Somewhat recently, I was asked to help judge my high school's talent show. The judging forms, I noted, had several categories, all of which were various aspects of appearance. There was no category relating to skill, talent, or difficulty. At first I thought it was a mistake, but afterwards, it made me think a bit about the whole idea.

Every person competing in the talent show knew, of course, that the only thing that mattered was their performance that day. Whether and how much they practiced wasn't really important. They all wanted, not just to do their bests, but to perform flawlessly. And this is the path my thoughts took: Perfect execution makes up for a great deal of difficulty.

For example, suppose we have two acts, the first is an individual dance and the second is a group dance. The solo dancer makes no noticeable mistakes, but the dance was relatively easy. The group attempts a very difficult dance, and makes many minor mistakes. The latter undoubtedly showed greater skill and talent--they had to synchronize movements and match the size/flambouyance of each move, as well as memorize a more complicated dance. But the overall appearances of the two give advantage to the former. If the difficulty of a talent adds proportionally to its impressiveness, then the perfection of said talent adds exponentially. It surely seems so to me, but I haven't come up with much of a reason.

While thinking about this, the disappointing Oscars came and went. Some of the comments about them made by others on the forum seemed like parallels to the above thoughts. Take "Best Visual Effects," for instance. There was a consensus here that "Best" meant "most appropriately used and with the highest realism." The Academy, on the other hand, obviously thought it meant "most impressive." I suppose the first is similar to skill and second to appearance. Certainly judicious use of visual effects would bring it nearer perfection than just plain use. In any case, I suspect it comes down to a difference in philosophy of film; surely movies are elevated above the need to focus singlemindedly on an impressive appearance. (Obsessively, yes--singlemindedly, no.)

Anyhow, more respectably random thoughts for your dissection.

gab"Nami?"by