Entertainment Behind The Scenes

In this blog post, we go behind the scenes and hear the opinions of multiple individuals in the entertainment business, present and past. They talk about their daily lives and what they see on a day to day basis. In this edition of David Plotz's "Working", we hear from Stephen Colbert in "How does Stephen Colbert Work?" We also read "Hots Michaels" from Studs Terkel's Working. In addition, I also chose to read "Rip Torn" and "Jill Torrance" from Working as well. 

Steven Colbert, as most of us know, is a very successful comedian and TV personality. He is a writer, producer, and main cast member on the Comedy Central show "Colbert Report" The show has been a major hit and has even earned Colbert the new "Late Show" role on CBS, replacing long time host David Letterman. This was not mentioned in Plotz's podcast due to Colbert just recently being offered the job. Throughout the podcast, Colbert goes into further detail with Plotz on what he and his crew do on a daily basis to make the show so successful. After the details of makeup, pre show rituals and final touch ups, Plotz's asks Colbert if doing the show is an intellectual process or a physical process. Colbert answers by saying, "Writing and producing the show is an intellectual process, performing the show is far more athletic" As you can see, Colbert has separated and mastered both ends of his job with the writing and acting. All the successes that he has conquered on Comedy Central has truly payed off in earning him one of the premiere late night shows. 

Next, we read "Hots Micheals" from Studs Terkel's book Working. Michael works as a hotel pianist and seems to genuinely love his job and the different types of people he encounters. A pure example of how we know Micheal loves his job is when he says, "If I were suddenly to inherit four million dollars, I guarantee you I’d be playin’ piano, either here or at some other place.” He even says too that his playing in the is not affected by the amount of tip money he receives or not. You just get a general tone from him that money does matter to him, but the piano and different people every night do.

After that, we read about Jill Torrance, a high fashion photography model. Jill, like many models of today, had started out by going to New York at the age of 18. The crazy thing about Jill was that she has never had any aspirations to be a model. In today's day in age, girls grow up dreaming of becoming a model, but Jill had never done that. She says, "I had never put anything on but lipstick and had never worn high heel shoes" I think this is crazy that she improvised her college plan into making a career out of modeling. She talks about the different types of jobs she does in different places throughout the country and says she could never imagine doing anything else. Overall, even though she has a different outlook on her job, she is always improvising to what needs to be done, just like everyone else in the entertainment business.

Lastly, we read about Rip Torn, an actor from a small town in East Texas. Torn believes that acting is almost an escape for him. Torn says, “The theater would be the place for my flaws to be my strengths” Torn is drawn to acting because he believes he can use areas from where he is critiqued in reality, but may use them to become a better actor. Also, Torn talks about pride in your work toward the end of the chapter. He says, “You do the best you can with that. You try to make it a little better for your own self-respect. That’s what’s changed in the nature of work in this country—the lack of pride in the work itself. A man’s life is his work” I think this is a very strong statement and you can see how he feels about work itself. This opinion from Torn could be tied in with everything we have talked about in class about how people feel about their work. 

Overall, I think the entertainment business is a tough thing to succeed in. I have respect for each and every one of these individuals who never lost hope in their careers and did what they needed to stay afloat.