On those leisurely afternoons when we are watching a movie or behind a series, usually and in absolute normality, we begin a process of unconscious elaboration of emotions and feelings with the plot. Internal aspects of our psyche are mobilized, intimate fibers that emerge with each staging, depending on each person’s experience and life history.
We immerse ourselves so much in the stories that we become distressed, for example, by each adverse circumstance as occurs in the character of Chris Gardner, played by Will Smith; We are angry about the injustices that the Nazis committed against the Jews in ; and we are happy for a father who, after several struggles due to his disability, manages to have custody of his daughter. We are increasingly participating in what the scriptwriters and directors want to convey to us through their scenes. And more than one gets carried away by its effects.
So there is no doubt: stories move emotions. And if you’re not in luck: one or another psychopath. And that is precisely what happened to Otilio Castro, an unfortunate incident that no one and none of his colleagues would like to go through.
The undercover agent
“Who is Otilio Castro?” you may ask. For those who don’t know him, he is a Chilean actor who played a CNI agent last year in the Channel 13 series in Chile, whose true identity was not known until the series was coming to an end. In his role he ended up kidnapping a woman and murdering a man, earning the hatred of some viewers.
Instrumental Dissociation
Now, what Otilio could have generated for us with his -praised- interpretation disappeared, consequently, when we turned off the television. Well, we knew at that precise moment that it was fiction: a performance carried out by a professional, who tried as much as possible to project greater realism in his work, to move the perceiver. And I think that’s how it happened.
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When a person manages to understand this clear and necessary difference between the person and his creation, between the actor and his character, even though sometimes our head sometimes confuses them, it means that we have a good and efficient instrumental dissociation. “One that?” He read that right: instrumental dissociation. That although in psychology it operationally has different uses, both in the clinic and in other areas, we also understand it as a cognitive quality that we all possess and that allows us to separate the dividing line that exists between fantasy and reality. Except for some with confusing conscience conditions that make them err.
The threats
That is precisely what happened to those who decided to call the actor and threaten to kill him three times, due to the hatred that his role in . Otilio, frightened, as expected, filed a complaint with the police.
These individuals, the issuers of the threats, with specific thinking capacities and traits of antisocial disorder, presented a resounding failure in this faculty. That is to say, they could not distinguish what was real in their environment from the fictional aspects in the story, so that their contempt was so great that they wanted to give the interpreter a telephone lesson in the purest style.
Perhaps many of us, in our fantasies, want to commit the same delusions with some actor who presents sadistic and twisted actions in a certain cinematography at the exact moment in which it is happening. Other times, when this dissociation fails us for a longer period of time, we leave (let’s say the cinema) with a bitter feeling regarding the character that, by extension, we transfer to the face of the actor, who had no other fault than playing the role of excellent way. But from there, nothing happens. Because beyond that feeling, our psyche instantly and underlyingly already established the separation.
Similar international cases have occurred in Hollywood show business. Highly recognized media figures who have received death threats: they include Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and Uma Thurman, among others.
Unquestionably, we know that there is a margin of danger in all those figures who are in the foreground, even more so if the threats come from a fanatic with mental disorders. Of that group, in my opinion, those who suffer the greatest degree of vulnerability are those who wear masks and scripts, whose purpose is to make those of us on the other side of the screen vibrate with their interpretations.
This is how the world of images works, the two-dimensional, the fictional and the staged; a whole world of situations thought out and elaborated for you and I to be part of, simulating an emotional montage that takes us over, with the danger of being trapped if we do not manage to make this dissociation in time.
However, I think we are intellectually mature enough to know that after the lights go out and the curtain goes down, the characters “sleep”, stored in that unique “trunk of memories”, reason enough to let go and continue with our lives. . Lives of their own, with real and concrete stories to truly worry about.
Let’s hope that Otilio has forgotten that bitter time and continues on top of the stage. After all, heroes and villains in our zapping time we want for a while. Unless a sociopath with no identity and a phone in his hand says otherwise.
Fountain: .