Please bear with me for a seemingly disassociated set of ramblings that hit me like a ton of bricks today. There is an important connection between them, although they appear to meld in a cognatively dissonant way of connecting the dots. I do believe, in my heart, I have had an epiphany regarding John McCain.
The dots, to me, are the myriad of reasons behind the idiotic smile that John McCain sticks on the end of every sentence he deems important. And, the connection of those dots is the uncomfortable reaction people have to this unwitty grin, how it makes them feel, and the testimony of a dear friend who makes a living noticing people's smiles.
Follow the logic past the jump......
It has been sticking with me for weeks. That McCain grin. It is really unsettling. I can't get it out of my head that this one particular personal tick should be considered as a major tell (in the poker sense). In watching the Sunday news shows today, and seeing the replay of Tuesdays speeches, it got to be too much. That speech by McCain in front of the infamous green screen, on repeat viewing, was simply too much.
I started ruminating as to why it bothered me so much. It is different than the inappropriate stupid grin we have become accustomed to from Bush. We recognize that immediately as someone who simply doesn't know what to say, and has a smile to match the nervous laugh that fills the space. And for Bush, to some extent, it has worked. Filling the space enables you to follow him from one incoherent thought to another. But his nervous grin is merely insensitive and moronic, it is not malevolent. There is something else going on behind McCain's face.
The reason I say that there is rambling going on, in terms of my cognizance on this issue, is that I had to work through a couple of issues to get to something that resembled logic. It involves someone I know, from my past, who smiles exactly like McCain. I realized in watching the footage today that this strange grin, and the moments in which it is used is something I have witnessed before.
A very longtime friend of mine, who is visually impaired, smiles at the end of statements that she deems important in exactly the same way. That got me thinking in the direction of what she and McCain have in common. The first reaction I had was, well, they are both blind. Of course, that didn't seem right, just snarky, and does no service to my friend. I thought of why my friend does this, as I know it is her querk, not a habit of blindness in general. That is where this is likely to get controversial.
Certainly my visually impaired friend is projecting on to those around her what she wishes them to respond to. Her smiles are like exclamation points. The problem is that since she has never seen a smile it comes across, just like McCain's, as inappropriate. She is searching in the dark for some sort of approval, but has no relationship to the visual aspect of what she looks like. It is a knee jerk reaction to how people have reacted to her all her life. It is a show.
It has always bothered me how false it is. My friend has a genuinely fabulous belly laugh to add to her enjoyment of life - but this smile does not carry that energy. This smile, which is exactly the same as McCain's speech grin, is based on huge insecurities heeped upon her, and within her, regarding unconscionable abuses she has experienced throughout her life. Things you and I would only expect to see on an episode of SVU.
Then it hit me, McCain has been abused. A LOT. He was a prisoner of war. He was tortured. He can't raise his right arm because of the abuse. He is reminded every day, as he dresses himself, of the limitations his body has had to endure in order to survive.
From watching my visually impaired friend, I can tell you when that smile hits, she is not really there. The show is complete. The pain has driven the person so far inward that she is literally hiding behind the plastered grin. Knowing this, as I have known this person for 25 years, is what is bothering me. When McCain plasters on that grin, he is actually not there, he is hiding behind a social convention that does not connect to him personally. If he was connected, he would stop doing it - as he has far too many professional presenters around him for this to go unnoticed. It goes unchecked because saying anything is a moot point. Disconnect.
How can I make such an ourtrageous statement? My friend is an internationally known figure who spends all of her time in public, and her handlers don't dare broach this with her either, the disconnect is too large. More than once, due to how long I have known her, I have been the only one who could explain the behavior.
I brought this whole topic up with a world-class photographer friend of mine (I have really cool friends), and she had a fascinating take on the subject of smiles.
For 20 of her 25 years in the business my friend, Tasha, has worked with professional models in the majority of her photography. The biggest thing that she had to deal with was the lighting and how hungry the subject was due to excessive starvation on the job. Since 9/11, her business has taken a severe turn. Companies started using pre-existing photography or stock footage for advertising. She had to get other game to make the mortgage. She started photographing weddings.
Why is this pertinent? Tasha has been in the unique position of switching from professional to non-professional subjects, and she has a hell of a time getting people to be authentic. In fact, she will not take a picture of someone in a posed smile. SHE WILL NOT DO IT.
What we have spent hours talking about is how unauthentic it is to think, for a moment, that a plastered on smile has any validity whatsoever. Her observations are extremely similar to mine in that these behaviors are at best a coping mechanism, but more importantly hide any sign of the real person. It is a learned response. Baby's don't know how to do this. She can tell how screwed up a kid is going to be by how early they learn to "mug" for a shot! She's got a lot of years behind that lense. I know she is right.
Why would I ever use a word like malevolent, as I did upthread? I ask you to look at that grin, next time, and ask yourself. If a stranger came up to you on the street and looked at you like that, would you trust them? The holes left in the soul at the hands of extreme abuse cause everything from lost sleep to multiple personality disorder - none of it is benevolent. Those holes have to be filled with something. It has an energy. I have seen it before. It is, at the very least, inauthentic.