Thoughts on the concept of "Realness"

[Q3]

This thread is for a discussion of the concept of REALNESS.



REALNESS...
by mszue

Adam has adopted the theme of 'REALNESS' to define his new album TRESPASSING along with his self-presentation to his public. This thread is meant to focus on what that might mean and how we asses 'realness' in both the public and the private sphere.

[LindaG23]

We "asses" here love that you are so spelling challenged. LOL.

[mszue]

Much of my academic research interests started off with my questioning of the concepts of identity and authenticity...or as Adam would put it...REALNESS. This quickly led to Erving Goffman, self-presentation, and impression management. So Q3 has kindly allowed me to try and get a conversation started around these notions as they pertain to Adam and particularly, his second 'era' claims to REALNESS. I will start things off with a short essay on impression management and why it is such a fundamental part of our lives.

When we interact with others we have no choice but to react to the impression we have of them, and they of us...there is no other basis. Physical appearance [as well as gestures, ways of speaking, etc.] has a profound effect on the impressions we make and the inferences we make of others and they, of us. In fact, vast amounts of money and time are invested in attending to one’s appearance. We know we are profoundly affected by the way we are treated and 'seen' by others.

Erving Goffman claims in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, that it is in the individual’s best interest to control the response of others to him or her by controlling the way he or she appears to others. He named these attempts to control the way we appear “impression management.” We can have a certain level of control over others because people need to know how to act toward “us' in order to elicit favorable responses from us, in turn.

Goffman uses the term ‘sign-vehicles’ for things like clothing, hair, wrinkles on the skin, vocal tone, accent, gestures...because we use these to make our judgments about who and what we are dealing with. Because we cannot possibly be completely certain about every “claim” that is made by these sign-vehicles, they take on what he calls "a promissory character". That is, there is a 'promise' that the inferences given have some verifiability or truth-value of a sort. In other words, if you look like a boy, you are one. If you look like a girl, that is what you are.

It is especially critical that participants enjoy a shared recognition of the characters or types of each participant, and that each prop in the setting integrates into a single definition of the situation. This single, unitary definition of the ‘situation’ is referred to by Goffman, as, a “working consensus” and is a state that must be sustained through out the encounter. Because the working consensus relies on the particular signs shown by, and the claims made by the individuals regarding who they ‘really are’ and what is ‘really going on,’ the encounter is fragile. It is fragile because of the possibility that contradictory and discrediting appearances may emerge within the encounter that challenge the status quo of the working consensus. It is this very fragility—this possibility that we could ‘be wrong’ about a person—that they may not ‘get’ us, that pushes us to hone our presentational skills. When people have very strict assumptions about sexual and gender identity appropriateness, it is easy to see why Adam's gender ambiguity unsettles them...they simply do not know how to behave!! I am not talking of homophobia here, just noting that the insecurity of many re how to behave in the face of such ambiguity can be unsettling and why.

Some of that 'why' is because we also sense that the way a performer presents him or her self is a form of moral claim upon others—that he or she deserves to be treated as presented and a right to be offended when not so treated. To return to the mv, one of the difficulties of dealing with the sort of 'duality' Adam is showing in his video is that when one makes particular identity 'claims' one is also implicitly forgoing claims to be anything other than what he claims to be...which includes the treatment that would be appropriate for that other 'kind' of person. Audiences become collaborators when they accept the actor’s identity premises and claims...that is, the 'performance' of sexy is only sexy if recognized by others.

We need to use impression management to maintain social order. We quite simply have to know how to treat others quickly and effectively so, in our social world, first impressions are critical and must be carefully managed. Much of the literature on impression management centers its claims on the sense that private and public selves are different; that the private self is the sincere “real” self and the public self is manipulative and a deceiver. Self-presentation, or impression-management, has often been examined with the presumption that presentations were frequently instrumental and manipulative. I think a lot of what Adam is trying to show in his video is that this is not the case and I agree.

Efrat Tseelon solves this notion of a 'manipulative' inner 'real' self by suggesting that each of us "has a repertoire of ‘faces’ each activated in front of a different audience, for the purpose of creating and maintaining a given definition of the situation." Our repertoire of faces is contingent on region—front and centre, or relaxed, back-stage, and audience—lover, family, fan or foe. In other words, we act differently in different situations and with different people because that is the appropriate thing to do and way to be. We do not act the same at a funeral and a wedding; we do not dress or behave the same because would be roundly criticized if we did and others would be rapidly trying to figure out why we seemed so odd or inappropriate. All our faces are ‘managed’ to emphasize and dramatize our appropriate qualities and conceal or minimize irrelevant information to the situation. This presentation is not a ‘tool’ or a means to an end. It is the end itself. A modest—or a friendly-- self-presentation is no more necessarily fake, or genuine, than any other.

We ARE both and all our faces, we just learn when and how to highlight the different nuances of our self at different times and in different places. For me, this is the resolution Adam made explicit in his 'coming together' at the end of his BTIKM video. For me...neither the light nor the dark is more REAL than the other....and also, that there are a whole lot of Adam's and us residing withint that light--dark continium. The difficulty comes in when we feel it is necessary to label one the authentic self...or the REAL one....as that implies the others are fake.

What do you think? Do we just see a fake Adam? Is this new, toned-down Adam more REAL than the glamtastic one? If he went back to a more flamboyant persona will we feel 'played'? Is it only performers that can show this multiplicity? How do/would you feel if and when we see pictures of Adam out and about looking really feminine?...right now we see the cross-dressing pictures of Adam as artifacts of a youthful, exploring past.

[mszue]

Feb 5, 2012 17:31:59 GMT -5 LindaG23 said:

We "asses" here love that you are so spelling challenged. LOL.

As an old BF of mine, many years ago, would have reacted....shit, bugger, damn, bastard, poop!!! good grief....sigh.....that was my mistake...mszue...not Q3's...

[juniemoon]

I have to watch the Super Bowl tonight but Jeez, cannot wait to dive into this thread and have an unfolding discussion ... back tomorrow .... ! I love this kind of stuff.

[LindaG23]

Feb 5, 2012 17:48:41 GMT -5 mszue said:

Feb 5, 2012 17:31:59 GMT -5 LindaG23 said:

We "asses" here love that you are so spelling challenged. LOL.

As an old BF of mine, many years ago, would have reacted....shit, bugger, damn, bastard, poop!!! good grief....sigh.....that was my mistake...mszue...not Q3's...

Well, I love the topic so carry on. I am sure Q3 would be laughing too. Waiting to assess results.

[mszue]

Yay...so happy to see you here Lindag23 and juniemoon. I love all this stuff too...

My interest in self presentation moved from generalized study to looking at how impression management became studied in the workplace as Emotional labour. While I was looking at it from an interpersonal service perspective [hairdressers work], I have been consistently struck with how pertinent to Adam's life and the trials and tribulations he has faced because of his image in the media.

What I would really like to do is interview him on some of these issues...and not just so I could 'breathe the same air'!! haha....I can tell you do not believe me...

I will post again shortly describing emotional labour...tho you will quickly recognize the concept. hugs

[rihannsu]

Adam is to me a chameleon in that his core self is stable and constant yet his outer self adapts to his environment and situation. This is a high level social skill. The chameleon is able to still present as authentic because what they do is not about pretending to be something they are not but rather about accentuating those qualities that resonate best with their audience.

This is something I remember Bono talking about that he felt he learned in response to his situation growing up. He lived outside of Dublin in a middle or lower middle class neighborhood but literally setting foot off the end of his street put him in an entirely different world. He talked about how just outside of his neighborhood were various rival gangs and traveling to and from school was a challenge as there were different hostile groups to navigate. Because he is a little guy he said he learned very quickly how to blend in with different groups so as not to be seen as a threat. He also learned that the best way to survive was to make a friend of the biggest guy around. The other members of the band often say that Bono is a great bunch of guys.

Adam also learned his social skills as a way of navigating threatening situations. Although his situation might not have been as violent he has talked about how making the right friends helped him get through school. Theater gave him the opportunity to be friends with the hot chicks which served as protection of sorts. This ability to "work" others is what makes networking so easy for him. I remember someone commenting after the Young Hollywood awards I think about how well he "worked the room".

Where people tend to come across as fake or inauthentic is either when they are deliberately behaving out of character or when they actually have no solid core self. People like Gokey on the other hand don't adapt their aspect to different situation but are also totally oblivious to others reactions to their inappropriateness.

[mszue]

I really like that you post about your fan stanning of Bono as I have never really known much about his music but have always thought he was a pretty impressive person.

I agree that Adam clearly has superlative social skills and that he most likely acquired a lot of them in school, avoiding the bullying and meanness that permeates the classrooms and halls of learning. I am interested though that you are assuming that there is a core solid stable being and if that is so, at what point does this stable constant self, and the outer self meet. Presenting multiple 'faces' in different contexts is a high level social skill, for sure, but when it is done as part of one's job, it takes on a more instrumental dimension, don't you think? I am going to post on emotional labour too as it is related to all this .....

Re Gokey..you are so right....he simply has poor social skills and is not very emotionally intelligent.

[mszue]

Emotional labour is a concept developed by a psychologist, Arlie Hochschild. She had read C.Wright Mills who had claimed that "When white-collar people get jobs, they sell not only their time and energy but their personalities as well. They sell by the week or month their smiles and their kindly gestures, and they must practice the prompt repression of resentment and aggression.” She was looking for a way to theorize this personality-selling as a form of labour and went to Erving Goffman's work on impression management to show that there was a conscious effort taking place.

Hochschild defined emotional labour as paid labour that requires one to either induce or suppress feelings in order to exhibit a particular proscribed 'face' in order to produce "the proper state of mind in others.” She claimed that the effort to create that 'face' often "draws on a source of self that we honor as deep and integral to our individuality.” She claims there are serious health repercussions for the worker who is forced to deny who they ‘really are’ and what ‘is really going on,’ and suggests that the emotional worker often either suffers emotional burnout from living in a constant state of emotional suppression, or feels a sense of alienation and inauthenticity.

So to bring this back to Adam and REALNESS....is our personality or identity an ontological concept [what we are]? or is it a functional concept [what we do]? or is it situational and variable as I suggested earlier? It is interesting to consider how that makes a difference when applied to Adam and his differing personas. Also...it is only considered unhealthy or negative when used for instrumental reasons...particularly in a work setting.

If we consider it an ontological concept then does that mean we can kiss our glam-god goodbye? It seems to me that if this is the case then putting on the glam really would be strictly performative and not REALLY Adam....unless of course, that dark Adam is the REAL Adam and all this natural look and behaviour is just emotional labour, designed to win over middle America.

If we look at creating images to please those around us as simply a function, does that suggest that neither the light nor the dark Adam is REAL or authentic but rather simply a serious of mindful behaviours...simulacra, as it were. Yikes! Adam where are you....

Or can we go back to that notion that Adam is a mutable, changeable soul presenting what seems like the most appropriate self for the situation at hand. This is where good social skills come in because the skill most required is the emotional intelligence to recognize the socially preferred behaviour in any given situation.

So we know Adam likes Michelle Collins [or we think he does] and so if he is 'nice' and 'pleasant' and fun while conversing/interviewing with her we get a sense it is authentic. But it is still his job....he commented on going to the Grammies alone because this was 'work'. What about when he is being interviewed by Perez? If he 'acts' just as nice with Perez or even Ryan Seacrest, is he still being just as authentic? Or is he doing emotional labour and if he is doing EL, is that somehow 'harming' some central part of his being?

Can we apply these questions to his interactions with fans?

mszue thank you that was very interesting text to read. I agree with you: there are many sides to one person. I believe that the "characters" we saw on the music video represent very closely the real different sides of Adam ~ none of them is "fake."

But I still do believe that when you act most like your true self is when you feel no need to make any impressions or try to protect yourself - and that's (imo) when you're with your close friends, family and loved ones. When there's no need to be anyone else than just yourself. I don't believe that's complitely possible with strangers; fans&media people&collegues... etc.

[juniemoon]

Mszue, before going on to read your post about emotional labor I wanted to thank you again for starting this thread and the chance to read your thoughts and those of others. We need an Adam Lambert Philosophical Society.

The remarks on impression and the social contract aspect of it ring so true. Some years ago I had the opportunity to meet a man who was then one of the top nightclub performers in Hawaii, Al Harrington. He spoke of his unhappiness when he was attending college on the mainland in the 1950s. This unhappiness stemmed from the way he was treated; namely, that because of his appearance:



people literallly did not know how to treat him. Was he white, black, Hispanic, Asian? And without knowing how to treat him, they avoided him altogether.

In relation to Adam, I agree that this played a big factor in putting people off when Adam adopted an aggressively androgynous persona on the FYE album cover. Also his look at Fantasy Springs. I can't remember the source now but I remember reading that Adam once described himself (pre-Idol) as the "son and the daughter" of one of his influences. And we have seen the photos of him in drag. All this proved to be a barrier between Adam and part of his potential audience, one he now seems intent on removing.

I think this is something of a one-way door for Adam image-wise, and that he would have a very difficult time retreating to his prior androgynous turf without alienating his fans. I have to say that when I saw Adam in concert he was much less androgynous than I expected from the impression on YouTube. I was really interested to read what Rihannsu posted about Bono. I actually did not know he was a little guy, that is how convincing his "face" was to me.

I thought a lot about Adam's faces/realness last week even before the video because of the criticism Adam was getting from some quarters of the fandom for giving up the glitter for the new album cycle. I am uncertain how much of this has to do with unease with Adam's new "face" (if he looks different is he still the same guy?) and how much has to do with other factors such as enjoyment of how Adam reflected on our own "faces." In other words, do I seem less cool if my hero looks conventional? Did I seem cooler because I liked this rulebreaker?

Faces/realness are a very emotional topic, and I think linked in deeply with Outlaws of Love as well as BTIKM. Here is something unusual about my "face": I don't have a Texas accent. In fact, I have what I am told is an unusual manner of speaking. I can't hear it myself and it is not something I want to change, even though some people seem to find it a barrier between them and me. It is part of who I am.

I think each person has things about themselves they are willing to change to conform and things that they cannot or do not wish to change. It will be interesting to see where Adam draws the line as "this far and no farther."

[Craazyforadam]

Jumping into this discussion, hope that's ok. I am not sure that I caught the beginning of this, but I read through this thread, so I am responding based on that.

I think it is both:

I think that Adam as a person encompasses a lot of typically considered different personalities all inherently in himself (ontologically and essentially so). i.e. while many of us will be leaning more masculine or more feminine, Adam has both sides.
While most of us are more gentle and introvert and others are more boisterous and extrovert, Adam has both sides to him (as the video clearly works out quite nicely)...and so on...

By covering a lot of ground when it comes to who he inherently is, he can now show himself in many different ways and still come across as genuine, because the snapshot that he shows does relate back to a certain part of his personality. Yes, he is really this flamboyant or yes, he is really such a nice humble guy.

The issue that this seems to create for Adam is twofold:

a) He cannot with one visual image represent all sides of himself, because there are too many or it is too much to cover with one look. That means, every look will only show a slice of him, but in itself that slice will be well connected to the corresponding part of the REAL Adam.

b) As he jumps around between different snapshots he creates confusion for those that don't want to invest further to understand him. He also creates confusion in those that due to their own bias do not want to see all the parts and start filtering according to their own agenda.

For the rest of us, Adam showing different sides to himself creates enormous variety and excitement and creates that ride that we are all on.

I do not believe that Adam could not go back and do glam if there were a message there he wanted to explore. I think he totally could, and one day he might. If people are only coming on board because he represents mainstream Adam and then don't learn a thing as they start following him more, then they will be gone again pretty soon, because Adam will not allow himself to be locked into one representation of himself. Adam's pursuit of 'realness' will take us all to other slices of himself and these same folks will be freaked out again, just that this time it is not the guyliner, but rather some other lifestyle choice that is a real part of himself. (i.e. today's discussion of Adam cruising for love as a possible line in one of his songs will shy those same folks away that previously ran because of the guyliner).

I think that Adam realized that showing the glam and androgynous side of himself with such strong emphasis, has distorted the discussion and been a distraction and as he now wants to focus on this getting-to-know-him part, he needs to strip it back and eliminate that distraction.

By the way, I regret to some degree, when I hear Adam say, the glam was all a mask. I think that this was certainly a piece of it, but another was that Adam was in a place where he was celebrating a break-through victory. He could finally do as he wanted, in a mainstream environment and with a mainstream audience and with a record contract in the pocket he could fly the flamboyant flag. He had earned that right. He celebrated that and he should be proud of that accomplishment. In the end he had an audience that understood him and was with him on this journey.

But every celebration has an end and Adam was looking at what he wanted to focus on next and we probably have seen only the beginning of it, but its again going to be an intense ride.

I do not see glitter and flamboyance as only a piece of the past. But I think it does not fit what for him comes now and next, so it will be gone for a while, because right now that is not his topic.

Hope this makes some sense...and looking forward to seeing many different slices of the whole ensemble, both visually in what he presents to us, as well in what is residing underneath to give it substance and authenticity.

[mszue]

I shouldn't be posting this late at night...I will probably make some more spelling faux pas....so pardon-moi right up frount!!

OT...Juniemoon...it is interesting that you talk about your unusual manner of speaking...my mother was a British war bride and we half-heartedly emigrated to England for less than a year when I was 5 years old [so started school there], but, I seemed to adopt some sort of hybrid British-tinged odd accent that has stayed with me all my life...I have had people guess me for everything, most oftem, Boston[ese] :-) Kids always telling me to "say hamburger" "say rabbit"...:-)

Sharon Bolton--a UK scholar-- created a typology for emotion management that I think makes it easier to discuss this whole concept and I have used it in my writing too... WHat she does is acknowledge that we use various strategies to manage our emotional show and we often use 2 or more simultaneously. She allows for a a far more nuanced examination, IMO.

She refers to her typology as the 4 P's of emotion management and they are:
pecuniary (emotion management according to commercial values),
prescriptive (emotion management according to organizational/ professional rules of conduct),
presentational (emotion management according to general social feeling ‘rules’)”
philanthropic (emotion management according to general social feeling ‘rules’ but with a sense of gifting...that is, going above and beyond )

I think it is interesting to consider how many of Adam's emotional and/or aesthetic choices are governed by which of these 4 P's...especially as the relate to REALNESS. What I really like about Bolton's typology is that it gives us an easier way to look at the multiplicity of our emotional strategies....all of these applies to our aesthetic choices as well...I think.

There is another concept based on the emotional labour research but dealing with appearances...called Aesthetic labour. It is germaine to some of this conversation as well. The focus of most of this research is interpersonal service work but not always. We will likely end up looking at some of this stuff too, if there is interest.

To blow my own horn...if anyone has access to academic journals, and would like to know more of this research area, I just had an article published in a special Issue dedicated to Aesthetic Labour. The title of my article is : Putting on a good face: An examination of the emotional and aesthetic roots of presentational labour in Economic and Industrial Democracy Volume 33 Issue 1, February 2012

[mszue]

I like this passage craazyforadam:

"I think that Adam realized that showing the glam and androgynous side of himself with such strong emphasis, has distorted the discussion and been a distraction and as he now wants to focus on this getting-to-know-him part, he needs to strip it back and eliminate that distraction."

I think you make a good point here....and if you look at where I defined the 4P's typology...is it fair to say he has been weighing both prescriptive and presentational management strategies to his display. But I suspect part of why you are saying next: "By the way, I regret to some degree, when I hear Adam say, the glam was all a mask." could it be that you feel like there may be a little Pecuniary strategizing here and that makes you uncomfortable???

Is there something 'wrong' about this??

:-)