SUMBLOG9 Erving Goffman

I think Erving Goffman hit it on the head when he came up with his Presentation of Self idea.  I too believe that we as humans live out our lives as if we were actors in a play or movies.  Think about it, we put ourselves though school so we can obtain the necessary skills to get our ideal jobs.  Thus establishing what our status and role will be in society.  If someone happens to be a salesman at a store that specializes in video games, we would expect that his/her role is to be knowledgeable about the different types of games, and help people who are clueless about it make the right decision when purchasing a video game.  Just by knowing that the person was hire to work at that store already gives us an idea of that person’s capability, and again has established a role for him/her.  However, if we lack the skill and don’t get hire due to lack of experience, isn’t that the same as an actor not getting the part of a role due to someone else being more experience?  Relating to status and roles, aren’t we always trying to impress an audience?  According to Goffman, the power of the audience is very influential because the audiences have expectations, and those expectations needs to be fill.  Let’s take the salesman again as the example.  If the salesman fails to do his/her job or does it poorly, then the members of the audience can report him to higher management, and he/she can be discipline or potentially fired.  So by comparison with a play/movie, if the actor/actress does not perform as well as thought to be, there may be negative impacts in the future.  What I mean by this is that, if a an actor/actress fails to deliver on a role, then in future projects that that person is in, the audience will turn a blind eye because that person is associated with negativity base on one bad performance.  This is the case with Ben Affleck, which can be found in this news article (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57599811/ben-affleck-to-play-batman-in-man-of-steel-sequel/).  Due to his bad performance in the movie Daredevil, fans of comic books are booing the decision to make him the new Batman in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel (http://io9.com/the-50-greatest-tweets-about-ben-afflecks-casting-as-1188521731).  Although he has redeemed himself since then, people will never forget that he fails to deliver as Daredevil.  So overall, Goffman’s idea takes a modern look on society, which makes it so relatable.