In 1918, Harry Houdini walked out onto the stage in the New York Hippodrome. He brought out a large round cabinet, and then introduced an enormous elephant. Before the audience's eyes, he then had a handler take the elephant into the cabinet. The cabinet was then covered. The cover was swiftly removed, and the elephant had disappeared. This trick, unlike most tricks, baffled audiences and magicians alike for decades. Nobody could figure out how the trick was done. They had their ideas, but none of them actually worked. It has been referred to by other magicians as the greatest magic trick ever performed.
The term 'mark' was originally coined in the carnival. As with any profession where oral history is the only real history that there is, it's difficult to work out exactly where the term originated, however, there are some good educated guesses out there. The most likely one is that it refers to the practice where, once somebody was realised to be particularly gullible, the person running the stall (or an accomplice) would pat the guy on the back, either as a good luck motion, or in commiseration. Their hand would have chalk on it (or something similar), thus marking the victim out for the rest of the carnies, ensuring that his run of bad luck would continue. The word 'Kayfabe' has even more indistinct origins. The most likely explanation is that it's a form of pig latin for 'fake'. A warning uttered if an outsider was around. It does seem, however, that it's likely that it was also coined in the carnival.
The Carnival seems to be something that has died in modern America. Outdone, outglamourised, and outsold by amusement parks, they've been neutered by political correctness, and outdone by people's newfound ability to travel easily from state to state. With so much less of a sense of community in the twenty first century, we no longer have to gather, and wait for the amusements to come to us. Whether virtually, or actually, we now travel to the amusements easier, and when you have the ability to talk to somebody anywhere on the globe easily, who needs to be part of a community? The world has changed, and with it America - and with that, our entertainment has changed, along with our attitudes towards that entertainment. Oh, some Carnivals still exist, but most of them don't travel anymore. An age old part of Americana has died.
But its spirit lives on, through its bastard child of Professional Wrestling. It doesn't exactly take a huge leap of logic to see the link. Professional wrestling was partially borne out of the 'strong man' act, challenging the audience. Meanwhile, a number of the early Professional Wrestling Promoters were Carnival men. And as that lifestyle evolved, a lot of its language changed. The word 'Mark' changed from being a gullible victim, to being a term for those that were taken in by the illusion that Professional Wrestling creates. Those that were in on the secret were 'smartened up', which easily became 'smarts'.
Over the decades, of course, things begin to change even more. The secret of a good illusion is usually misdirection. By convincing the audience to either look away from the illusion's flaws, or by convincing them to accept them as something other than what they are, the illusion is carried through by the artistry of the magician. But these age old illusions weren't made for television cameras. They were made for a prolonged single view, at a distance, no less. In the nineteen twenties, there was no such thing as a recordable zoom lens, and that's where the illusions begin to fall apart. We spot the tell tale signs. That there is a reflection where there shouldn't be. That the magician is standing in front of one single point on the stage throughout the trick. That the cabinet is far larger than it should be. That they're stamping their foot on the canvas when they're hitting someone. That they always seem to touch their own forehead just before they start bleeding profusely. These things just don't stand up to television.
Of course, with magicians, many of them were able to adapt, and change their illusions to accomodate television, and as a result, use that to make their tricks that bit more spectacular. Professional Wrestling, meanwhile...didn't. At least, not in the way that we think. Instead, it changed by slowly changing it's approach. It no longer went out of its way to convince people that what they were watching was real - instead, it came clean about its roots, and became Sports Entertainment. Instead of being a fake sport, it became a new entertainment medium in, and of, itself. Embracing what it had been, it became a sort of soap opera, where the storylines weren't something to make sure people came back - they were the focus point of most organisations. Professional Wrestling stopped being a Carnival, and became a Product.
'Marks' were now just ideal customers. Those who watch the shows, and that's about as far as they go. They'll buy tickets, they'll buy merchandise, and they'll support The Product, but they didn't delve any further into what they were watching. 'Smarts', however, were now everywhere, because what was fake and what was real was no longer important. If you knew that it wasn't real, then compared to a Mark in the 'forties, you were Smart. But now that The Product had changed, we had an audience that could change between being Marks, and being Smarts. They could watch The Product, and they began to realise that the spirit of The Carnival still existed. It was what went on backstage. The enjoyment of one didn't necessarily have to influence the enjoyment of the other. A Smart could go back to being a Mark. A Smart Mark. A Smark.
The Mascot Moth was, in its time, the most amazing trick anybody had ever seen. This was in the latter part of the nineteenth century, when most magic shows were made up of little theatrical stories. As David Devant was on the stage in London, a beautiful woman floated on the stage, her dress made into the rough shape of a moth. As she covered her face, Devant, clutching a candle, walked towards her. The candle touched the dress, the woman screamed, and quickly shrivelled up and vanished in a split second. It was a marvel of the age.
The Smark has recently become the most despised part of the audience, although it hasn’t always been this way. When the world of Professional Wrestling was at its height, Smarks were actually treated pretty well. The Product brought out subsections specifically to appeal to them. Columns, websites, magazines and even their own show. At its height, being a Smark was seen as a fairly cool thing to be. Book deals were made. Subscriptions to websites bought.
But then the fall in popularity started, and being a Smark began to be seen as a worse and worse thing. After all, when The Product stops being popular, it makes an awful lot of sense that it’s the fans that don’t care as much about The Product that must be the ones causing the damage. If the cool fans are the ones criticising The Product, it makes a lot of sense that the casual fans will realise that The Product is no longer a cool thing, and be turned off by the Smarks criticisms.
And like the Carnival before it, they’ll move on. They’ll find different entertainments, and different amusements. Now, this leaves Professional Wrestling in a difficult situation. There are an awful lot of Smarks out there, but if you appeal solely to the Smarks, you make The Product into something niche. If you limit yourself like that, it’s obviously a bad thing. So, in order to try and quieten the Smarks, the columns, magazines and shows are either cancelled or re-orientated in order to be more Kayfabe. Unfortunately, by this time, the Smarks are a major part of the fanbase.
The thing of it is, is that the Smarks have been misunderstood on a base level. They have been taken as people who are so desperate to be Smart that they’ll criticise for the sake of it. And since the criticisms are so patently obvious, it becomes very easy to paint all the Smarks with the same brush, and accuse them all of saying, and wanting, the same things. And once you have these broad strokes, it becomes very easy to ignore them.
‘Why don’t you just be a real fan. Stop criticising, and enjoy what you’re watching.’
It’s been said a thousand times. And often the Smarks, confused because they’re being accused of not being real fans, respond by saying how much they’re trying to improve The Product, and why can’t people see that?
And that’s where the misunderstanding is.
Smarks aren’t Smarks because they are trying to improve The Product. They’re Smarks for another reason entirely.
If I was to explain that Houdini’s trick was all done with mirrors and perspectives, does it take away from the majesty of the trick? And if I was to explain that the Moth was on a platform behind a curtain, and while the actress went one way, the dress went the other, creating the illusion….would that destroy the artistry of the performer? It may damage the illusion, but then the illusion of The Product has already been irreparably damaged.
Smarks don’t purely go for The Product, and they’re not going to settle for The Product, because they’ve seen the spirit of the Carnival that survives backstage. They are fascinated by the characters of the performers who play the wrestlers, and they’re equally fascinated in the direction that the characters of the wrestlers take. Levels upon levels of suspension of disbelief, all suspending something that is utterly unique. It combines drama with politics, with economics, with marketing, and all at surprisingly sophisticated levels. And that’s without even going into the skill of the performance.
In any other industry, Smarks would not be seen as a negative, because, at the end of the day, they want The Product to improve, because it hugely enhances their enjoyment of it. You don’t go to a magic show to see tricks done badly, after all. Because we Smarks aren’t critics for no reason. We’re enthusiasts, plain and simple, and we don’t want our Carnival to become a thing of the past. We want it to grow, and we want to continue learning, and we want that spirit to take the part of America’s soul that The Carnival once possessed.
Without a base understanding of how the illusion works, you do not truly appreciate the artistry and skill of the magician. It is only once you break the barrier of the illusion that you begin to learn about it. And as you delve deeper and deeper into it, you become more and more impressed by a well done illusion, and you begin to understand the difference between good performers and bad performers.
In order to understand why Houdini making an Elephant disappear is such a great feat, you have to appreciate just how difficult it was to do it in the first place.
With some information and ideas taken from 'Hiding The Elephant' by Jim Steinmeyer.
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