theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Why Penn and Teller hate magic....

They don't like the way alot of magicians over-play things. Like Criss Angels breathing problems.
 
They don't like the stereotypes that magicians keep by producing silks and flowers. It's what magicians do and other magicians do what other magicians have done without making a twist on the old.
 
I think there's a point being missed here.

Think of the way Penn & Teller perform: They engange the audience and invite them to think. They let the audience in on the secert, in short, they treat their audience as their equal. They take the conventional tricks, e.g. cups and balls, putting a person in a box and breaking that person apart, etc, expose them and still make it entertaining. And moreso, they have the audience leave the show with something that isn't found elsewhere.

What Teller was illustrating was a kind of performance that doesn't bring the audience in, doesn't let them think, essentially it's a string of showy tricks. The equivallent of going up to a person and say "wanna see a trick?". No thought behind it, no story, nothing to draw in the audience and treat them as equals and involve them as part of what's going onstage.
 
OwnerM said:
I think there's a point being missed here.

Think of the way Penn & Teller perform: They engange the audience and invite them to think. They let the audience in on the secert, in short, they treat their audience as their equal. They take the conventional tricks, e.g. cups and balls, putting a person in a box and breaking that person apart, etc, expose them and still make it entertaining. And moreso, they have the audience leave the show with something that isn't found elsewhere.

What Teller was illustrating was a kind of performance that doesn't bring the audience in, doesn't let them think, essentially it's a string of showy tricks. The equivallent of going up to a person and say "wanna see a trick?". No thought behind it, no story, nothing to draw in the audience and treat them as equals and involve them as part of what's going onstage.
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Well said. I completely agree. I've seen this before but it still busts me up every time.
 
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