Safety Film, Part III

Riddeking had given me a razor and a bar of soap and told me to go clean myself up in preparation for the shoot. Go run a comb through your hair, he'd said. He had also given me a pilot's uniform. It fit perfectly. When I returned from the bathroom he was addressing the women as a rising wind sucked and sighed at the corners of the cold building.
"You've all satisfied the outward criteria we were looking for. That's why you're here. It's not just the beauty; it comes down to a particular type of beauty. Brunettes inspire greater confidence, and the greater the contrast between the eyes and the hair and skin, the better. Studies have shown. It's documented, attested, authorized. Think about the treatment you enjoy compared to blondes. So why not just pick one of you out of a lineup and be done with it? I admit it would have saved us a bunch of money to run things that way, but this isn't that kind of production. We're saving money in other ways. Just like in the seamier side of the film industry, the man's payment is in the pleasure. Now I'm sure none of you have had anything to do with that line of work and haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about, so I'll move along. The reason I needed to bring all of you here is that I am looking for, oh, what to call it--a certain spiritual quantity, an unquantifiable quality really, that dollop of gravitas that transfigures beauty into magic. This is the diametric opposite of the seamy side, girls. Sure, you're all beautiful girls, surpassingly so in fact, but your beauty alone is hardly sufficient. What I'm looking for now is a voice, a seriousness, a calm that passeth all understanding. I'm looking for the kind of poise that can sell a plot of hell to the devil. By God, girls. Nobody has ever made an on-board safety video with true artistry or a true spiritual dimension before. We are going to be the first. And once they've seen this thing, the folks on board are going to fall all over each other putting on those little masks when the plane goes down!"
The girls were looking down at their laps and their nails. Some were shivering with the cold.

~

The cockpit door was open, and I was sitting in the captain's chair. There was a runway etched or frosted into the glass. We'd been through the shoot a couple of times already, and I was feeling comfortable with my lines. Reddeking hadn't had any objections either. He'd given me a beer to nurse as I sat there and looked captainly, waiting to deliver them again. There was no reason to say them more than once, of course, since they could simply be spliced into whatever version Reddeking put together, but he wanted us to treat it like a performance, so we did.
Reddeking had just called up the fourth girl, having dismissed the first three as hopeless. One had trailed off into giggles while demonstrating the functionality of the oxygen mask and advising the adults on board to don theirs first. She was not given a second chance. Another had deadpanned the whole thing, showing emotion only when Reddeking sent her back to the reject pool. The third had approached her task with a seriousness he found contrived. "Bathos!" he'd yelled. "You think your audience is stupid enough they can't understand the only reason you're putting everything on the line with every word you speak is because you have nothing to give? This isn't high school Hamlet. These people are about to be taken 30,000 feet up into the sky in a creaking aluminum cage. They understand what is at stake. What I need is a woman who understands it too. And you're not the one." He was right.
And so here came the fourth girl. She was dressed and made up the same as the other girls and I had not particularly noticed her before. She may even have been a touch plainer than the rest, her features less distinct by a degree, the flesh possibly less fraudulent. But she carried herself like a dormant challenge. And her eyes, they seemed to singe whatever they touched. Quite unlike the other girls too, when called up she began by sitting down in one of the airplane seats and asking Reddeking a series of questions.
"Sir, what is the purpose of this video? I mean I understand the airline needs to cut it to comply with government regulations, but why not just use the old one. What's their angle here? What's your angle? Why did you sign up for this, and what do you hope to accomplish? Everyone who knows anything knows that the safety features are no more than a cheap psychological trick. The illuminated walkway isn't going to save any lives when the place explodes. Am I right? And if you want this thing to be a work of art or however you put it, why not go with actresses instead of models?"
"Quite an earful," said Reddeking. "Quite an earful. I'm not sure if that kind of irony rules you out from the start or if it means you have what I'm looking for. Let me answer your questions one at a time, young lady." He was long in responding substantively. The way he tugged on his goatee gave me the idea that he was trying to milk it for answers. At length he hummed, the pitch of it increasing, as if he were homing on on something; suddenly then grunted, pulling almost violently on the wiskers, and spoke:
"Look. The video has nothing to do with the safety features of the aircraft. It never has had. You're right that it we're filming it satisfy an obligation, but what no one has seen until now is that it also represents an opportunity. A twofold opportunity. The first is to put passengers at ease, to convince them that they are in safe hands and that everything has been provided for and so on. The quality of the captain's segment has a lot to do with that. But the second aspect is more important and by far the more difficult. It has to do with establishing a social contract that will see the passengers and the crew through the flight. In the air, the flight attendants' word is law. My own experience has convinced me that passengers should be done the courtesy of being invited to accept this of their own accord. Most Americans need no justification when told to accept authority. They don't have to be told. They take it for granted. On the plane and off. The point here is that I'm going to tell them. I'm going to give them that justification. This video is aimed at the doubters, at those who are still capable of thought. I am being paid to neutralize all that at the root. That's how I sold it to the board. I said, guys, I will make a video with a mythological power, a pull that no one will be able to resist.
"The words you speak will be the same as in every other onboard safety video. But once we get the tone right, the gestures, the gaze, you can do anything short of telling them the captain is going to fly the plane into the mountain and accomplish the same thing. The medium is the message, my dear. And that is gospel truth.
"A social contract is imposed by force or by seduction. Or both. Yes, flight attendants were synonymous with the promise of sex in the early years. But this has nothing to do with sex. This is about charisma, about using that to recover the allure of the machine age. The plane may be operated by a computer program, the flight attendants may be a gang of zombies, and the passengers may be flying against their will in thrall to the remorseless market, yes. But without authentic human varnish, without a social contract based on an original seduction, everything will go to hell. And I don't want to fly like that. Here's the way I look at it. Everyone from the top down knows it's a fraud. And as long as fraud is what we're giving them, they deserve to be seduced. Yes, it's window dressing, bunting hung from a rivet. And yes, it may well be dangerous, this vision of using secution to crush doubt. But if this is done right, and if audiences are still capable of perceiving spirit through the mask of the face---if that's the case, well, this video may well give rise to a response of a different order. One that would be quite beyond my ability to control. Once they land, passengers will see very clearly that they are not being seduced like this in their jobs, in their schools, in their institutions. They will see, and you have to promise not to tell anyone I said this--" The girl nodded. "They will see that the state has lost its right to govern, that it has abandoned seduction in favor of force. At long last, they will demand what we gave them here today. Tell me you see what I mean."
"That's a big if," she said tartly. "But it brings me back to my last question. Why not go with actresses?"
"Easy," he said. "They're trained in deception. People see through it. I need someone who has less experience with that. Like Ben here, Ben with his pleasing face and disarming voice. A natural."
"All right," she said. "I get it. What you want is for me to be salvation on a screen, right off the top of my head. I think I can do that."
Reddeking smiled. "Good. We'll see. Ben, why don't you start us off? On three, alright?"
I put my beer under the pilot's seat and slackened my face. "Hi. I'm Captain Henry Stark, here to welcome you aboard this Lorenzo Air flight. At Lorenzo Air, we're concerned about safety. Your safety. So I ask that you take a few moments to sit back and watch as one of our flight attendants goes through this aircraft's safety features. Feel free to reach for the on-board safety guide, located in the seat pocket in front of you, and follow along. Your attention is appreciated. I and the entire Lorenzo Air team would like to wish you a pleasant flight and a great stay wherever you're headed today. And remember: At Lorenzo, we're as excited about flying as you are."