Prejudice and The Actor
I believe every person has struggled with Prejudice in their life, at times they feel prejudiced while other times they are the ones who trigger it. Yesterday when I took the session on the reason actors should stay away from Prejudice I had to first talk about what it means. I choose to use the dictionary and give the participants,you, various meanings and interpretations of the word as well their synonyms. Here is what i had noted down.
Prejudice: 1) Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.
2) (law) harm or injury that results or may result from some action or judgement.
An unfair and unreasonable opinion or feeling, especially when formed without enough thought or knowledge.
In hindi it means पूर्वधारणा (preconceived notion)
Synonyms: bias, intolerance, discrimination, preference, unfairness, inequality, racism, racialism, sexism, ageism, classism.
Synonyms in hindi: पक्षपात, हानि, क्षति, चोट, पूर्वाग्रह
Now that we are clear as to what Prejudice means, we come to how does it matter to a person who is starting to learn the craft of being an actor or is an actor working professionally.
One thing I talked about in the session was the necessity for an actor to be a neutral human being. As far as it is possible. When you speak don’t give away where you are from. For that we have to work very hard on our speech, getting the pronunciations right. Speak as it is meant to be in the language and when the time comes to take an accent you’ll be able to do it easily.
Next is with our body language. We bring a certain body language from our native places. With regular work with movement experts the body language is going to dissolve.
It is important to bring our personality from overt to plain and this can be done only by constant work on our body, speech and mind. As it is said, you have to take off your old clothes to wear new ones. Or it will look weird wearing two set of clothes.
Now comes the third and final part, which we can start work now. We don’t have to visit any expert. We can just see how we are reacting. How are we listening? In the previous session on listening I had a conversation about how listening plays an important part in acting. An actor needs to retune every part of his being consciously and listening is one such thing. When we are in a conversation we are doing so many things at the same time, we are trying to understand what they are saying, what it means and what we should reply.
What actually happens with our default listening is that as we hear the other person say something and we know what that person means instantly and we start reacting and thinking about the answer. And we are not even listening after a certain point. We have to stop the reacting process and just observe and let it sink in and then reply.
Prejudice starts with our eyes. We see the person. Opinion formed about their looks and social standing.
We hear them talk. Opinion formed about their intellect.
We need to keep these aside and see them as a new person which they are in our life. We have not met them, we know nothing about them but in two minutes we have a judgement which we will carry throughout our relationship with that person.
Is it fair? I hope no. But this is how we are. “We never give people the chance to show us who they really are”. Unfortunately, We know who they are.
This may work for you in life, in your basic struggle of survival but in art, you don’t have to just survive you have to be alive you have to thrive(grow or develop well or vigorously). An actor should be alive every second to see what is happening as it is happening. Without our filters of region, religion, experience and biases we have formed all along.
I understand what I talk about seems difficult but it takes just a little shift in our attitude and you shall start seeing in others. They start giving you more. You can sense the respect they feel for you. You can start sensing the trust. Just your total understanding can make you feel that you know each other. It’s in your eyes. Your prejudices are in your eyes. And the person in front of you can see it. They will shut down. Shut you out. Not a good thing for an actor. If they cannot make real connections with other human beings. What are they going to project on the screen? On the stage? Will you play out your judgements? Which no one is interested in. Your job as an artist or actor is to receive and transmit as it is. Be the mirror which reflects you as you are. The mirror doesn’t pass judgements you do. An actor has to be the mirror which reflects the character as they are, not as his or her prejudices make them understand.
I understood this fact quite a while ago. It is not that I don’t judge or have prejudices. I am full of them. But I don’t act on them usually. I try to keep them aside. And I feel I have been successful in doing so. I have not judged my characters. I have just listened to them and read my lines. Thought about their journey and just played them without psychoanalysis. I understand I am not the psychiatrist of my characters. I don’t have to tell them what’s wrong with them or how should they improve themselves. I am a understanding friend who has the opportunity to make their voices heard.
Even after years of trying not to judge. The judgements are there always. It’s inbuilt. They are not going to go anywhere. It’s what you do with them that matters. For example the first day I saw you all, I made all my critical judgements, not consciously, subconsciously of course. My mind evaluated you, placed you in a sequence of talent, looks and manners. My mind told me who all among you were smart. My mind told me who all among you were respectful. Without even waiting for the first day’s session to get over. My prejudiced mind knew all about you.
But since I’ve made myself aware that I will not use my prejudice filters. Every Time I looked at you , had a conversation with you I pushed my prejudices behind and looked at you with a fresh eye. I looked at you like the first time I was seeing you. I choose to see what you wanted to show me. What you actually were. My prejudiced mind came up and told me, Hey I have already told who this one is why are you wasting your time understanding? I ignored this voice. I listened to you closely saw what you were showing and I have to tell you the prejudiced voice in my head was mostly wrong. I was pleasantly surprised that you rose through the limitations, my prejudices had set for you.
This is one simple example. Everyday you meet so many people. Your prejudices don’t let you see them as you should. Try and see them for who they are, not what you think they are.
Coming back to acting. As actors you have to let go, of general perceptions. For example: If you were mistreated by a bengali in kolkata, You cannot start believing all bengalis are ill mannered. You have to see every person as an individual being they are. Never generalize. Generalization kills the performance which in turn kills the actor.
To be a unique special actor, you have to look for uniqueness in the mundane. As it is said, To be interesting, you have to be interested.
Let’s take this extreme example for instance. If you get to play someone who commits adultery or kill themselves. Your religious filters tell you these are sins. So you approach the character with disdain. You never gave the character a chance to speak to you. You will not be able to play the character with empathy. And the audiences will see that. You cannot judge and also be that character. You have to love your character like a mother loves their son. It has to unconditional love. It has to be the love your labrador has for you. Unquestioning blind faith. You have to be a person whom the character can confide 100% without doubt. You have to treat the character like you treat yourself. When you do something. What you expect is understanding not judgement. Right? So, Here you are trying to become that character. Treat your characters like you treat yourself.
Remember in your life people who have judged you and the ones who have motivated you. You stick to people who motivate you. They know more about you. They have tried to understand you better. Or maybe they do understand you much more than anyone else.
They treat you for the individual you are. Your religion, region, language, looks may not stand in between them and you.
We have to start treating people individually. If we want to create real alive characters. As no two people can ever be alike. Everyone has had an unique experience. A unique life that only they have lived. How can you then say,
*People of so and so religion are like this??
* Or people of so and so place behave in a certain way??
You have to look closely. You will see they don’t. No two individual behaves in the same way.
Only then your performances will have the details and minute nuances. When you see your favorite actor’s performance, you notice that they show you something that you had never seen. They give you something unique. Something alive. Because they saw it with fresh eyes.
So can you. Start seeing with your unique eyes the uniqueness that lies around.
It’s okay to judge. It’s okay to be biased. It okay to have prejudices.
But it is not okay to act on them.
Definitely not okay for an actor.
Your questions:
Write your question with your name.
Worth reading: http://www.management-issues.com/opinion/6917/do-your-filters-stop-you-from-hearing/
Question - I understand that we should not judge people we meet for the first time and that we should not judge the characters we play, but what about those people who have ill treated you in the past?
For example, if I have a friend who has ditched me on a couple of occasions for flimsy reasons several years back, how do I look at him/her with a fresh pair of eyes?
Or am I not supposed to?
-Abhishek
Reply - If you feel you have been wronged, get up, take charge and fight back. Not judging others doesn’t mean if you have been slapped on one cheek you put forward the other. Getting out of the loop of prejudice means you react on the facts in front of you. You say-‘Okay these are the given facts, this is what happened and this is how I choose to react’. I choose to react fairly. Weigh the situation and react that way. It is then you should decide as a person, as a human being what you choose to do about that certain situation. You want to let go or you want to fight or you want to hide or you want to play a game. As Actors, do whatever. Keep reacting to the situation continuously, being aware in the moment. React to it as you would react without any preconceived notion. This habit in life will make you alive and bring you consciously on the edge.
In the moment, you become alive because you are not blindly reacting to life but consciously reacting to life. You are reacting now.
Same person does the same thing. You weigh in the past, you see the present and you react accordingly, as it should be. It is up to you why you got yourself in the same situation. You made a decision the first time right? You chose to forgive or whatever. Ask yourself, why have you come to the same situation with the same person again.
If you chose to forgive and forget then react to this new scenario in a fresh way.
If you chose to forgive and not forget, what will your reaction be?
If you chose not to forgive and forget, then what will your reaction be?
When you are talking about prejudice in terms of an Actor, we mean seeing that person with fresh eyes and reacting to them for what they really are and not what we assume them to be.
