Lights, camera, conspiracy
With the vast amount of information we are fed on the internet, it is hard to decipher what is real. This issue is relevant in all areas of our life, most concerningly in politics and when it concerns important information that needs to be vetted, but this pattern of misinformation feeds into our entertainment as well. The entertainment industry is no doubt a source of controversy, but in the hands of almost every person in the world through social media, all the little details can be twisted around until the truth is unrecognizable.
A recent spark of controversy comes after Jim Carrey’s appearance at the 51st Cesar awards. His physical appearance and demeanor disturbed many of his fans as he didn’t look or sound the same. The theories started stirring, plastic surgery, body double, clone. The fake images started flooding the internet to feed into these theories, many being AI generated, making every image seem invalid. A main point taken by Jim Carrey fans is that he has made his entire career off of his wacky and wild facial expressions, so the prospect of facial construction seems counterintuitive to his whole brand. Others believe that people are simply looking too far into it.
“I think that to make our lives more interesting, we as society put so much thought into really small things. I know I do. And so, I think the explanation for Jim Carrey’s face is that…Well, we don’t know what goes on behind the scenes outside of what he says and does publicly, so we don’t know what he’s thinking and what he’s gone through. So whatever choices he’s made to his face are his own choices,” Stefan Emery, Criminal Justice major at TAMUK, said.
It begs the question though, at what point do we set aside our need for a concrete reality to believe what we are seeing before our eyes? So many conspiracies have turned out to be rooted in fact, including the more sinister evils like the contents of the Epstein’s Files. So many people didn’t want to believe the horrendous truths because of the reality they are comfortable in.
“Jim Carrey has spoken out a bunch about the evil things that happen in Hollywood, and seeing him do this down to his face just doesn’t make a lot of sense to a lot of people, including me, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Faith Briones, Art major at TAMUK, said.
Does cloning seem far-fetched? Perhaps, but weirder things happen every day. Jim Carrey isn’t the only celebrity to fall victim to clone allegations, and most definitely won’t be the last. Selena Gomez has been facing similar online strife after posting her wedding photos online. “I think that everyone is just so parasocial nowadays because this all stems from everyone saying that Selena Gomez would never be with Benny Blanco, they thought she would never be with Benny Blanco so all of a sudden she’s cloned and she’s a different person because God forbid a girl gets some facial reconstruction. She also has lupus so obviously she looks more swollen. She has an autoimmune disease and she covered her tattoo for her wedding pictures. She wore a strapless dress for her wedding and she had a big tattoo on her back that she didn’t want seen in her wedding videos, a normal girl would do that; it doesn’t mean she’s cloned,” Annabelle Delgado, Criminology major at TAMUK, said. So, what do we believe? Are we making small things bigger for our own excitement and entertainment, and everything is as it seems, or do things run deeper than we know? Does the internet make it harder to come to a sane conclusion, or does it give us unlimited access to decipher the facts?