But to assume that simply because someone is famous makes them worthy of modeling ignores many salient points.
I think you and I are looking at this differently still.
It also assumes that what they are doing is good.
No. Just that it worked.
That's what I mean when I say we should look to talented people in the entertainment industry. Why can they be humans and we can't - because magicians are copyists who will try to mimic the most famous regardless of what kind of douche they are? Maybe. Just spit ballin there.
That and the fact that so few of us attempt to be topical or relevant.
So, steer. You say you see something else from the satirists ... What, exactly?
Let's use Angel and Blaine as an example. Obviously, one of the most common jabs against Angel is that he's been busted repeatedly using camera editing to pull off effects. But David Blaine has used camera editing in the past himself and the satirists almost never mention it. They talk instead about his endurance stunts.
That got me to thinking. In 2007 and 2008 when I was doing a lot of busking, I tried to make the time to talk with my audience afterward, get a feel for what the different demographics thought. I got a lot of girls who thought Criss Angel was sexy, and a lot of teenage boys who thought David Blaine was actually rather tough to be able to pull off his stunts. When the topic of camera editing came up, no one knew that Blaine did it. But they complained a lot when Criss did it.
I went back to the satirical material on magicians. Still all about Angel's over-use of camera tricks. The theory that developed in my mind was that what people were latching onto was Criss's apparent inadequacy for his dependency on camera tricks. Here's a guy who portrays himself as almost hyper-masculine, incredibly disciplined, and connected with all these Vegas headliners... and he's basically cheating on his show by giving us special effects instead of the magic he promises.
I interpreted this as two things. The first being that Criss's actions are incongruent with his character that he has established. He has a very distinctive personality, but he can't seem to live up to it. Furthermore, his frequent usage of the camera tricks was a misuse of the language of TV. Every medium has its own language. But whereas David Blaine sought to figure out how to properly utilize television's unique strengths and weaknesses, Criss never quite seemed to get the hang of it.
This was made reality for me when I had to perform on camera on a set for the first time and made mistakes. I thought about my performance in the context I was used to, but didn't adjust for the unique challenges of the medium. I've made it a goal to do better next time. If anything, my mistakes that night reinforced the theory in my mind in an indirect sort of way.
Now, is what I got out of these satirists the same thing you got? Probably not. We're different people. So let me rephrase my earlier statement. We're reading the same material, but we're interpreting it differently. One of us believes the end of
Taxi Driver was straight-faced, and the other believes that it happened in Travis Bickle's head.