Authenticity and Absurdity

Movie director Ridley Scott is known for creating an authentic cinematic world within each of his films. The battle scenes in his newest blockbuster, Napoleon, have been compared to the opening sequence of Stephan Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, for their sense of feeling real (though obviously neither is real). In his House of Gucci (2021), Lady Gaga (playing Patrizia Reggiani) and Adam Driver (as Maurizo Gucci, heir to the Gucci fortune), talk to each other in English, with what are meant to be Italian accents. Gaga spent months speaking English with her ‘Italian’ accent before film shooting began, just to get it authentic. There’s only one catch. Patrizia Reggiani and Maurizo Gucci, being Italians, didn’t speak to each other in English with fake Italian accents. They spoke Italian, with authentic Italian accents.

I found House of Gucci to be an almost unbearably funny film. Hearing a gaggle of British and American actors babble in English with hilarious Italian accents created an unintended comical performance. Had they spoken in their own accents, it would have seemed less absurd. Which goes to show, what may seem authentic from one point of view, can seem absurd when looked at from another.

Claims to authenticity pop up in the most unlikely places. In his piece ‘Thirst for Authenticity’, philosopher Dale Jacquette went as far as to claim that the popularity of craft beers “can be understood as a metaphor for a deeper thirst for authenticity” (Beer and Philosophy, ed. Steven D. Hales, 2007). But we don’t want to simply consume authentic foods in authentic restaurants washed down with authentic beers. We want to live authentic lives and, ultimately, become authentic selves.

You can read the rest of this article of mine in Philosophy Now magazine.