Roles y Responsabilidades

Recently, Donny Osmond, the sweet Mormon boy who nearly twenty years ago charmed the nation with his song "Puppy Love," and who was held up as a role model for youngsters because of his healthy, clean-cut subtext, decided to make a change. Saccharine sentimentality is out now, and pop roughness is in. The new Osmond has a ragged haircut, wears a black leather jacket, a work shirt, worn jeans, and boots. He sings "Soldier of Love" now to a strong beat. The subtext? A brooding, repressed violence meant to appeal to today's youth market.

Has Donny changed, or is it only his subtext that has changed? Dr. Barry Schlenker, a social psychologist at the University of Florida, says, "Our identities . . . are something we have con- structed with the help and agreement of others. If Osmond wears a leather jacket, we say, 'Why would a nice, sweet guy like him wear that jacket?'"

But is Osmond a nice, sweet guy inside? Which is real and

which is the image? Donny, who for years has symbolized whole- someness and Mom's apple pie, says what we see now, the sophisti- cated person, is what he's been all along. He claims that the audience has misperceived what he was.

If we can believe that, we can also believe in the Tooth Fairy. Images and the subtexts change because the audience wants that change. Entertainers like Osmond are well aware of the importance of image in creating a subtext. They also know that the subtext they create clings to them. The audience usually believes that the role matches the performer's personality. They believe that the subtext is real.

In the workplace, you can apply the truths learned by entertain- ers, politicians, television executives, and others in the business of image projection. Sometimes the clothes—and hair, and facial expression—do make the man. Simon Jones, the well-known En- glish actor who appeared as Bridie in "Brideshead Revisited," noted that during the filming of the series the crew "tended to treat the actors who were playing aristocrats with far greater respect than those playing servants." He also has noticed that "if you're playing a clergyman, the cast and crew have a tendency to avoid swearing."

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

A strong link exists between your ability to "act" a certain way and the subtext you send out to the world. A successful businessman told me, "I choose my clothes each day depending on the way I feel. When I'm low, for one reason or another, and I feel I'm going to have a hard of a time of it, I'll wear something upbeat, a tie with a little life to it, one of my brighter shirts. I try to perk up my image."

When I pressed him about this, he said, "It's not so much to change the way I feel as it is to convince everyone else that I'm really dealing with things. The trouble is, no matter how I dress, it's not too hard for people to read me, to see the subtext, 'I can't handle things today!' Thank God it doesn't happen often." Another friend, the director of a national foundation, says she faces the same problem. "There are times when I simply can't cope with things, and usually they are the exact times I don't want the people who work for me to know I can't manage."

"What do you do?"

She shrugged. "I become someone else. If I have a meeting and I want to look very efficient, I decide I'll be a Sigourney Weaver type. That takes a smart suit and a beautiful blouse and pin. If I have to coax a donation out of a big shot, I'll be Blanche DuBois with a few ruffles, and if I go from the office right to someone's house for dinner, I can be Doris Day. I use pretenses to send out a particular image."

Selecting an image and trying to live up to it may not help much in actually dealing with the problem at hand, but it could send out a subtext that you are dealing just fine, thereby gaining the confidence of those around you. Still, there are better ways. While playacting can work for some, other methods are necessary for people who often have problems dealing with situations, and therefore send out a subtext of inadequacy.

Today's world is an overwhelming one, and many people find it difficult and often impossible to handle the economic and political upheavals of our time, the turmoil of our troubled cities—and, on a more intimate level, the difficulties of the workplace or personal life.

All these problems create anxieties which we may often feel helpless to handle. Others then sense a subtext of helplessness

in us. So, it is important to reduce the anxieties, to deal realistically with life, and change the subtext that others read in us.

Each of us is different, thus each has a different method of coping with life. We all, however, use certain basic external tech- niques. Learning, understanding, and using these techniques will allow us to manage life better and control the subtext we send out to others, changing the way others see us and enabling us to successfully handle our jobs and make our way up the corporate ladder.

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