I am Morgan Freeman. When you put text next to my picture, the words take on an authoritative tone. People see my wise visage and imagine my basso profundo voice and after that will pretty much believe any text that appears next to me, whether it was correctly attributed or not. They remember me in “Unforgiven” and “Driving Miss Daisy” and find comfort in the omniscient voice of reason I offer in every performance. My look of fatherly calm and the feelings of well-being I impart in both their cinema memories and likely their dreams too allows them to temporarily suspend skepticism.
In “Bruce Almighty,” they remember the humility they felt at someone suffering the burdens of Atlas who couldn’t go on, but tried to because they knew that I showed them at their best. I represent calm, the better part of nature. It is easy to use me (and my press photos) because I am likely off promoting some movie and can’t keep on top of every false quote that’s attributed to me.
That makes me a great spokesperson whether it’s voluntary or otherwise, for the patently obvious agenda of whatever particular person actually wrote the source text. So I must ask you, as you look deep into my eyes and trust that everything will be OK: Am I getting paid for this or not?
Leave a Reply