June Renew: Day Two
Hoodlum Heart Attack
There’s an unusual theme park in Sussex County, New Jersey called Wild West City. It’s a little slice of frontier times in farm country, giving you a chance to live like a cowboy, if only for an afternoon. I’ve only been once. I was seven or eight, I think. My mom had signed me up for some kind of summer program where kids across the school district gathered to be distracted during the day. And one of those distractions included a trip to Wild West City.
I don’t remember too much from it. I did pan for ‘gold’ that I thought was pretty cool. I really felt like I was back in western times for a little bit. And then we went on the train ride. We were going along around the park when suddenly the train stopped and a masked bandit came out from the bushes. It was a stick-up! I was so frightened, I instantly burst into tears. The counselor who I was sitting next to told me to play along and put my hands up. I reluctantly did so, really feeling like I was in danger. But in order to assuage my terror, the counselor then told me, “Don’t worry, he’s an actor. He’s going to go home after he’s done with us.”
Stagecoach Stage Acting
It was really the first time I had grasped the concept of actors. My dad had been saying all my life about how the entertainment industry is fake, but this something I got to see first-hand. That guy was just acting like an bandit, he wasn’t actually one, as far as anyone knew. I started looking at movies and TV shows differently after that, realizing all I was seeing on screen was a production, not a reality. And as I’ve gotten older, that scope has zoomed out to include all people in the public eye being part of this community of outlaws who are simply putting on a show.
The performative nature of those in power right now, or at least who have name recognition, is beginning to be something I no longer wish to consume. Whether it was Trump speaking before and after his show trial or Biden making up another story about his family to appeal to voters, I’m tired of it. Showmanship is the only thing that seems to garner headlines, and until I’m in a position where I don’t have to interact with it, this is what I’m seemingly forced to watch: a bunch of boring buckaroos acting like they actually care.
Desperate Desperados
It’s hard to imagine a world where people in our purview are genuine by nature, but as long as we have the media covering all angles of news, they’re going to circle the wagons on the best performance out there. We’ll watch the actor at work, making promises and pledges to the people, and then they all go home. And it’s up to us to figure out if it was all an act, or an act of showmanship to wrangle the masses.
As long as I participate in this democratic process, I can live with someone being ‘extra’ for the cameras, as long as they prove to be working for me and my fellow Americans. I won’t stand for a disingenuous act yielding no results and further division. It’s time to (metaphorically) tar and feather those renegades who’ve betrayed the public and made out like bandits. Let the stage remain reserved for those whose performance comes from the heart, not a career criminal whose home on the range comes from below the depths. Saddle up and lasso the crooks right out of Dodge. Yee haw.
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