Is it just me, or is this weird?

[conuly]

I've finished Voyager. Before that I went through DS9, and now I'm going through Enterprise.

I often have trouble recognizing an actor from one show to another. And I have had trouble recognizing people in real life as well. But I'm starting to notice something bizarre. Put an actor in a lot of ridiculous makeup and prosthetics as an "alien" on one show, then move them to another show with an entirely different set of ridiculous makeup and prosthetics to be a different species of "alien" and I have no trouble identifying them.

That can not be normal.

(Take up the makeup entirely, and they're completely unidentifiable, as the Benny Russell episodes proved. You know, I linked to a piece on the Comics Code recently and was surprised to find that there was a pre-code comic about a black astronaut. Sadly, after the code came in, they couldn't republish it without whitewashing the protagonist. I mean, they did, but it ended badly for them.)

Comments

[steorra]

That seems odd to me, and interesting. Brains are weird...

[ironed_orchid]

There is a thing commonly referred to as face blindness and the medical name is prosopagnosia. Some people have severe versions, and some have only a little bit, but most people with it use other things to tell people apart like hair colour and height and how people walk through a room.

I watched Brokeback Mountain with a friend who could tell the actors apart in the scenes they were in together, but not in the scenes were there was only one of them, she found it very confusing until one of the characters was thoughtful enough to grow a mustache.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

It's weird, but it's not just you.

I don't keep track of entertainers. I was brought up with the idea that lionizing 'celebrities' is silly and vulgar, and I do agree with that, but more to the point, I can't tell them apart anyhow. Nor do I care to, because if I'm watching a movie, I'm focusing on the character, not the actor.

I just recently watched The King's Speech, which I liked very much, but would have liked more if the people I was watching it with would have kept their pie-holes shut about the actors. It did not enhance my viewing experience at all to be informed that the Princess was really Bellatrix LeStrange, whereas the speech coach was Captain Barbossa.

I mostly recognize people by their voices, so costumes, prosthetics, etc. don't matter. But I don't WANT to recognize actors! If they're doing their job correctly, the audience ought to forget that the actors even exist.

This is one of those things one can explain a thousand times, and nevertheless, as soon as a movie starts, somebody always has to pipe up with "Hey, it's Joe Schmoe, who played Character X in Whatever". I just want to slap them for it, because it totally brings down my Suspension Bridge of Disbelief. Since I can't slap them, I get my revenge by playing Plausibility Police throughout the entire movie, and point out all the other ways one can't avoid being painfully aware that it bears no relation to reality.