Talk:Derren Brown
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[edit] Name
Mandeep Sehmi? Please cite. 86.17.247.135 01:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Criticism section
This should be deleted entirely as it stands. Although I'm sure there's many valid criticisms made of Brown, these aint them. The Simon Singh criticism is not referenced, and therefore needs to go immediately, especially given Wikipedia's policy on biographical articles. Even if a reference is included, it seems rather irrelevent - or at least a very mild critique - to say that most of a magician's tricks are "merely" magic. Well duh... I think the problem here is that people criticise him within different contexts. He disclaims any psychic powers, but doesn't explain how he fakes them (which is annoying). He says he uses psychology and suggestion as well as more traditional magic techniques, which annoys magicians, partly because it sometimes provides more than one possible explanation for his tricks. And lastly, he makes the usual magician stance of claiming that no actors are involved, which is fairly impossible to prove and, of course, has no legal (or moral?) standing. On the latter point though, surely almost all other magicians are more vulnerable to this point, as Brown regularly uses both willing celebrities and unknowing psychics/faith healers etc. who have little or negative reasons for complicity in an obvious illusion. (That paragraph is largely POV I know, but I do think it important to separate out these different criticisms.)
But primarily, surely the ethical questions should be listed - the BBC story included in the article could be quoted for a start, as well as the other ethical questions that have surely been raised about the more disturbing of his sequences. Also, the "Other mentalists" section is also entirely inappropriate, for all the reasons given in the talk archive. If someone cares enough about other "mentalists", then at the very least add them to the mentalist page, even if they don't get a page of their own... Sheesh.
Anyway, I'll wait a few days for any comments, but without any good arguments I'll delete the section(s), so others can reintroduce something far better.
Loxlie 01:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
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- Seconded. Perfectly reasonable. 86.17.247.135 01:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree that Simon Singh's criticism needs a reference, and indeed it is not a cutting attack. But I would suggest the point should stay, if only as a "Reactions to Brown include..." paragraph. You see as a once-upon-a-time magician, I sometimes find Brown frustrating to watch, but not for the reason you cite ("because [there is] more than one possible explanation for his tricks"). It's frustrating because you know *exactly* how it's done, and the vast majority of it is old-school magic tricks and pre-hypnotised subjects dressed up as "Jedi-like" psychological influence skills. He is a tremendous, tremendous performer, and the effects are staggering to the uninitiated and impressively slick to those in the know, but "psychological influence" doesn't form the meat of his tricks and is usually a red herring. This is a widely known fact in the magic community and is not speculation. Everything in "Something Wicked..." was being done by magicians at the turn of the last century, only Brown's show had embedded commands and subliminal messages laid over the top of it to suggest it was all being done by sly and cunning influence techniques. This was not the case, and I for one was a little disappointed. I think this reaction, not unique to myself, should be included.
I agree with using the BBC ethics complaints as more pertinent criticisms. I have never thought Brown has ever used actors, and disagree with the phrasing of the sentence "many are still sceptical" (this at least needs a citation). Overall I would suggest editing, rather than a total delete of the section. Jkao 19:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I have deleted the section on "other mentalists". I dont see how that can warrant a place. You dont have a section on "other football clubs" on the Manchester United page.
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- Simon Singh's criticism; I read the source (a newspaper article) and it's a rather scattergun attack, looks like he had a thesis (or a brief) and then proceeded to try to make everything conform, which it appears not to, as he in fact admits. His abiding criticism appears to be that Derren Brown's shows are filed under science; however, when he points out that C4 now put the shows in the entertainment category, he's still not happy :/ The only residual point unaffected by contradiction seems to be that Derren Brown is an entertainer who doesn't give away all his secrets. Which strikes me as rather lame. I would point out that if (as Singh contends) Derren Brown is not a mentalist but a plain old magician, yet has somehow managed to persuade his audience that he is a mentalist/psychological illusionist... is that magic? Or psychology? I'd ask Simon Singh, but he seems to be in the pay of one point of view. I'd note that he is at a loss to explain some of the tricks (the "I can tell what childhood memory you're thinking of" variety except to insinuate that they must be set up. For which he lays claim to no proof. I like Singh btw, but he is a bit of a hack... Hakluyt bean 22:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
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- I read what you say here, and then I went and read Singh's criticsm expecting that I knew what he'd said but that he hadn't made it clear enough. It turns out I think I did know what he'd said, and he'd made it perfectly clear. While it's true that Brown states what devices are used in the show, he does it at the same time as offering scientific explanations. It suggests that there are two separate aspects: a psychic bit which we're told is fake, and a science bit which we naturally assume isn't covered by the fakery caveat. Brown has pretended to step through the fourth wall to tell us what's really going on, but actually he's still lying. It's a similar problem to the presentation of science in MacGyver. --ToobMug 16:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
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[edit] NLP
I think it should be added that Derren completely disagrees that NLP has any use at all, in fact he states in his latest book that he thinks the claims made for its uses are complete lies and that its a con. What does anyone else think?
[edit] NLP thoughts
I have Derren's book, Tricks Of The Mind and although he understates the publicised version of NLP; he does use the term a lot to reference his techniques and advises uses NLP systems, but only at their most basic level. For example, Brown dismisses eye reading as being an exact science (NLP suggests you can tell when a person is thinking of audio, emotional, vision etc by specific eye direction changes) but does admit that eye movement, regardless of direction, can be useful for detecting lies.
In Other words he thinks that the baseline principles of NLP are generally correct and useful but you cannot rely on isolated and perceived body language and use it as conclusive proof. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Estebanrey (talk • contribs) 13:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC).
[edit] "download" link
Heading: Something Wicked This Way Comes, link to 4oD / http://library.digiguide.com/lib/episode/570354 . As far as I can tell it's a (non-free) programme guide, not a download link, so I reworded it, but who are they and although the site looks nice is it a good wiki link? I mean I just now snagged this show off usenet, but I'm sure I can't tell you about that. Hakluyt bean 22:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
