 Hello there, it's Thursday at noon. I know it is Do you remember our arrangement Thursdays at noon on CFUV Are you ready to get started? What do you have in mind? What I want to do now is called first-person plural You make it sound excessively attractive. That's what I have in mind Watch any number of talk shows on a regular basis and you will be treated to the makeover The learning channel has entire shows dedicated to helping people find the right clothes Shoes hair cut hair color and makeup designed to present a quote new you close quote to the world around you Canadian-born Sociologist Irving Goffman Examine the ways in which we manage the impressions we make upon each other and is now classic book the presentation of self and everyday life first published in 1956 This work remains one of the most accessible sociological treatises available and still captures the imaginations of sociology students I found when I was teaching that Goffman's ideas rang true to many students and when given an opportunity to write papers using a number of Sources the majority of the class would choose to use Goffman before any other sociologist Well Goffman did not directly address the ways in which the body is adorned in order to make an impression He did touch upon the body as that part of the self which is engaged in creating an impression in Managing the reactions of others to one's self quote the self then as a performed character is not an organic thing That has a specific location whose fundamental fate is to be born to mature and to die It is a dramatic effect Arising diffusely from a scene that is presented and the characteristic issue the crucial concern is whether it will be credited or discredited and Analyzing the self we are drawn from its possessor from the person who will profit or lose most by it For he and his body merely provide the peg on which something of collaborative Manufacture will be hung for a time The means for producing and maintaining selves do not reside inside the peg In fact these means are often bolted down in social establishments There will be a back region with its tools for shaping the body and a front region with its fixed props The self is a product of all these arrangements and in all of its parts bears the marks of this genesis Close quote one such social establishment that acts as a back region for many and their impression Management is the hair salon The old slogan quote only your hairdresser knows for sure close quote Suggests the secret keeping region that Goffman describes in his book We spoke with David owner and operator of David's scissor hands at 314 Cook Street here in Victoria in the village About hair salons and helping people create the impressions. They want to make on others To cut it short we got sociological about hair People come in when a customer comes in Do most people come in and just say do the same thing you did before or do they come in and want a new image? I mean, how do you know what to do to someone's hair when they walk in the door? Well the younger staff of course they're their customers or have a higher turnover there They've got a lot more new customers things like because they're building up their their clients that I'd say about About half tend to you know want something new each time or you've never done them before So you know it's the same thing. You don't know what it is Yeah, right you have to figure out, you know what it is they want and some people are a little bit vague They think they're being specific, but you got to figure out whether you're thinking of the same thing as they are Most of my customers first. I've been at it for a long time. So they're repeat customers. I'd say about every 34 there got they asked for something different and some people they just you know How do they ask for it different and they come in and say, you know, make me Elizabeth Taylor today Or do they come in and say do they use other kinds of image words like I need something professional or I need something slutty or yeah Some to everybody a change is a different thing somebody will say, you know Make it half inch shorter at the back and then that's a radical change because they haven't done that for two years And other people will come in and they've got you know a couple of pictures from magazines And they're they want something completely new but they're very specific about it and then other people will say You know, what do you think you know or do what you think and you get to sort of go free reign and You know cut in color and so on as you like and how do you decide that? I mean are you do you keep up with styles? How do you know what's good to do? I Keep up with styles mostly just by keeping an eye out and things around me You know reading magazines and you know watching people when I'm out and things like that Like I say a good portion of the customers they they know what they want They've kept up with the styles and they're fairly specific And others will ask you though They'll say you know our sideburns in right now or something which there seems to sort of come and go You know almost within weeks I'm you know everybody will shave them off and then everybody over on back. Do you deal with facial hair? Do you ever do beards or goatee second? We do a fair number of male customers and we firm beard and stuff for a lot of cases guys will just find that they grow beard they don't like it and Regular your home razor won't take it off. So they'll come in and have it taken off the clippers and go home with cleaning up It's themselves. How about shaved heads? Yeah, you've had a number of those in the last Yeah, we get lots of lots of young guys that they don't necessarily if they're gonna shave it usually they shave it themselves But they they'll come in and have a cut You know an eighth of an inch long with the clippers or as short as we can go over clippers That's pretty common. Yeah, lots of guys just like to keep it that way So they'll come in every two weeks and have it buzzed right down the wood Why do you think people care what their hair looks like why not just wash it clean it and it's done There are lots of people like that, too We have a lot of people that we just sell shampoo to I'm not really sure. I think it's just You know, you most people don't cover their head completely. So it's one of the few parts of you that's always exposed You know for the most part scientists don't really know exactly why we have hair like they've got lots of theories But nobody knows exactly why so I guess it's just it's something you can something that's part of your body That you can alter without any pain involved You can't remove a finger Even tattoos Sting a bit when you get them Anybody who tells you they aren't painful And it always grows back which means that You know, it can be changed continuously, you know anything whether you like it or not, you know And in a couple months you can change it. Yeah I remember right when I was a kid my sister had a Barbie you can keep pulling the hair out and she kept cutting it off until But there was just sort of a fascination there with you know continually altering this The appearance of it. I think that's part of it. It's just that you can't and then of course You know it's part of the sort of become part of the fashion industry because of that So it's like, you know bell-bottom jeans or straight-leg jeans depends on what's in right now How about politics? I mean, I remember you know the Broadway show hair and they're used to talk about in the 60s and 70s The politics of hair. Yeah wearing long hair. Do you find that some people come in wanting to make a political statement? Oh, yeah. Yeah Kids in general you they don't want to look like a parent's generation no matter what Like I'm from the generation where we all grew our hair long because our parents all had short hair and and so on and And now it's sort of gone the other way. You know, lots of these parents are sort of hippie types and your kids are all shaving their heads Let's just sort of again is something sort of harmless rebellion You know, you can you can alter it without without really doing anything absolutely permanent But you know it'll still bug your mom And do you think it's harmless? I mean in the sense you said harmless rebellion But do you think that people have got reactions to hair at times? Oh, yeah, that are that it stirs things up Yeah, when somebody walks by with orange hair, it's still everybody turns around looks some people say something some don't be caught their attention There was something about it that you know made them think so do you have people from different races different ethnic backgrounds come in? And are they looking for certain kinds of styles different styles? Yeah Well years ago. I took a course specifically to learn how to do to afro hair black hair and It's a it's quite a different type of hair. So there's quite a bit different You know the chemicals are used and the techniques are different But we only did a small amount of that simply because the actual Population here that has that type of hair is not that large and there's a couple people that are already established themselves So we get people that that phone and say, you know, can you do cornrows or can you can you know? How do you get red locks and things like that a lot of times they're they're people that They want to learn how to do it themselves Because a lot of the processes would be expensive and there isn't a lot of employment out there for somebody with dreadlocks And do you see crossover do you have like kids come in who want dreadlocks who really don't have like afro hair per se? Oh, exactly Yeah, that particular look is sort of with like a Jamaican Rastafarian thing which of course is kind of hip and cool So you know you get you know Scandinavian kids that come in and they want their fine blonde hair made into dreadlocks Which basically just makes it look like a really messy fine blonde hair But that's sort of what they want What do you do when you have a pestering comes in and want something done like that? And you know, it's not really gonna kind of work out the way that they want it to well I usually you know warn them about it and I always tell them You know whether I think it's a good idea or not But I always tell them, you know, it's still up to them It's their hair because I know a lot of times if I don't give them what they want or at least tell them You know what'll happen and they'll just go ask somebody else and keep going until they get what they want So I warned them, you know like like this is gonna trash your hair You might have to cut these out later, etc. Then, you know, you still want to do it I Imagine it's the same as with you know a piercing or a tattoo or something like that Okay, well the question that everybody has to ask a hairdresser. Do blondes have more fun? Well, I've been blonde in my life and I've had lots of fun. So And he claims he's had more fun since Couldn't get blonde enough took him three days to get that one. Oh, wow But I think blondes draw more attention. I think maybe that's that's part of it You have a theory of why is it because of the movies and I'm not sure I heard a story years ago that was a good one whether it's true or not about tech Why gentlemen prefer blondes and it goes way back to like the Greek days first of all at that time You know in Greece and Rome Blondes were the minority because you know it's a Mediterranean area and that you know Most people have darker hair and the other thing is blonde hair is the finest type of hair Which means that the the actual hair follicle the little you know the pore that it grows out of is smaller Which meant at that time and probably you know well still blondes tended to sweat less at that time You know people couldn't take a shower every day. So so there's a theory that maybe blonde smell The girls of the gentleman preferred probably did have more fun Okay, you're kind of in the in the business of making images But you're also in a business of a pleasing customers So let's flip this around a little bit. What what do you concern yourself with when a customer comes in the door? What kind of image do you want to present? To the customer you mentioned that you kind of warn them that they have Ideas that might not quite work out the way that the picture that they brought in said But are there other things that you have to do in dealing with customers keep your business going? Um, yeah, of course the business point of view your first concern is that the customer be happy enough They leave they'll come back because you always want you know long-term customers And of course you do that by keeping them happy If you've been doing someone's hair for a while and you have an off day and their hair cuts Not as good as last time they might get like the other way with that once But probably look for somebody else. So that's probably the you know the first concern Which of course it's keeping them happy and Also that they're trying to present an image to a lot of times somebody's got a job interview You know the first thing they do is they look in the mirror and go, you know, my hair is a little long It doesn't change a person at all, but they when they walk in for that interview They want to present the image that there's somebody who gets up in the morning and takes care of themselves Basically, you know isn't sloppy which more likely to get your job Yeah, what about things like I remember speaking with some nurses when I did interviewing when I was working my Dissertation one of the nurses I talked to had been a hairdresser for the first 20 years of her life And she went back and became a nurse and she was comparing for me the two jobs And that there was some similarities that there were some things that hairdressers had to do that were very similar to nurses One of them was that you touch people's bodies That you know you're going to be touching their hair and crimping on them and so forth and another is that you have to Like good listening skills do you agree with her is that yeah now generally somebody comes in here Of course, they're not in pain or anything like that So yeah, so a nurse's job in that sense is probably a little more serious You know somebody says I don't feel too good You got to be able to get a little more specific and then get out from them You know what what is the real problem put a similar in the sense that somebody comes in This is you know my hair doesn't look right. Well, you got to know what it is So you talk to them the same sort of things the nurse would do I guess So what is it is it too long is it the wrong color did somebody else tell you they didn't like it or you know Is it the image you're giving out or is there something that you look in the mirror and see that you don't like People let their hairdresser like you say get closer to them than than the average, you know stranger and same as a nurse You know you trust the nurse to give you a needle you never let anybody else walk up and poke you in his watch And the same sort of thing with the hairdresser Do people tell their hairdresser's things? Is there something going on in their customer hairdresser relationship beyond just the hair where they sort of oh, yeah Yeah, I heard one theory that it's the psychoanalysis thing that you've laid them back to wash their hair And now they're back on their back the way you do on the couch and now all of a sudden They're gonna pour their heart out to you. Does that happen to you? Yeah, I call it the bartender syndrome You sit down at a bar the guy across the bar brings you a drink well already you're closer to that guy You have more of a connection than the person sitting next to you So, you know, you'll tell him if something's bothering you and things like that the same thing with people around their hairdresser They relax a little bit and you know, I've heard lots of things that I didn't really want Keep nodding your head and smiling But yeah, yeah, people definitely I think feel more comfortable and pouring things out than they do with it was a stranger And you see your job your role and this is to just listen and smile Yeah, I think just listening. I mean, okay, you know, you get lots of times when the Conversation in the whole shop actually not just between me and my customer might turn into you know Certain political, you know feelings towards the politicians on my ad and you got to sort of bite your tongue There's five or six people in the shop, you know You might have that day when they all disagree, you know scowl at you and think and you know same thing You know people will you know customers who've been here a few times might ask for a donation to their church You have to be pretty diplomatic Do you get communal feeling going sometimes when there are a lot of people in the in the shop? A lot of people talking to each other. Oh, yeah, they may know each other that kind of thing Do you consider this at times kind of a center in the community? Oh, yeah Yeah, you get lots of people but you know some of the older people this is sort of a social event You know, they they play bridge they get their hair done And you know these are the two or three things they do every week no matter what you know on a busy day There's you know three or four people at a time getting their hair done They'll talk to each other or they'll join into other conversations. You know somebody here's something from down the shop They have something to add Also sometimes you know the conversation going on next year might be more interested So you think you've been doing this for a long time again I think so it took a little while for the shop to get them rolling But now it's doing well in the whole area is getting busy all the time. So well, I appreciate it Thank you Ever since Shakespeare had Polonius out of the words quote to thine own self be true close quote Westerners have held the idea of being oneself or being one's true self as a moral imperative Yet most of us present a multitude of selves to other people depending upon the circumstances in which we find ourselves Irving Goffman opens his book the presentation of self in everyday life with a quote from George Santayana Quote masks are arrested expressions and admirable echoes of feeling at once faithful discreet and superlative Living things in contact with the air must acquire a cuticle and it is not urged against Cuticles that they are not hearts Yet some philosophers seem to be angry with images for not being things and with words for not being feelings close quote Goffman makes the case that all of us insulate our inner selves by presenting a cuticle an outer layer to the world In the movie the associate whoopie Goldberg plays Laurel Ayers an African-American investment manager who has moved up rapidly in a Wall Street firm only to whack right into the glass ceiling She becomes aware of the ceiling when her protege Frank is promoted to vice president and becomes her boss Being resourceful and otherwise good at what she does she quits the firm and opens her own investment company She finds the old boy network to be just as intractable under her new circumstances She is about to lose their inheritance when she acquiesces to the social pressure and events an alter ego an Older white male named Robert Cuddy By presenting her ideas as if they came from her partner Cuddy She manages for a while to keep the firm afloat while making cutting mysterious and elusive But again she acquiesces to pressure this time in the form of an sec inquiry and Becomes Cuddy in the flesh and must maintain the facade by passing as a white male On the surface. This is the theater of the absurd a farce that digs deeper and deeper into a hole that everyone knows She cannot help but fall through But the movie relies upon a long history of racism and sexism and an intricate understanding of the social construction of each Skin color is often presented as being in distinct categories With clear delineations of who is quote black clothes quote and who is quote white clothes quote However, skin comes in a wide variety of shades along a continuum of dark to light and who gets designed as black or white is Dependent upon social construction more than actual skin color Russell Wilson and Hall point out in their book the color complex the politics of skin color among African Americans The many of the black leaders from the 19th and 20th centuries were light skinned Examining W. E. B. DeBose's quote talented 10th close quote They found that most of the names on the list were of mixed heritage Many of them being able to pass for white Sociologist f. James Davis in his book who is black Exams the implications of the quote one drop of blood close quote construction of negro heritage Which remained a standard in many states on birth certificates well into the 20th century Walter white president of the NAACP from 1931 to 1955 Was only 164th African heritage by bloodline But he and his family claimed their African heritage above other cultural Heritagees and he fought for civil rights for blacks and was part of the black community Even though it would have been easy for him and his family to pass as white The only time Walter white did pass for white was when he investigated lynching practices by observing them firsthand Lawrence Otis Graham's daring book our kind of people Reveals the long history of division amongst the African Americans based upon lightness of skin and its corollary wealth light-skinned African Americans have found it easier to amass wealth and racist America where darkness of skin guarantees proportional stigmatization After examining extensively the black upper class He turns in the last chapter to the question of passing into white society in that chapter He lists 17 tips for passing based upon an Atlanta attorney's description of a number of relatives who had passed Passing is a complete change of identity Which includes divorcing oneself from family history and community Quote think of some matter in which to kill yourself off in the minds of black people You know and your family if your parents or siblings are willing participants in assisting you They can say that you now live outside the country that you have entered a cult or religious order or even that you have died Realize the blacks and not whites are the ones who can threaten your security as a black person living a lie Avoid any meaningful interaction with black people close quote Gender is equally socially constructed Relying often on dress hair and makeup as cues to who is female and who is male Cross dressing and other cross-gendered practices crack open the dichotomous assumptions of male slash female identities The presence in the movie of a drag queen underscores the social construction of gender The movie doesn't back off from the intersection of these socially designated identities At one point the main character and her white executive assistant Trade notes on who has benefited from affirmative action efforts with the African-American woman announcing to the white woman quote Affirmative action wasn't supposed to help you close quote Gotham speaks of discrepant roles These are role conflicts that arise from a presentation of self that is not wholly authentic Part of managing our identities are multiple selves Involves keeping secrets these secrets can be kept among a tight trusted social circle, but no one else Some of these secrets can be revealed without breaking the illusion of the presented self But others will undermine the presentation and ruin the presented identity Goffman suggests that these secrets are kept in a physical space as well as a social space a Kind of backstage where some players are allowed to see how the illusion is made, but where the audience is forbidden Laurel has to keep the secret of Robert Cuddy at first to herself and then among two chosen friends who help her keep the impression going her executive assistant Sally and a drag queen Charlie Who lives in her apartment building and helps her with expert practical intervention addressing the nuances of passing? The character Sally fits Goffman's discussion of backstage front-stage presentations perfectly Goffman suggests that within businesses there are keepers of the portal to the backstage and Sally does this job. Well, even before she is fully aware of the magnitude of Laurel's backstage area Robert Cuddy doesn't exist No, you don't step. I made him up. He's not real. Oh, I've known that for weeks You've known that for what? What do you mean you've known for weeks? Yeah, well sure. I mean because every idea Cuddy had it was already in your files or I saw you come up with it Why don't you say anything if you know what and stop getting all those great presents? Oh? I mean I loved it if you had to make up a white male in order for people to get To recognize your talent, then I thought well. It's my job to you know keep the illusion going and support you And I believe that you knew and yeah, yeah sure are something else Charlie is invited by degrees to the backstage area Laurel first turns to him to help her present Laurel to Wall Street big wigs at a cocktail party So girlfriend what look we going for this time? Big night in all these big weeks from Wall Street will be there Well, the slut look never failed. I know but I have to look intelligent after all I'm representing Robert Cuddy slutty Get intelligent New thinker Later when Cuddy must be created in the flesh the drag queen becomes a natural confidant Because he has already participated in some image management and because of his firsthand expertise in passing Passing requires not only the backstage area, but technological knowledge and expertise to create the physicality of the identity At first this was only a matter of creating an electronic identity over the web and an office identity through the decor of the space called Cuddy's office Laurel sets up banking accounts emails and identification cards in Cuddy's name She purchases masculine items such as leather chairs Mahogany wood a box of cigars and a rhino head to decorate the office But as Cuddy must be made flesh. She turns to makeup clothing gloves and so forth to create the illusion In other words she needed materials The social construction was accompanied by a number of physical symbols that relied upon cultural Understandings such as men hot and men smoke cigars She was managing symbols and resources to manage the impression of Cuddy You're listening to first-person plural on CFUV Victoria's Public Radio 101.9 FM 104.3 cable and on the internet CFUV.UVAC.CA Giving sociology an edge I Okay, what is it this time? Well, I need kind of a new look. Well, honey, it's what I live for. I hope so It's got to be distinguished rich powerful old and male Well, now it's getting interesting White White Oh shit You got a better idea. I don't think it's crazy. Charlie can work miracles. Well, honey, I could sure use a miracle right now Hello, my name is Robert Cuddy. Oh, we're your voice. Just just a few octaves Hello, my name is Robert Cuddy deeper My name is Robert Cuddy deeper. I don't need deeper. I'll be talking out of my uterus throw a little male attitude in there All right That's me Bob Cuddy, and I'm just gonna take you and bite your booty in the back of my truck. I said male not moron Done is this gonna Wow It's a miracle There were perhaps alternatives to creating Robert Cuddy Laurel is an African-American. She is a Catholic. She is a woman All of these social roles are group memberships with potential resources Upon which Laurel could have drawn The movie does not address this aspect of her social world at all Though it does come close when Laurel first looks for a bank loan to start her firm Do you have any Well, yeah, I drive and courage and ambition and if you look at the prospectus You'll notice that I have a very very sound business mind too. I Was thinking more like stocks bonds property. I was starting to sound a little like a men's bank now, aren't we? Oh I see Because we're the women's bank We should go against standard banking practices and give you this very large Unsecured loan because you're the right gender Well, you know it might send a message right the women don't know how to run a bank to share with one word to share Laurel dismisses the possibility of de-legitimizing the Wall Street financial world paradigm a Woman's bank which prioritizes banking practices over women's solidarity Is nothing more than a bank with women playing the patriarchal roles The movie could have done much more with this aspect of the glass ceiling, but it didn't There is a suggestion through the ways in which the men do business at strip joints that Exclusive male clums on golf courses and at fancy restaurants That the women are left out of the loop by being excluded from backstage places where communication takes place The strategies to cope with this disadvantage do not rely upon solidarity However, instead one woman announces that quote men like doing business with men But they want to sleep with us and that's our power close quote early in the movie Laurel and I another businesswoman from another firm Find themselves uncomfortably watching strippers with their male associates instead of finding common ground in their distaste for doing business in Such an atmosphere they discuss breast enhancements as a method of getting ahead on Wall Street The other woman advises Laurel quote next time you're at a really important business meeting try showing some cleavage See what a difference a chest makes close quote The movie also does very little in the way of showing any possibility of solidarity between Laurel and any other African Americans They are non-existent in the movie except for the service personnel at the Peabody Club She does nothing to seek them out She wants to work in the white world and she is fully aware that she will need to hang out with white people in order to do that The fact that Laurel is African American however does dominate her character and the storyline She lives in an apartment building. She inherited from her father The people living in her building are not Wall Street types, but struggling working people who may or may not pay the rent on time One pivotal moment in the movie is when she overhears a conversation Regarding an inquiry about the takeover of a major corporation because the diner She frequences the place they picked to meet where no one on Wall Street would ever hear the conversation She is able to look like a genius or rather have Cuddy look like a genius Because of her knowledge which she acquired by accident More could have been made of this accident, but it simply remains a plot mechanism However, it does reveal the inequities between the start that she had in life as a working-class African American and those of her white counterparts of the Peabody Club The scene is believable because she is working-class and African American Thus we are led to believe that the illusion of Robert Cuddy is the only avenue available to Laurel to accomplish her goals Of course, it would have been an entirely different movie if Laurel had actually challenged the paradigms of Wall Street implicitly or explicitly and Pushed her work in a different direction than just being the best at the existing game Inevitably of course this illusion breaks down because Laurel wants recognition of herself by others Essentially she is too good at the impression management and she feels cheated when others do not recognize the woman behind the man Her proficiency in the backstage leads inevitably to her being upstaged in the particular case by her own creation To relieve this tension Sally and Laurel decide to kill off Robert Cuddy But his identity has taken on a life of its own in addition their attempts draw the suspicion of her old protege and nemesis Frank who guesses that Robert Cuddy is nothing but the product of Laurel's ambition and imagination He upstages her by resurrecting Cuddy in the process sparing her having to face murder charges, but diverting Cuddy to his own aims All of this culminates when the exclusively male Exclusively white Peabody Club names Robert Cuddy its man of the year it becomes the revelatory moment in the movie Consequent to Laurel realizing that coming out that revealing herself and Cuddy to be one and the same is the only way to rid herself Of Cuddy and of Frank's influence and to be recognized for her true self Although not without costs Thus her revelation that Cuddy is indeed Laurel and Laurel is indeed Cuddy is more than a confession It is a political statement One which she makes eloquently in the form of Cuddy's acceptance speech in front of the membership of the club and a television audience She underscores the politics of the exclusively male domain By having Cuddy kiss Frank fully on the mouth in front of the membership This shocking act not only is the first crack in the Cuddy facade But it is a blatant statement on the facade the audience is fabricating as well The associate is about what an authentic self is and what it is not Laurel gets to present her ideas and pitch her schemes to investors as a white man, but not as a black woman She has the acquired roles that her education and financial knowledge afford her Through her position in the firm and her subsequent acquisition and management of her own company But her assigned roles of African American and woman get in the way Ironically the creation of an alter ego in the end allows her to get the recognition she craves By creating the secret and pulling the wool over the eyes of the members of the p-body club She cracks their secrets as well They are a homosexual racist sexist old boy network pretending to be a meritocracy congratulating each other on their accomplishments Only by cracking open the illusions was she able to walk out of the situation with her head held high You're not going to get away with this watch me Donald I see you're still smoking those cheap cigars It's nice to see you Robert and you Walter my new partner No Frank don't go anywhere. I like it when you're close without you. I wouldn't be here tonight You know on one hand there's something Wonderful about being accepted into an exclusive club. It makes a man feel Well damn good. You didn't know a damn thing about me But you accepted me as one of your own which I find Amazing you let my work speak for itself and look what's happened. You've made me businessman of the year But in the words of Groucho Marx I don't want to be part of a club that would have me as a member You know gentlemen There's something about exclusivity You know the word exclusive means to exclude And I thought that would be the case with me Oh So I played by the rules I worked really hard It was very very honest But I knew that I didn't have the right image to be accepted into this club and that chances were I would never Have the right image Image is a funny thing Because underneath the right image Could be the wrong one and underneath the wrong image. You may just find a real survivor cutting Possibly the man who's serving you coffee or offering you a cigar And there could be a bus boy or your waiter. You just never know And gentlemen, I want to congratulate you for inducting into the peapotty club Your first woman This of course is a hollywood ending and hardly credible As larl has perpetrated a fraud on investors and the legal considerations would not have evaporated as painlessly as the ending implied In addition, the victory is somewhat shallow It must end as it does with the peabody members applauding her ruse Because she must have their approval in order for larl to go on to live happily ever after She earns their respect, but if one were to think too hard about this respect One might wonder why she would care to earn the respect of these men, but we are not supposed to think about that Instead, we are supposed to find the ending emotionally satisfying because we are rooting for the authentic person called larl We want to believe that the roles we choose for ourselves deserve recognition We hope that like the emperor's new clothes Racism and sexism will crumble when we render them naked. In the meantime, we continue to handle our roles as best we can Presenting our best selves to each other and feeling the discrepancy between who we feel we really are And who we feel we need to be First person, larl Your source Pursuiting sounds of sociological sagaciousness The police state is using its phallocentric organ the corporate media to control ordinary people like you And bringing together the hairdresser and the associate probably isn't as difficult as it sounds The reason that I thought the two segments went together well is I think that there is a lack of looking at Image management is part of impression management Goffman addresses it a little bit in that quote that I read earlier about the body being the peg upon which we hang certain things in order to impress other people but There really hasn't been a lot about the physicality the technology the business if you will the material business of creating An image in order to manage the impressions of others I was going to ask you about that you mentioned that gothman had written about it. Is there a lot of other Literature on the subject. There really isn't there is a professor named rose whites Who is working on a book and I think she has been for several years now And I'm not sure that it's finished But I hear her talk about it every once in a while When I'm at conferences or on listeners where she's looking at hair And she's been examining hair sociologically from a number of different angles I know that she's been looking at the politics of hair What hair symbolizes and how hair has been used By people to make political statements I also know that she's looked at it from a very gendered perspective Taking a look at what women do to their hair how hair kind of controls women's lives and so forth Including things like the removal of hair Which women are always fighting the battle in the society to shave or pluck or whatever But I don't know that she actually looked at it using gothman I'll be interested to see the book when it comes out because I'd be To me, I would think that that's very much a part of what hair is in In sociological terms I know that there are some young scholars who are coming up who have looked at tattooing and body piercing And in the realm of presentation of self The idea of making certain statements certain certain social statements By decorating the body in certain ways But I don't really know of a lot of people who are looking at this in sociological terms I think there's been some cultural studies stuff about this You consider market research to be sociology Well, I do but I'm not sure the marketers do I think there's a bit of overlap anyway And I assure you there's been a bunch of market research done about this. Oh god. Yes And and I think that market research is probably one of the more interesting places to get sociological information The only problem with marketing research is that it's done in order to mess with the market We'd be hard-pressed to say, you know people use makeup Because they want to and the market research has figured out how they want to and provides it Or people don't really want to use Makeup that the marketers have manipulated us into wanting to use makeup So it begs the question sometimes when you look at market research How much influence the research itself has on the end product of the research I remember you're asking during the interview whether there were people who came into the salon Wanting nothing but a wash and a cut that people who thought that washing their hair was upkeep enough Well, even for those people there is a huge Shall we say Market Yeah, it it ain't just soap Well, uh, it is just soap for the most part But it's perfume soap and soap that makes your hair feel finer or keep more body or Detangles it's soap that Different size containers. Yes, different size containers prettier smells than others Some are reputed to create orgasms And they are branded branded branded oh, yeah, and that's just if you use shampoo Yes, no conditioner. No cream ruts No leave-in treatment sprays. No hair sprays. No gels. No molding cleaning I mean the list goes on forever and that's just here So at one point do you cease to be the one doing the managing of your image and become the one who is being managed At one point you go from subject to object and is there a path back? I don't think you can ever know I remember seeing Something there was a television show that ran for some time about four or 20 somethings living in new york That was immensely popular And someone was saying that it was unrealistic that somebody of the female characters modest means would have a hundred dollar hair Dill someone responded to the original Corresponded saying that he lived in new york and that he knew a very few women financial status not withstanding Who would spend less than a hundred dollars on their dough? So at one point is one cease to be the one managing the image and become one who is managed via The desire to manage one's image at one point you go from subject to object and is there a path back? Who knows I mean I can't answer that question. I don't think anybody can answer that question I think that marketing Manipulates this to such an extent That even if you think that you're acting from your own desire you probably aren't One of the things that I do want to stress though is what goffman is talking about in this And that is that all of this stuff is made up in the back region You know we think that we're back here creating this image ourselves and presenting it out in the world But what goffman is suggesting is that this is in fact a social Arrangement and it includes a team of people and so back regions like hair salons Are or your bathroom called it is the salon backstage? Yes, or front stage. It's backstage I think in goffman's ideas There is some front stage part to it But I think that when he talks about making an impression. It's okay to walk in the salon Looking like a dog and walk out looking great nothing I don't know women who don't fix their hair before they go to the salon they do exist But for the most part it's meant to be a backstage area. It's the technology of the backstage There's a social context to this backstage just the way there is a social context to the front stage The props that you take to the front stage the image that you put together for the front stage Is done with a group with a team of people Some of them more confident than others You know I talked to david about the fact that people Give their hairdressers all sorts of information that they don't normally give strangers That they talk about their emotional lives and I think one of the reasons why they let their hair down Sorry for the pun when they're at the hairdresser Is because it is a backstage region You've let somebody in on the secret that your hair is not naturally curly that it isn't naturally blonde That it isn't But it isn't your hair at all and now that you've let them in on that secret You can let them in on some other secrets too that they are part of your backstage team The cat is out of the bag. Yes. Yes Getting back to more formal approaches to image management is image management something that is localized Very to what degree? Yeah, this is exactly what gothman is getting at is that Impressions are managed on the basis of anticipating what the audience will think of you If you're going to a job interview you anticipate what The perspective employer thinks of you if you're going to work you anticipate What the boss and what your fellow workers are expecting of you What gothman is saying is people don't have perfect information Socially they are guessing Impression management is about guessing Correctly what other people will think it's about evoking a response in your audience Guessing what you need to do to evoke that response And so that's why he talks about credited and discredited impression management A credited impression management is one that the audience Gets what you're trying to do the discredited Impression management is when you've attempted something that the audience doesn't get a friend of mine loral trip went To raves and did sociological research in raves She went in and watched the way that old-time ravers Who have been there long before it was hip to go to a rave Treated the newcomers and it was pretty easy to spot the newcomers Because the old-timers showed up in baggy clothes That would let you sweat because you came there to dance That was the whole purpose of being at the rave was to hear the really really fast music And dance to that music and the new timers came dressed up in clubwear with high heels And short skirts or the men came dressed up in nice shoes They came in order to be looked at and that was not the thing That a raver was supposed to do a raver was supposed to come Looking like they're comfortable so that they could go ahead and dance the people who showed up looking Kind of like they were going to a disco Were discredited they had guessed wrong They had heard what a rave was and assumed it was something like a disco And they had the wrong information and they showed up and when they showed up they were labeled as outside Their performance was discredited by the people who were there And this level of impression management can get very very specific in certain cultures One of the things that hung up hunk in the mid 80s was the appearance of the trendies There are people who would show up wearing the clothes And the hardcore the punks who had supposedly been there all along all along that one has never sure Lost their minds because on one hand They wanted to be iconoclasts very badly They didn't want you to think that they cared what you thought of them But at the same time They were confronted by this other by the gaze of the other as it were And inescapably they found the way into existential hell How does a matter of principle does one dress When one simultaneously wants to be differentiated from the inauthentic mirrors of oneself and at the same time to convey with perfect sincerity That one does not care about the generalized other Right away. They're all the horns of a dilemma How do I dress to look like I don't care like how I dress? Yeah Which is An amazing conundrum when you think about it Uh-huh. I remember John Lydon saying that he'd met said in art school that nobody at the art school would talk to John nobody at the art school would talk to said and They didn't exactly like each other either But nobody else would hang out with them so they wound up hanging a lot The thing about the iconoclast position is that sometimes it works Sometimes people believe you are sincere about simply not giving a darn and they leave you alone One rise the risk of being a well understood intellectual as opposed to the misunderstood variety So punkers basically didn't go along with each other at all Well, they couldn't seem to make up their minds. That was one more bit of iconoclasm There weren't earth moffins if they didn't hug a lot They'll all those spikes and everything it would be kind of dangerous to hug each other Bashing foreheads into each other doesn't count either But yeah, they resisted that as well They really were nihilists or trying to be nihilists anyway. They aspire to be nihilists It's the interesting thought because it shows when people talk about image management and look at image management The first thing that comes to mind is always business Is always this kind of faking You know, we're doing an image management here and what we we want you to believe is that We're good decent citizens and that we're that we never screw up and that we like david said that we take care of ourselves And all but the truth is even the people who are trying to get across I don't take care of myself and I don't give a damn It's still having to manage that image It's not a prospective formula. How do you dress when you don't care how people think about you? You still have to choose to purchase The physical piece of clothing and you still have to choose which among your physical pieces Of clothing to put on today. There is still this physical reality And for some reason nihilists don't tend to be noticed if there's a A phenotype to it. It's black on black with a swatch of black Which is still a statement which is still an impression that's being managed You have been listening to first person plural because how people get along with each other still matters First person plural is a show created for community radio by carl wilkerson and dr. patty tomas to examine social and organizational issues Music for first person plural is performed Composed and produced by carl wilkerson Except where noted For more information about first person plural dr. patty tomas or carl wilkerson Visit our website www.culturalconstructioncompany.com Or email us at fpp at culturalconstructioncompany.com