Burnham vs. Bourdain
Will the real deepfake please stand up?
What’s interesting about whether the makers of a recent documentary on Anthony Bourdain’s life should have done a deepfake of Bourdain’s voice, is not whether the family knew or not, nor whether doing so is ethical; What makes the controversy interesting is what it accidentally reveals about the myth of authenticity.
“Say what?! But,‘authenticity’ is supposed to be the opposite of fake. How can ‘authenticity’ be fake?”
People who got upset about the deepfake may be upset because it pulls back the curtain on the “Bourdain Mystique”. This myth is predicated on the authenticity of what we see when we watch Bourdain product. The deepfake reveals, accidentally, how that authenticity is not simply a ‘natural’ thing that is found and revealed, like a lost work of art hidden in a dusty attic. The authenticity we think we are watching is a carefully crafted thing, used to create and sell “The Bourdain Mystique”. The ‘mystique’ is that we have been given unfiltered access to an authentic person and what we’re seeing is real-not a carefully constructed image.
The Bo Burnham Special on the other hand, shows that authenticity is created, and never simply ‘revealed’. The Burnham Special goes to great lengths to show snippets of what seems ‘authentic’ only to pull back the curtain and show is how it has all been laboriously constructed: the lighting, the editing, the re-takes. Does that mean it’s all 100% deep-fake? No: Burnham’s genius is to show that the Burnham character’s anguish is both authentic and constructed at the same time. He’s too smart to say, “this one is real” and “that one is fake”: he puts them in a magic bullet and blends them all together.
Part of ‘how to construct authenticity’ is to use media constructed for other purposes and then re-purpose the material to produce something which seems un-constructed because the original purpose was different. Using home movies or stills is perfect fodder for this bait and switch ruse. The maker, if dishonest, can claim “Oh no, they were just documenting family life”. But of course, even family films are constructions and people, kids included, are always presenting themselves. Even kids are taught how to smile: kids pose. They also resist family photos and have to be trained that images of themselves are the property of other people -usually adults- and that it’s selfish to refuse to cooperate. They are trained into the belief that they owe this kind of family performance to the adults who wish to construct and show domestic bliss or even domestic normalcy.
The combination of Internet-enabled ubiquity and constant surveillance conspire to create the material out of which these constructions of authenticity are built. The documentation of domestic bliss meets the accidents of cheap digital photography, cheap storage, and digital distribution. This is why Burnham’s “White Woman Instagram” makes us so uncomfortable and laugh so hard at the same time; her Instagram image is obviously constructed. But, Burnham goes one honest step further; he shows, repeatedly, the artificial and constructed nature of his own Special while also sharing the real anguish of pandemic-induced isolation and depression that we’ve all been dealing with: it’s both real and constructed.
Burnham’s Special is about how we construct ourselves as authentic and simultaneously know that it’s a construction and that, somehow, makes it both authentic and inauthentic.
There is no lament for the lost ‘real’ in Burnham.
The digital products used to construct the Bourdain Mystique hide the editing and construction. The Burnham special shows how it is constructed every step of the way. There is no lament for the lost ‘real’ in Burnham. His special shows that we live in an era of constant self-presentation. That’s the water we swim in and (usually) don’t see. The “Bourdain Mystique” banks on the myth of authenticity: the very myth that Burnham so effectively explodes.
Art challenges paradox by revealing it. Burnham’s special does this. The Bourdain digital image complex hides behind the myth of unexamined authenticity — so any move to pull back the curtain or show the construction threatens the construction’s integrity. The problem is not the deepfake. The problem is that a potential audience is aware of the deepfake. ‘Authentic’ sells because it’s compelling, but when the fact that it’s constructed is hidden or even denied, then it becomes fragile and in need of defense. The machine that depends on the Bourdain Mystique must protect the product’s seeming authenticity.
This reality is Burnham’s lament and Bourdain’s conceit.
The deep-fake simply points to the larger fact, made plain in the Burnham special, that in a digital age, where images and sounds are recorded and then shown, there is no un-constructed authentic image, and because it’s omni-present, there is, in fact, no unconstructed authentic self. This reality is Burnham’s lament and Bourdain’s conceit.
Ironically, though Burnham shows the construction of authenticity (of image and self) he is ultimately more positive and optimistic than the crew that sells the Bourdain Mystique. We can love Bourdain only religiously: we must want to believe and hush the part of us that questions. But that is not sustainable. Not for us, it would seem, nor for the actual man on whose back the “Myth of Bourdain” was constructed, since the man and the myth are never the same.
We can love the Burnham Special because of its honesty and the way it strips away a support that used to make us feel good. It reveals the fact that the self and the image are all just made up as we go along. Its positivity is the message “Ok, so there is no real foundation, it’s constructed, but we must go on and we can go on and we can laugh about it along the way”.
In a final irony, the deep-fake controversy in the Bourdain documentary turns out to be shallow, while the fakery of the Burnham Special turns out to be deep.
Now put that in your pipe and smoke it!
P.S. If this piece feels like a takedown of your favourite guy, Anthony Bourdain, it is not. It’s pulling back the curtain to reveal the producers of the documentary, the people with the money behind the Bourdain shows and other products. Bourdain is not revealed as fake. What’s false, is that the people who profited from Bourdain and his on-the-edge lifestyle show a carefully crafted set of images and videos, hold that up as ‘real’, and then sell the shit out of it. Didn’t Bourdain agree to it? Sure. Maybe it’s like the old Night Moves song from 1976, “I used her and she used me, but neither one cared; we were getting our share”. Less charitably, we might say that the owners of the Bourdain product came out better than the mere human they used, and used up, to generate so much wealth. They continue taking it to the bank.
PPS, If my belief that Burnham’s message is “Ok, so there is no real foundation, it’s constructed, but we must go on and we can go on and we can laugh about it along the way” is correct, and if that’s an interesting idea, you may want to read or re-read the very accessible ‘Waiting for Godot’ — no philosophy degree required, simple language all the way, tragic and funny as hell.