I know what it's like to be labelled "different".
All through high school, I was the victim of a lot of bullying because I was smart and funny-looking. I didn't dress the same as everyone else (thanks to some old-fashioned ideas of my parents), I wore glasses, I didn't conceal the fact that I was smarter than your average bear (Yogi Bear reference for you young 'uns). I didn't listen to the same kinds of music as my mates did, I didn't smoke, do drugs or participate in hot teenaged groping in the stairwells of the school (well, there was only one couple to my knowledge who did that, and they pretty much grossed everyone out when they did that, but I suspect there was a whole lot of groping going on in less public places).
I endured the snide comments, the laughter when I walked into a room because of my funny clothes, being ostracised and left out of social groups and functions. I decided that if I couldn't be the same as everyone else, I was bloody well going to *be* different, and everyone else could go suck an egg.
Eventually the sniggers and bullying died off, and I was pretty much, well, if not fully accepted, then at least I wasn't a target any longer.
I thought when I left high school things would be different.
Well, not exactly.
Plus ça change, plus ça même chose.
Successive full time jobs found the same juvenile behaviour surrounding me. My clothes were never right, I got made fun of because of my looks, I was given a hard time for being too good at my job. I actually got *fired* from a couple of jobs - for being too good at what I did!
Somehow, being in the "grown-up" world, this hurt worse than it did when I was in high school. One expects a certain amount of viciousness from teenagers. That is, after all, part of their culture, part of their socialisation development. One doesn't, however, expect to find it among supposedly mature adults.
It took me a long time to realise not all adults are mature. In fact, very few adults are mature. Many still have this "clique" or herd mentality, where anything remotely different is immediately perceived as a threat; so, in so-called "civilised" society, the best way to deal with that threat, to drive it away, to keep themselves safe from contamination (absent the clubs and spears of yesteryear), is to make fun of the individual, to mock him, to drive him away with laughter and cruel remarks.
I offer you these musings because I just recently came across an article about Christine Cornell, the courtroom artist who did the drawings for Steven's appearance at the Gotti trial.
She had a choice, between covering the Gotti trial, and covering a trial involving Mayor Bloomberg. She chose the Gotti trial, and, in particular, the day Steven was supposed to testify, because she "wanted the fun thing, the fluff story."
She called Steven a "real cartoon character"; she commented on his clothes, "a red silk kimono and blue jeans" (does she even know what a kimono is, I wonder?); said, "When he went up there with the blanket, I distinctively heard giggling. It was so old-ladylike, this macho movie star with his blankie....Every so often, he tried to say something that had nothing to do with the testimony...Like he said he was a munitions expert or he was the first American to own an Akido school in Japan. He said that he was a musician who played blues guitar with B.B. King. He was sitting there with his painted hairline and silk kimono and I had never seen such a thing in a courtroom."
The drawings she did, that she sold to Entertainment Weekly, were less than complimentary, and she seemed pretty proud of making a mockery of him: "one picturing Seagal recalling his jam session with B.B. King, another showing the audience laughing and a third putting on reading glasses while holding his blanket....It was fine and fun... One of the drawings, I changed everyone's facial expressions to have them laughing, because no one seemed to take him seriously. Even the prosecutor was making jokes. It was nice to have a different focus for once, after all the seriousness that I do. This was a pretty light case to cover."
She quotes Steven's own words: "I don't think I accomplished anything other than to comply with a government order to testify or go to jail," Seagal said in the Associated Press story. "I didn't want to go to jail. I have six kids."
But then, Ms. Cornell can't resist making a final dig at Steven, and adds, "And a kimono and security blanket."
After reading this article, I felt like I was back in high school again. I felt slightly sick, that awful tight, clutching feeling I used to get in the gut whenever I was the object of derision and amusement.
Steven's an individual, in so many ways. Not only is he a big guy that would stand out in a crowd just for that reason, he's got his own style that makes him stand out even more. He's got his religious beliefs that he doesn't hide under a bushel. He's made mistakes, mistakes he probably would rather not have had brought out into the open, but they have been, now, and he's doing the right thing, however unwillingly, for all the right reasons, to get them sorted out.
Steven Seagal was at a trial where the accused were mobsters capable of doing - and likely had done - terrible things. Clearly, he didn't want to be there. He did what was wanted of him, he testified, and then he left. But did Ms. Cornell see any of this? No. She made fun of his clothes, she made fun of his religious beliefs, she made fun of his appearance, his testimony - everything. It was all just a big joke to her (and, it seems, to many in the courtroom itself).
And to add insult to injury, she recorded her mockery in three drawings that she subsequently *sold* to Entertainment Weekly. There's money to be made in mockery, it seems. She sleeps well at night, I'm sure.
Ms. Cornell is part of the herd that targets those who are different, who stand out as individuals. Steven is just an object of amusement, derision, and mockery. He doesn't have the right to be an individual, to be different. He's a threat. Let's make fun of him, so that we don't have to look at ourselves, how dull we are, how ordinary we are, how safe we are.
Ms. Cornell knows she'll never have the guts or the freedom to do anything else except watch while others do their own thing, and be their own person, not defined by limits imposed by others. She can mock all she wants; it's all she can do, being in the herd.
Given a choice between being an ordinary part of the herd, and standing out as an individual, I'll take being an individual every time. It's a harder road to walk; but it's infinitely freer and far more satisfying.
All through high school, I was the victim of a lot of bullying because I was smart and funny-looking. I didn't dress the same as everyone else (thanks to some old-fashioned ideas of my parents), I wore glasses, I didn't conceal the fact that I was smarter than your average bear (Yogi Bear reference for you young 'uns). I didn't listen to the same kinds of music as my mates did, I didn't smoke, do drugs or participate in hot teenaged groping in the stairwells of the school (well, there was only one couple to my knowledge who did that, and they pretty much grossed everyone out when they did that, but I suspect there was a whole lot of groping going on in less public places).
I endured the snide comments, the laughter when I walked into a room because of my funny clothes, being ostracised and left out of social groups and functions. I decided that if I couldn't be the same as everyone else, I was bloody well going to *be* different, and everyone else could go suck an egg.
Eventually the sniggers and bullying died off, and I was pretty much, well, if not fully accepted, then at least I wasn't a target any longer.
I thought when I left high school things would be different.
Well, not exactly.
Plus ça change, plus ça même chose.
Successive full time jobs found the same juvenile behaviour surrounding me. My clothes were never right, I got made fun of because of my looks, I was given a hard time for being too good at my job. I actually got *fired* from a couple of jobs - for being too good at what I did!
Somehow, being in the "grown-up" world, this hurt worse than it did when I was in high school. One expects a certain amount of viciousness from teenagers. That is, after all, part of their culture, part of their socialisation development. One doesn't, however, expect to find it among supposedly mature adults.
It took me a long time to realise not all adults are mature. In fact, very few adults are mature. Many still have this "clique" or herd mentality, where anything remotely different is immediately perceived as a threat; so, in so-called "civilised" society, the best way to deal with that threat, to drive it away, to keep themselves safe from contamination (absent the clubs and spears of yesteryear), is to make fun of the individual, to mock him, to drive him away with laughter and cruel remarks.
I offer you these musings because I just recently came across an article about Christine Cornell, the courtroom artist who did the drawings for Steven's appearance at the Gotti trial.
She had a choice, between covering the Gotti trial, and covering a trial involving Mayor Bloomberg. She chose the Gotti trial, and, in particular, the day Steven was supposed to testify, because she "wanted the fun thing, the fluff story."
She called Steven a "real cartoon character"; she commented on his clothes, "a red silk kimono and blue jeans" (does she even know what a kimono is, I wonder?); said, "When he went up there with the blanket, I distinctively heard giggling. It was so old-ladylike, this macho movie star with his blankie....Every so often, he tried to say something that had nothing to do with the testimony...Like he said he was a munitions expert or he was the first American to own an Akido school in Japan. He said that he was a musician who played blues guitar with B.B. King. He was sitting there with his painted hairline and silk kimono and I had never seen such a thing in a courtroom."
The drawings she did, that she sold to Entertainment Weekly, were less than complimentary, and she seemed pretty proud of making a mockery of him: "one picturing Seagal recalling his jam session with B.B. King, another showing the audience laughing and a third putting on reading glasses while holding his blanket....It was fine and fun... One of the drawings, I changed everyone's facial expressions to have them laughing, because no one seemed to take him seriously. Even the prosecutor was making jokes. It was nice to have a different focus for once, after all the seriousness that I do. This was a pretty light case to cover."
She quotes Steven's own words: "I don't think I accomplished anything other than to comply with a government order to testify or go to jail," Seagal said in the Associated Press story. "I didn't want to go to jail. I have six kids."
But then, Ms. Cornell can't resist making a final dig at Steven, and adds, "And a kimono and security blanket."
After reading this article, I felt like I was back in high school again. I felt slightly sick, that awful tight, clutching feeling I used to get in the gut whenever I was the object of derision and amusement.
Steven's an individual, in so many ways. Not only is he a big guy that would stand out in a crowd just for that reason, he's got his own style that makes him stand out even more. He's got his religious beliefs that he doesn't hide under a bushel. He's made mistakes, mistakes he probably would rather not have had brought out into the open, but they have been, now, and he's doing the right thing, however unwillingly, for all the right reasons, to get them sorted out.
Steven Seagal was at a trial where the accused were mobsters capable of doing - and likely had done - terrible things. Clearly, he didn't want to be there. He did what was wanted of him, he testified, and then he left. But did Ms. Cornell see any of this? No. She made fun of his clothes, she made fun of his religious beliefs, she made fun of his appearance, his testimony - everything. It was all just a big joke to her (and, it seems, to many in the courtroom itself).
And to add insult to injury, she recorded her mockery in three drawings that she subsequently *sold* to Entertainment Weekly. There's money to be made in mockery, it seems. She sleeps well at night, I'm sure.
Ms. Cornell is part of the herd that targets those who are different, who stand out as individuals. Steven is just an object of amusement, derision, and mockery. He doesn't have the right to be an individual, to be different. He's a threat. Let's make fun of him, so that we don't have to look at ourselves, how dull we are, how ordinary we are, how safe we are.
Ms. Cornell knows she'll never have the guts or the freedom to do anything else except watch while others do their own thing, and be their own person, not defined by limits imposed by others. She can mock all she wants; it's all she can do, being in the herd.
Given a choice between being an ordinary part of the herd, and standing out as an individual, I'll take being an individual every time. It's a harder road to walk; but it's infinitely freer and far more satisfying.
