Shameful. Just shameful.<\/p>\n
In a conversation with a close friend not so long ago, I found out he isn’t a James Bond fan. (For the more reasonable among you, I’ll give you a moment to settle down and recover from the expected, and perfectly understandable hyperventilating.)<\/p>\n
Now, to be clear, it’s not that he’s specifically not a fan of the prissy Roger Moore James Bond<\/em>; the regrettably forgettable George Lazenby James Bond<\/em>; the wildly popular — if not un-Flemingesque — Sean Connery James Bond<\/em>; the dead-on, this-is-who-I-believe-God-Himself-would-have-picked-to-play-James Bond Timothy Dalton James Bond<\/em>; or the Roger Moore-extra Pierce Brosnan James Bond<\/em>. I could even overlook the overlooked reference to the Barry Nelson James Bond<\/em>.<\/p>\n But he doesn’t like James Bond in toto<\/a>.<\/em> (Not that I have any strong opinions on the movies and the individual actors, you understand.)<\/p>\n Naturally, I still consider him a friend. I believe there’s still time to save his soul.<\/p>\n To my point: while several actors and producers have contributed, collectively we have a character, created by Ian Fleming, named James Bond<\/em>. That character is clearly identifiable and, in the world of entertainment, carries a great degree of stature, substance and marketability.<\/p>\n This is not to say there haven’t been spoofs<\/a> of the character. The second treatment of Casino Royale<\/a><\/em> — the comedy film version — featured a performance by the brilliant Peter Sellers<\/a>. The Austin Powers series is another example, though clearly aimed at the Dumb and Dumber<\/a><\/em> crowd. But these can be considered legitimate entities.<\/p>\n I won’t go into naming them, but there have been versions of the James Bond<\/em> character — overt copies — that are just shameful to watch. Relatively speaking, there aren’t many Ian Flemings — or Tom Clanceys or Patricia Cornwells or Sue Graftons or Jonathan Kellermans and other fiction writers — in this world to create the James Bonds or Kay Scarpettas or Kinsey Millhones or Alex Delawares and other memorable, engaging fictional characters. So, those who cannot create, appropriate and, as a result, can — at best — only present a shell of a character without the substance.<\/p>\n In a recent thread on The Magic Cafe<\/a>, there was discussion of one of Ted Lesley’s offerings. The primary issue got sidetracked as a direct result of a Cafe member posting a link to his personal web site. I clicked the link and the word “shameful” tumbled out of my mouth. The more I clicked, the more I shook my head in amazement — and not the kind we, as mystery performers, hope to engender in our audiences. (At least, not deliberately. I hope.)<\/p>\n To take you along with me, let us first visit the web site of well-known Max Maven:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.maxmaven.com<\/a><\/p>\n That is a distinct, unique look — a character — deliberately created and built over many, many years and thousands of performances. Both in and out of our little world of magic and mentalism, it carries a great degree of stature, substance and marketability.<\/p>\n Now, let us visit the web site of lesser known Deddy Corbuzier:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.deddy-corbuzier.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n This isn’t Peter Sellers<\/em> territory. This isn’t even Austin Powers<\/em> territory. This is in a category all to itself, although — sadly — not a small, sparsely inhabited one. This falls into the category of intellectual property theft and gross disrespect.<\/p>\n And it’s not, as young Corbuzier suggests, coincidence. When I viewed the video of his “Jakarta Blindfold Drive 2004<\/a>” I see a person who not only appropriated a look clearly identified with Max Maven (the widow’s peak and eye makeup, to start with) but I see attempts at the same clothing, the same gestures, the same overall performing persona. Corbuzier even sports a long, braided ponytail, for pity’s sake. It’s embarrasingly shameful behavior.<\/p>\n His reason for stealing Max’s image? Does it really matter?<\/p>\n Corbuzier considers himself a professional, a self-given appellation he’s only too quick to remind you of. But would a true professional<\/em> behave in such a manner?<\/p>\n The only thing that might be more appropriate than Corbuzier ceasing to use the word professional<\/em> would be for him to stop using Max Maven’s look and channeling Max’s performing persona. That would be a good start.<\/p>\n With quite a bit of hard work and effort, there might even be something left worth watching.<\/p>\n EDITED 11\/1\/2004: I changed “Roger Moore-lite” to “Roger Moore-extra” because of something Andrew W. mentioned in his comment. I think he’s right, I was a bit harsh. Brosnan is, well, manlier<\/em> than Moore, but still not Dalton. Noted and corrected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shameful. Just shameful. In a conversation with a close friend not so long ago, I found out he isn’t a James Bond fan. (For the more reasonable among you, I’ll give you a moment to settle down and recover from the expected, and perfectly understandable hyperventilating.) Now, to be clear, it’s not that he’s specifically […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}