In his book, Talking to Strangers,[1] Malcolm Gladwell discusses how difficult it can be to properly assess a stranger based on demeanor and facial expression. People always assume they are great at reading others, but in actual tests of accuracy with total strangers even self-proclaimed experts blow it big time. The situation is, of course, quite different for men and women who have been married for a time. Here, threats of death are easily passed in subtle shifts in breathing, and the almost unhearable lilt of “fine,” or “Well, if that’s what you want to do.” Newly married men, however, need “the Maslater: Female Language Translator for men.”[2]
Most operate on the fiction that what people are thinking and feeling matches the facial expressions and bodily movements they make while thinking and feeling them. Some falsely assume that facial expressions are universal or that even when trying to conceal our thoughts micro-expressions give us away every time. Gladwell challenges all of this.
In Betsy Reed’s article, “Happily Disgusted? Scientists Map Facial Expressions for 21 Emotions,”[3] we are given a list: “Happy, sad, fearful, angry, surprised, disgusted, happily surprised, happily disgusted, sadly fearful, sadly angry, sadly surprised, sadly disgusted, fearfully angry, fearfully surprised, fearfully disgusted, angrily surprised, angrily disgusted, disgustedly surprised, appalled, hatred, awed.”
The problem is that these are often culturally developed and do NOT necessarily match from place to place. Dr. Aleix Martinez, the subject of the article freely admits that the work in play in the article has been limited to American Culture, and Gladwell’s own research exposes how shockingly dissimilar these can be abroad. Many, for instance, are more than a little stunned to discover that strong beaming faces in places like Tailand do not always mean what outsider’s think they mean. Henry Holmes details a long list of surprising meanings behind subtle shifts in big smiles by the people of Tailand, shifts that they readily recognize among themselves. These include Yim thak thaan, “I disagree with you,” Yim Sao, “Sad,” Yim Mee lessanai “Masking Wicked intent,” and others.[4]
There is one place, however, in which almost nobody blows it—TV & Movies—and it may be this situation that gives so many people false confidence in their own abilities at reading faces. He details the work of Jennifer Fugate an expert in FACS, Facial Action Coding System, which tracks variations in 43 distinctive muscle movements in the face, each being given a number labeled an “action unit.” Gladwell claims, “People like Fugate who are trained in FACS can then look at someone’s facial expressions and score them, just as a musician can listen to a piece of music and translate it into a series of notes on the page.”[5] These expressions are also given intensity labels from A-E, E being the strongest and most obvious projection of emotion on the face.
Gladwell illustrates using the TV show Friends. He gave a scene from Friends to be evaluated by the FACS. In all the interactions, Fugate measured, the characters ran on a steady E. The actors violently project their character’s feelings in terms that my friends and I growing up would have referred to as “breaking out in words.” Gladwell notes that you could probably follow the plots without the sound turned on through the facial expressions alone.
This is not an uncommon affect in TV & Movies. It is one of the great entertaining and manipulative tools of the trade and has great power to impact people’s feelings about situations in exactly the way the writers and actors and directors want their audience to feel about these situations. Who do they want us to pity? Who do they want us to hate? Who do they want us to hold in contempt? All you need is to strike an E, a fifth level facial expression to draw pity, or hate, or contempt.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels the pulls on my heart strings over extremely deceitful presentations of common circumstances. Poor sad children whose parents interfere with their desire to do drugs, hang out with inappropriate friends, meet up with that wayward girl or boy. The piteous looks of those whose disturbing morality and flamboyant behavior garners aggressive dislike from his or her peers. The well-meaning serial killer being harassed by that obviously power hungry cop whose just got to go. We celebrate violent comeuppance for doing nothing more than disliking someone and making them feel bad. We are happy when the girl almost murders and then steals from the guy in the parking lot who made a creepy remark with a fifth level “E” leer.
Hollywood types are master storytellers, and as such, are master manipulators. They are also a hornets nest of the darkest elements of human nature run amuck. This makes for a terrible and dangerous combination. Wealth and fame as well as an almost natural inclination of the creative to self-worship and omphaloskepsis[6] leaves some of the worst people in the country having far too much sway over the moral compass of the nation.
Critical Theory decrees that the worst thing you can do in society is make people feel bad about what they do or have done because they preach a normless culture… norms make those who don’t or won’t meet them “feel bad.” Hurt feelings are violence. People who hurt the feelings of the special mascots of the Left by either word, deed, or mere existence, are oppressors and villains and deserve whatever they get.
In every society, some people deserve to be disliked. These must, for the health of society be shunned.
But whom?
Hollywood and the rest of the Left wants to celebrate the worst of us and marginalize the best of us. And they are highly skilled at manipulating their viewers into the paths they favor.
In the TV show Call the Midwife, season 2, episode 5, they tell the story of a woman with eight children who is determined to abort her ninth during the days that abortion was illegal in England. The manipulation using E level emotional expression begins quickly. She trudges down the street, her hair a flying mess, sorrow and care etched on her face, clothes dingy, worn, and dark… ill-fitting. When she discovers that she’s pregnant level 5 dismay washes over her. Her husband shuffles in, droopy dog faced, chin almost hitting the floor… still no work. His clothes are dingy, worn, and dark. Oh, the love between them upon meeting is E level devotion, but it’s just too bad about this baby. This goes on like this, chiseled emotional pain, tears. When the nurse confirms that she is about 17 weeks, her level 5 tears and convulsions alert the nurse to trouble. She knows she a bit old for this, but other older mothers come round, quickly. The mother rages at her, “Yeah, but do other mothers have eight of them already.” Blazing anger turns to etched agony… she storms like a thunder cloud down the street to the woman she paid to abort her child eight weeks earlier; she assaults her. The kid’s not dead yet, and it’s her fault. She goes home and sinks into an E level depression. She tries her own abortion, her husband helps her in a tender exchange of fifth level love for each other… it doesn’t work. Eventually they pay more money to the abortionist to come back and try again. The woman almost dies and ends up in hospital her weeping and dingy family surrounding her. The narrator will praise the doctors who saved her life without asking any embarrassing questions like, did you get this way murdering your ninth child? Then comes the real kicker. The child now murdered, their whole life gets better. The technicians dial up the color to eleven as the family dances through a field of impossible green. The husband got a great job. All the children are so happy, (‘cept the murdered one) E level joy wafting off of them. Their clothes are new and colorful and clean, papa is abeam with joyous delight in life, the wife comes behind lovingly caring her youngest (other than the murdered one, of course) with level 5 motherly feeling. She has a 1000 watt smile, beautiful clothes, and immaculate hair in spite of the fact that they’ve been hiking. The wind blows just the right way to showcase her pretty features. The narrator celebrates the fact that this woman’s daughters and grand-daughters will live in a world where such things can happen for them routinely without all the fuss and muss.
As you watch, your being played. Actors give level 5 displays of all their emotions pulling and pushing their viewers “subtly” telling them how to feel and think and act… all toward the embracing of a brave new world of child murder, recreational drug use, fornication, adultery, child sexual grooming and abuse, the supplanting of women with fake women, theft, violence against “oppressors” who in truth are just normal productive folks trying to get by honestly in the world. We pity tenants who don’t pay (but do buy booze and cigarettes) but not property owners who are being driven into bankruptcy by those who destroy their property and refuse to pay rent… how else can they afford their lottery tickets.
BE AWARE.
[1] Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know, (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2019).
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVib_giTFo (4/3/2023).
[3] Betsy Reed, “Happily Disgusted? Scientists Map Facial Expressions for 21 Emotions,” Guardian US, 3/31/2014; https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/31/happily-disgusted-scientists-map-facial-expressions#:~:text=Here%20is%20the%20full%20list,fearfully%20surprised%2C%20fearfully%20disgusted%2C%20angrily (4/3/2023).
[4]Henry Holmes and Suchada Tangtongtavy, “Working With the Thais: A Guide to Managing in Thailand,” https://impactgrouphr.com/individualpost/thailand-the-land-of-the-smiles/ (4/3/2023).
[5] Gladwell, Talking with Strangers, 104.
[6] “The noun omphaloskepsis literally means “the contemplation of one’s navel,” …it describes being so wrapped up in yourself that you lose track of the world around you — a metaphorical navel-gazing.” https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/omphaloskepsis#:~:text=The%20noun%20omphaloskepsis%20literally%20means,%E2%80%94%20a%20metaphorical%20navel%2Dgazing. (4/3/2023).
