Candid Camera Politics

Tuesday August 10, 1948 was, as it happened, a turning point in American culture, a small moment but one of major significance. On this day, Candid Camera was first broadcast on American television. For over sixty years Candid Camera and its offspring have held a place in popular culture. The show, long hosted by Allen Funt, amused viewers by constructing situations in which unsuspecting citizens would be encouraged to act in ways that ultimately brought them some measure of public humiliation, documented by hidden cameras. These naïve marks were instructed to be good sports. “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera” became a touchstone phrase.

Perhaps the show was all in good fun; perhaps it contributed to a climate of distrust whereby citizens thought twice about helping strangers. Still as long as the show remained in its niche on television it attracted little public concern and less disapproval. Candid Camera was, one might suggest, beneath contempt. What happened for sure is that in time the use of hidden cameras has mutated. CCTV (closed circuit television) cameras; the tracking of citizens by governments and corporations, is so endemic to the modern polis, it has  become unremarkable. Surveillance is not merely an obscure commentary by Jeremy Bentham or Michel Foucault, but a reality of which we instruct our children. These cameras are treated as fundamental to security. And perhaps they are.

Technology has its way with us. As cameras have become more portable and as video has become more viral, the hidden camera has become an essential tool of the political provocateur. At one point both law enforcers and investigative journalists (think Mike Wallace) relied on hidden cameras to catch the bad guys engaging in despicable acts. The scenes made for effective prosecutions and mighty television.

But today the offspring of the old show have run amok, shaking American politics. Hidden cameras are everywhere. And they are used in a fashion that is quite different from the civic-mindedness of the journalists of 60 Minutes. Today, secret puppet masters are not inclined to trap their targets in illegality, but rather to provoke discrediting humiliation, merging S&M with MTV. And, sad to say, it works.

As with many innovations, these tricks are bipartisan, even if the cunning Funts are not. Unlike Candid Camera, these tricksters are directly dangerous to our commitment to democratic openness. They aim to annoy and discredit without prior evidence that provocation is warranted. They place people on their guard and off their game. As the penumbra of the Watergate scandal reminds us – along with the pranks of Dick Tuck on the liberal side of the ledger – dirty tricks are not a novelty of the new millennium. But what was once an occasional localized annoyance has been replaced with the contagion of phony meetings and politically motivated prank calls. Puerile hoaxers approach politicians or agency employees sweet-talking them in common cause to say something that they had no intention of saying. Often the embarrassment results from a desire to go along, not recognizing that agreeing with a bonehead can be grounds for termination.

The poster child for Candid Camera politics is the conservative gadfly, James O’Keefe, who as a student at Rutgers University once attempted to have Lucky Charms banned from the cafeteria because of their offensiveness to Irish Americans. That was cute, I admit. But it was much less cute when he secretly filmed workers at Planned Parenthood giving abortion advice to underage women, and ACORN employees helping pimps. Most recently, by pretending to represent an Arab-American charity, his crew encouraged an NPR senior Vice President for Fundraising to reveal left-wing bias; a viral record that brought both NPR’s VP and its CEO to their knees. We have neocons, paleocons, and now a Videocon. O’Keefe’s targets were hardly criminals, but his films had toxic effects.

The left has a little catching up to do, but Ian Murphy, of the website the Buffalo Beast, attempted to even the score by pretending to be conservative billionaire David Koch. In a phony phone call with Wisconsin governor Scott Walker the two chatted in a most amiable fashion, while Walker revealed his hard right preferences.

The problem is not that O’Keefe and Murphy did not get the “goods.” The problem is that they did. Through their duplicity, they revealed private and discrediting moments. But the real danger is how the profusion of what we might label YouTublicity will shape openness in our culture. As hidden camera deceit multiplies, we will be more cautious in our social relations, more willing to erect barriers preventing contact with strangers, and more likely to demand credentials. I think we already have enough gatekeepers separating citizens and public servants. Do we need more? Candid Camera politics can amuse or rile us, but should this proliferation continue, it is certain that in the end the joke will be on us.