Not the close quiet office, the wide and wild battlefield.
Then there's the layer that people feel means Trying Too Hard. Theatrical in the sense of slightly fake, like you can see the facepaint. I don't agree. But. Why would Captain Jack Harkness seem slightly fake? Little bit oily in his first appearance, yesno? Tiny bit much? Like he's playing at being himself? Oh, wait, he is.
His identity is consciously constructed in a way that reminds me more of teenagers. That sounds bad. I mean, subculture teenagers choose a group and get the look and learn the mannerisms and fit in that way around. Yes? And moving to a new group means starting the process over again? And they always seem like they're trying too hard. Sorry to anyone with -teen in their age. I won't claim I'm any better from my lofty heights of, er, 29 again, but if you want to see New And Awkward en masse, teenagers are it. But moving into a new fandom can do the same thing. New costumes, new words, new parameters on normal. Same, I suspect, with moving to a new country, only more so. And, um, same with being an Aspie all the time, but I long since gave up and decided to design myself without regard to normal. Wear what I'm comfortable with, realise I'm going to stand out, decide if I'm going to do it anyway I might as well go all the way. Last time I really needed to meditate and there was no quiet corner for it I chose somewhere to sit that made a good visual, right in the middle of a display. Not to get in the way of people, just, if I've got to be odd, I'll do it with some style, you know?
... Guess what I think Jack is doing.
He had to make up his identity, and there's subtleties he's seen but never quite understood, and it keeps changing anyway, so...
And then there's the gestures. Body language has some aspects in common among most humans, but it's very local in other respects. Even Americans vs British have noticeable differences in body language. And body language, as most NTs forget but Aspies have to notice, is a learned behaviour just as much as spoken language is. Jack is speaking Earth-English as a foreign body language.
If you look at the acting, at what can be perceived as flaws, as instead a set of symbols attached to this symbol-set called Captain Jack Harkness then you can extrapolate aspects of character from it that then give you ways in, things to identify with or contrast with, layers to the character. And that, to me, is way more fun.
There's this standard little paragraph that goes in about how there's a major difference between stage acting and television acting and things have to be unlearned and relearned and blah blah blah and somebody mentions camp and over the top and it all goes downhill and I stop reading.
I don't want to talk about JB. I like his acting. But just saying that isn't going to change anyone's mind.
What's a more interesting question though is: Why is Captain Jack theatrical?
No, ignore the this-world reasons. That's like saying 10 is bouncier than 9 because DT is. Boring. You get no character mileage out of it and it doesn't do much to inform writing.
Why would Captain Jack Harkness develop those mannerisms and means of communicating that seem to irritate some people?
They're theatrical, meaning they're big gestures, meant to be seen and understood from far away. Lots of head tilts and communicating with your chin. Big body language. And what's he doing with personal space and how far away he stands? And when he wants to talk to someone on the other side of the Hub does he tap his earpiece or raise his voice?
Jack spent a century in contexts where mobile communication just wasn't practical yet. Maybe soldiers with big backpacks could communicate with other groups of soldiers, but within that group there's a lot of yelling going on. And calling that theatrical brings up some amusing images, but it's a context where you need a communication style based on big gestures communicating clearly from far away. And the chin communication thing, whole head gestures instead of just facial expressions, that's partly distance again, but it also reminds me of bikers, in my small tiny subset of observations there. Bikers wear helmets and have their hands full a lot. So what my friend the biker told me, and what my observations seemed to support, is that bikers will do the throat flash to say hello way more naturally than they'll wave, and in general their gestures are the sort that are amplified by the helmet rather than cancelled out by the mask. Body language is shaped by habitual equipment. So does Jack wave? Does he keep his hands more gun adjacent and use big gestures elsewhere? When the gun does come out are you in any doubt who it's pointing at? It's big, it's clear, it's communicating within a set of constraints he's been living with for years. Not the close quiet office, the wide and wild battlefield.
Then there's the layer that people feel means Trying Too Hard. Theatrical in the sense of slightly fake, like you can see the facepaint. I don't agree. But. Why would Captain Jack Harkness seem slightly fake? Little bit oily in his first appearance, yesno? Tiny bit much? Like he's playing at being himself? Oh, wait, he is.
His identity is consciously constructed in a way that reminds me more of teenagers. That sounds bad. I mean, subculture teenagers choose a group and get the look and learn the mannerisms and fit in that way around. Yes? And moving to a new group means starting the process over again? And they always seem like they're trying too hard. Sorry to anyone with -teen in their age. I won't claim I'm any better from my lofty heights of, er, 29 again, but if you want to see New And Awkward en masse, teenagers are it. But moving into a new fandom can do the same thing. New costumes, new words, new parameters on normal. Same, I suspect, with moving to a new country, only more so. And, um, same with being an Aspie all the time, but I long since gave up and decided to design myself without regard to normal. Wear what I'm comfortable with, realise I'm going to stand out, decide if I'm going to do it anyway I might as well go all the way. Last time I really needed to meditate and there was no quiet corner for it I chose somewhere to sit that made a good visual, right in the middle of a display. Not to get in the way of people, just, if I've got to be odd, I'll do it with some style, you know?
... Guess what I think Jack is doing.
He had to make up his identity, and there's subtleties he's seen but never quite understood, and it keeps changing anyway, so...
And then there's the gestures. Body language has some aspects in common among most humans, but it's very local in other respects. Even Americans vs British have noticeable differences in body language. And body language, as most NTs forget but Aspies have to notice, is a learned behaviour just as much as spoken language is. Jack is speaking Earth-English as a foreign body language.
If you look at the acting, at what can be perceived as flaws, as instead a set of symbols attached to this symbol-set called Captain Jack Harkness then you can extrapolate aspects of character from it that then give you ways in, things to identify with or contrast with, layers to the character. And that, to me, is way more fun.