Cognitive Dissonance

For a few hours, I saw what it would be like if I were a Republican

Okay, I am going to put off Mass Media: Part II for another night, because I really need to write about this tonight....

I hate country club gigs.

I just did one tonight. It was a last-minute sort of arrangement. Our dinner theater show is touring to a few places in the area in order to drum up some support for the program. I have done, in my three years at this job, two country club gigs and one yacht club. Each time, I have walked away from the gig feeling dirty. These places really make me sick..... here's why:

• They are fake

The primary function of these types of places is to shield the rich and privileged white upper class from the harsh realities of life. They are all form, and no substance. These places comprise of carefully manicured and cultivated surroundings, ridiculously expensive houses, and public areas that appear antiseptically clean and groomed. The entire compound is surrounded by tall metal fences masked by shrubbery, and access is carefully controlled to avoid contamination by the "wrong kind of people."
However, if you look closely, you will see evidence of the real world that is unavoidably present just beneath the surface of this utopian facade. The serving areas of the clubhouse we visited tonight were small, cramped, and often dirty. You see, the people that live in this "community" are too good and too important to be expected to take care of the day-to-day maintenance of their own little world, so they employ a small army of people to do it for them. These sadly underpaid and ill-treated staff don't take much pride in what they do (most of their pride has been forcibly extracted from them by their masters... we'll get to that) and so they tend to miss some details. For example, a several-months-old piece of bread was discovered on top of a set of lockers in the men's locker room. Obviously left by an oblivious resident with the expectation that it would be immediately cleaned up, it was not immediately visible and easily missed. Of course, the resident could have simply tossed the bread into the nearby garbage can, but why do that when you have servants to do it for you?

• They are elitist

The people that inhabit this environment, by and large, are absolutely convinced of their intellectual, moral, and social superiority. They exude from every pore the idea that by some divine right, they are better than the "common folk," deserve special treatment, and are exempt from the rules of conduct that define human interaction in civilized society. (At least, when interacting with those considered to be below their stature.) This is the kind of place where you would not see a black or hispanic person, unless they were wearing livery.

• They are inhabited by rude, obnoxious people

Connecting with the above point, by and large, the residents of these places just make me want to brush my teeth. Perhaps because of this strange sense of entitlement and superiority, they treat their staff with such disrespect that I can hardly see how any of them make it through a day without getting fired. I would. I saw good, decent people being verbally abused, sexually harassed, and generally treated like a sub-human species. Perhaps they have had toadies to cater to their every whim for so long that they seem to forget that their staff are people too, because they certainly don't treat them that way.
During the course of the show, I witnessed a group of four who flat out refused to return to their seats after our first intermission. They stood directly in front of my console and continued their conversation in increasingly louder and louder voices, trying to make sure that they people on the other side of the room could hear them over the actors, and (I assume) trying to make sure that those around them knew that their conversation was much more important that the other people's enjoyment of the show.
I had one guy who, during the second intermission, came over and sat down at my console while I was taking a bathroom break, and began leafing through my script, looking to find out who the murderer in the story was. I approached him, and said cheerfully, "Sir, I wouldn't look through that if I were you. You'll spoil the ending." He fixed me with a look equivalent to one that a cockroach would receive. I finally got him to move away from my equipment, when I began toying with one of the prop pistols; checking the blanks in preparation for the third act.
Several of these disgusting piles of human garbage made lewd and lascivious remarks toward my actresses throughout the course of the performance. This show involves a lot of audience interaction, and the cast is fairly attractive, so some good natured comments are to be expected and understood. However, apparently several of the men in the audience crossed the line, to the point that some of the actresses expressed feeling uncomfortable or disturbed.
Finally, during load out, several large groups of human flotsam congregated in the middle of the ingress/egress routes from the performance area, each one trying to outdo the other in the volume and banality of their conversation. Each one also completely ignoring the people trying to hand carry several hundred pounds of audio equipment up a flight of stairs. No amount of cajoling would grant us passage, and if we had simply forged ahead, instead of waiting patiently for a hole to open up, we would have probably trampled a few on the way to the door.

Ugh!
This is why I feel dirty. Sometimes I look at these people and see leeches, sucking the soul out of our nation. Sometimes I want to jump up and down and shout, "See, SEE! This is why the rest of the world hates America. This is why we have people trying to blow up national monuments. This attitude is why the most common phrase heard by tourists in Paris is, "Je deteste Americains."

Perhaps I am letting my own personal prejudices cloud my judgmentnt, or perhaps not. Either way, I am off to take a shower......

Saturday, March 25, 2006