Lucifer's Lawyer -- Thoughts on Exposure (9)

Any discussion on exposure that's worth its salt has to come around to the subject of Penn and Teller at some point.

It's the weirdest dichotomy. On the one hand, you'll see magicians cry out against exposure, saying it's terrible for magic. On the other, you'll see them say that Penn and Teller are fantastic, great for magic, even. The videos that follow will make the paradox plain.

Here's their exposure of the cups and balls.

I've heard their exposure being defended in a multitude of ways -- the key one being that even after they've exposed it, the audience will still be fooled. You can see how that might work given that the misdirection is pretty good on a couple of those final loads, and also that their explanation on the small ball vanishes is that they "Make it vanish and it reappears under the cup", which is a false wording. I've also heard it said that one thing that protects regular magicians from their exposure is that an audience that understands Penn and Teller's way will still be fooled because a regular magician won't have someone there to help.

I don't know if I buy all that. The technique is right there in front of you, and I think that it's not such a logical leap to see how a single magician could accomplish it on their own. There are those who believe that so long as the spectator has a single explanation that defies the claim of magic, and that explanation doesn't get addressed, you've got trouble. No magic observed. That Penn and Teller routine arms spectators with the non-magical principle. I guess magicians can still resort to the Chop Cup... I don't know.

This second exposure is slightly more troublesome, in my view. The infamous "Blast Off"...

Now, the first half of that fooled them. It's not a half-bad routine, in my view. The second half of the routine is where the illusion is revealed. It's an odd presentational dynamic -- it feels almost cruel. The audience gets the point early on, and yet they're forced to sit through the entire choreography, and at one point there's an audience shot where the audience is just sort of sitting there, amused but seeming as though they're waiting for it to finish. At the beginning Penn yells "Hey Criss Angel, this is for you!" as if calling him out. I've heard that this particular line changes from venue to venue, which makes sense given that Penn and Criss were pretty chummy on Penn's radio show. Maybe something more complicated is going on there... George Carlin has a standup bit where he curses out advertisers and sell-outs, and then says, "I'm not going to explain why I did those long distance commercials. You're going to have to figure that out on your own." But it's the lyrics for the song near the end which say "It's no mystery... it's just trickery" that really strike me. The implication is a statement that transcends this particular routine, stating instead what all magic is really about.

Whit Haydn has made the point that if the exposure is better than the routine, give the audience the exposure. This video certainly falls into that category.

This is a weird one. Teller apparently puts out a cigarette and lights a new one. Nothing magical really happens. Then key techniques in sleight-of-hand are identified. Finally, Teller shows how he wasn't really putting out a cigarette -- they were only trying to make it look that way. Bizarre.

And it's not like they expose everything. Take a look at "Shadows".

If Penn's to be believed, this is something they've kept secretive. So what's the deal?

Penn and Teller also have their famous show "Bullshit" which basically seeks to show how much fraud there is in the world. The show seems to cross the entire political spectrum, being able piss off pretty much everybody. Is that what's going on here? Are they trying to piss off magicians? Is what they do pretty much the antithesis of what magic is about?

As an experiment, I tried starting a thread over on the Magic Cafe to see how people really felt about exposure. There's a multiple page thread about the evils of a guy called David J Castle, who exposes tricks he doesn't own on a website. It's a lengthy thread with people having no trouble spouting venom at the guy. Castle, in a response to some of the criticism leveled at him, uses Penn and Teller to justify what he does.

Logically, how can you combat that? In fact, if you think about it, logically, what Penn and Teller do ought to be worse than what Castle does. After all, Castle's website is aimed at a small audience -- Penn and Teller have exposed magical secrets to millions. Castle's exposure is meant for people wanting to learn magic, whereas Penn and Teller are going to tell you how it's done whether you want to learn magic or not. Castle doesn't really present himself all that competently, whereas Penn and Teller expose competent illusions, the implication being that even the most slick illusion has non-magical machinations behind it. Finally, Castle is getting spat upon by magicians everywhere, whereas Penn and Teller are getting pretty much a free ride.

Is there a difference between the two? That's what I wanted to get at in my thread, but if those two situations are any different, it's not something people are able (or willing) to articulate. For the most part, people consider the issue of Penn and Teller's exposure to be unresolvable (one person even posted a photoshopped image to drive the point home).

But if we're talking in absolute terms, then how can somebody say exposure is bad for magic, but Penn and Teller are good for magic?

I'll give it a shot.

An ongoing project of mine is the Erland Elephant, an attempt to define the different sorts of performer archetypes that exist in our industry. The archetypes themselves are identifiable by their choice of effects, the dynamics of the presentations, the sort of story that the audience is meant to be left with, and finally the relationship the character has to "magic".

There's one particular archetype called the Jester. The Jester's primary role in performance is to fool you. If you believe it's magic, if you don't believe it's magic, it doesn't matter. The Jester doesn't make a serious claim to power, and might even rub it in your face that non-magical techniques are in play. The ultimate aim is to fool, and fool at any cost. While it may seem difficult for such an approach to magic to be viable, there are actually quite a few instances of it throughout magic history. Con games are a common motif in which something that is known to be a real-life scam (and therefore not magical) is shown in the context of a traditional magic show. John Ramsay was lousy with feints throughout his routining, frequently giving reminders of non-magical manipulative technique that would act as excellent confusers about the real methods. Routines abound with sucker explanations that lead up to a different surprise (Dai Vernon's Cups and Balls sucker explanation of a vanish, the various Torn and Restored illusions that apparently tip the method only to surprise you again, etc.). Slydini's Paper Balls Over the Head is a prototypical Jester's routine -- only one person is fooled, and everybody else in the audience is shown the non-magical method over and over again. That it can still be entertaining is a complicated mystery.

How do these things possibly fit in a magic show in a positive way? I think some of it has to do with the audience's state of mind. Think of it. There is no Santa Claus. There is no Easter Bunny. Sure, there is a beautiful illusion that can be weaved for children by creating proofs of these fictional characters... and the fact that gifts are usually involved doesn't hurt. When we grow up, though, we see Santa and the Easter Bunny for what they are, characters that existed because of our naivety, our ignorance about the way the world truly works. We might even feel foolish, angry at ourselves for having willingly been a party to the deception.

And then along comes some guy in a tux who tries to sell you on the idea that he's got magic powers. Perhaps some people will welcome the chance to psychologically regress to childhood, particularly when his proofs are so much more convincing ("It didn't all happen when I was asleep"). Just as likely, though, there are going to be those who will resent this same person, who secretly wants to make a fool of you just as Mommy and Daddy did when they convinced you that some fat guy in a red suit was watching to see if you were being naughty or nice.

Arguably, the Jester, who does "magic" tricks but makes no claim to such a power, is being less insulting to this jaded audience member than the other archetypes defined in the set of 13. He knows there's no such thing as magic, the Jester doesn't deny it, and it's all good because the game shifts, from the appreciation of magic to the appreciation of deception. I know he's going to lie to me. Can I catch him? If I can't, surely he must be very skilled and worthy of my admiration. It's worth noting that this is a similar mindset to how magicians will approach watching other magicians. It's a natural thing.

To say that the Jester has a complex approach to magic would be a massive understatement. Perhaps the most straightforward way to differentiate him from the other archetypes would be this... somebody who wanted to create the compelling illusion of being a real magician, would likely take great offense at being told he'd just done "a great trick". The Jester, on the other hand, would accept it as a high compliment.

Which is where Penn and Teller come in. They're Jesters being taken to the next level. I think it's an apt title for them, given that the Jester, throughout history, was the person in the king's court who could speak truth to power, who could dabble in iconoclasm whereas everybody had to continue kissing everybody else's asses. Certainly their act, both on stage and in the Bullshit show, seems to lean strongly in this direction.

And I believe that even in their case, where the deception is explained so clearly, it's possible that they could still be producing great art, despite the fact that many magicians consider the secrets in magic to be fundamental tools in creating art. Let's consider the following parallel scenario... In the same summer, four films are released. Three of them are the classic romantic comedy, where the characters meet and fall in love, there are complications, but they end up together, thereby fulfilling the comforting fantasy that true love does exist. The fourth film, on the other hand, is some indie metamovie which is a fictional behind-the-scenes look at the making of a romantic comedy. In the movie within the movie, it's a stereotypical plot (characters meet and fall in love, there are complications, but they end up together), but in the behind-the-scenes bit we learn some interesting nuances -- the male and female leads despise each other, the director is a sell-out, and the script-writer is a complete womanizer. Almost certainly, this movie when thrown up against the other three traditional romantic comedies gives us a weird insight into the nonsense we buy into when we're willing to suspend our disbelief. No doubt, if that fourth movie were to become popular, it might jeopardize the outlook for the other three films, which seek to go in a direction that the fourth film seems to mock. In essence, the relationship between the fourth film and the other three is consistent with the relationship between Penn and Teller and other magicians.

But does that fourth film truly mock the idea of suspended disbelief? Arguably not -- the irony here is that in order to appreciate the contrast between the "movie" and the "exposed movie", we still need to suspend disbelief that what's happening behind-the-scenes is authentic. Similarly, if we think about it, Penn and Teller give us an enriched view of what magic is. After all, they're right -- magic isn't real. That it can still be entertaining despite all that tells us something interesting about the direction magic can go in.

Now, I'd hoped to engage Teller in this conversation during his Magic Woods Q&A, but unfortunately he ignored my question. Perhaps that's a moot point, though, because in Pete McCabe's Scripting Magic, in an interview with Teller, we learn a bit about what they're after in their performance, in a much more succinct manner than I could have gotten at the Woods. In the interview, the subject comes up about a routine called "Honor System", in which the audience presumably will be amazed at an escape that is performed on stage, but only if they can close their eyes as the escape happens. About the routine, Teller says the following:

Why did we find it compelling? It seemed a good statement of something that's not readily stated in any other form. That bit does so many things. It contrasts two ways of viewing at the world, and argues that things that are hurtful in the world (keeping yourself in the dark) can be beautiful in theater. It argues that taking home a riddle from a magic show is taking something that will stick with you, like a melody. It shows you how simultaneously fascinating and disappointing secrets are.

That's a pretty complex artistic statement, and it's arguably a hell of a lot more philosophically engaging than what happens in most magic shows. And it's true, no other art form could attack that concept in the same way that a magic show does. After all, magic is about secrets, they are what make the illusions work. But why do we want those illusions to work? What artistic purpose do those illusions ultimately hold?

I believe that's the level that Penn and Teller are playing at, and I think that's what separates what they do from mere exposure. When the Masked Magician or David J Castle is done exposing effects, all you're left with is the answer to a riddle. When Penn and Teller are done exposing their effects, a lot of the time the riddles, rather than being solved, actually become even more complex. Perhaps that's what it's all about, to instill the feeling of mystery, just in a different way. Perhaps even in that exposure we as the audience learn something more complicated about ourselves than we could ever get in a magic show. As Teller himself says later on that interview, when asked how many people close their eyes in the "Honor System" performances...

I think there are only a handful that keep their eyes closed. It takes great self-control. The ones who do it are very, very interesting people.