mall openings. (Sure, I did one of those with my brother when we were first, not-quite-famous. They gave us each $500 worth of electronics for it. We were teenagers. It was fabulous.) So, I’m there, ready to smile and greet and ask after their dogs. I was always good at these things, right out of the gate.
Smile, shake hands, laugh at their comments, “Hey, Mallory! Where’s Nick?!” and watch them guffaw and slap each other on the backs over their own cleverness. Look, I’m not mocking them. It was just tiresome to hear the same comments from each cluster of people, each person assuming it was the first time I’d ever heard it.
So, I’m talking and smiling and answering their questions and meeting whatever relatives they’ve brought with them. Their wives, daughters, aunts, cousins. Whoever. They get them passes to come meet the cast of their favorite show. Shaking hands, smiling, listening, talking. Keeping an interested look on my face, smiling, moving onto the next person when it seems like the current person wants to kick the conversation up to the “Why don’t you come have dinner with the family tonight?” level. And then suddenly, I’m running on fumes. My Being Famous Performance Gas Tank has just run dry. I told you I was good at this right out of the gate. But, I was never good at keeping it going past a certain point. Maybe an hour, max. Then my tank runs out. The muscles in my face feel shaky from holding the smile for so long. My face feels like it has to choose between staying in this full-smile position or releasing the expression of any emotion at all. The facial muscles don’t feel like they can hold anything in between. Frozen full-smile, or nothing. Then my cheeks feel like they’re going to spasm from holding the smile and my brain doesn’t want to create conversational responses anymore. Doesn’t want to talk. Fumes running low now. I have to get out of there. I make some excuse, even though I have two more hours to be there, to smile and to chat, and I hustle to the hotel elevators. I hope no one will try to talk to me on my way.
I say, “I’ll be right back, I just have to . . .” Now I’m bulldozing. Let them think I just got my period or something.
Let them elbow each other knowingly, “lady issues” and all that. I don’t care. Bulldoze to the elevator. No one in it, thank God. Up to the room. Out on my floor, open my hotel room door, and get on the bed. Just sit on the bed. I just need nothing. Just sit and not talk, not smile, not think, if I can. Just have to do nothing for a while. I don’t know how long. Long enough to feel that my face can accomplish a look between manic happiness and apathy. Long enough to feel that my brain will accommodate small talk once again. At first, the time I think I need seems endless. I don’t know how long this will take. I just have to wait. But, I know I have to go back down there. And smile and shake hands and be ON. Eventually, I get there.
* * *
One of my favorite sociologists, Erving Goffman, would call this exceeding “the temporal length of performance.” His theory being that we are always engaged in “impression management”: trying to control what others think of us. He found that we can only spend so much time “playing host” or being nice to people or being ON. Like when you have a house guest, someone you’re not particularly close with, you can’t have them there in your house for that long, it’s too exhausting, too exhausting to be ON for them, to be cordial, up, hospitable. You can only maintain that performance for so long. Then you gotta get them out.
Letters
Something that has been flipped onto its head over the last 20 years is the star-fan interaction. I’ll paint the picture of this interaction in the 1980s and ’90s. Someone likes watching a performer’s TV show or film. They watch the show, they watch this performer on talk shows, and they read their magazine interviews; they “follow” them. Then, they want to let this performer know that they like their work.
“Hmm.” No Internet. No Twitter accounts. “Hmm. Can’t call them on the phone. I’ll write a letter!” You think about writing a letter, but you’ve got to get to work or school. You’ll do it later. Well, maybe this weekend.
While you’re waiting for some laundry to finish drying a couple of days later, “Hey! I’ll write that letter now. Get my stationery out. And an envelope . . . Got it. Dear Justine, etc., etc., etc. OK, done. Fold it up, put it in the envelope. Hmm. No stamps. I’ll have to get some tomorrow.” Three days later, you’ve got the stamps. Put one on. The address—
“Well, I guess I’ll just send it to NBC. Or would Paramount Studios be better? That’s where they shoot the show. OK, Paramount Studios address. Well, it’s in Hollywood, California. I guess I could call them to get the address. I could call 411 and get the number to Paramount Studios and then call them to get their address. OK, got it! Phone call made, address on, and next time I pass a mailbox, I’ll pop it in. Great!”
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Mail is processed. It arrives at Paramount Studios! It’s sorted and a pile is brought to the production offices for each of the TV shows shot there. That mail is sorted so that each actor gets his letters. A pile is placed in his dressing room. Hooray! And the actor, rehearsing, shooting the episodes, will get to that pile later, to that pile addressed to him. Maybe he will read them and answer them all personally, or he may hand them over to his assistant to read, or to the president of his fan club, or to his mom, because she’s been reading his fan mail for him lately and has been sending out pictures with a signature that is authentically forged by her. Or maybe the actor will never open that particular pile because his schedule is too packed to take the time, to think about it.
And that is the journey of a fan letter in the 1980s and ’90s. That is the way in which you would reach your favorite performer. A lot of effort on the fan’s part, right? I mean, the stationery, the composition of the letter, the stamp, finding the address, getting to the mailbox, all of it. You can see how only the most dedicated fan would bother with all those steps. We can assume that for every 100 people who wanted to say something to their favorite performer, maybe only ten actually got out the stationery. And of those ten, maybe only four get the letter to the mailbox. So, out of all those fans, maybe only four percent are actually sending you anything. And maybe you have read it. Or not.
Today, in 2018, bippity-bop, type Jessica Chastain’s Twitter into the Google search bar. There it is. Type @Jess_Chastain I think you’re great! and hit send. Done! Whoa. What just happened? You just sent a message to the award-winning actress Jessica Chastain, and no matter where she is, at home or on location for her next big film, if she’s someone who reads her Twitter “replies,” oh mama, she just read your note. Whoa. Right in there. Right into her life. What an amazing thing!
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