The story of The Prestige was loosely based on the story of Chung Ling Soo, one of the most famous stage magicians of the 19th century and an utterly shameless race faker (he has a brief cameo in the first act of the movie)https://twitter.com/MarieMyungOkLee/status/1301607543538683910 …
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It inspired The Prestige because it was just such a truly elaborate and offensive scam He and his wife were both in on it and both pretended to be Chinese at all times in public, wearing yellowface makeup and "exotic" clothing, speaking in a thick accent, etc
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He wasn't just a fake Chinese guy He was *specifically* ripping off another magician, Ching Ling Foo, who actually was Chinese Stealing his whole act, top to bottom, including his ethnicity
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Ching Ling Foo had offered a $1,000 prize to anyone who could figure out the secret of his famous disappearing goldfish bowl trick (which is referenced in the movie) A young white man named Bill Robinson tried to claim the prize, but Ching ignored him
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And, as often happens with white men in the performing arts, he took it kind of personally
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Replying to @arthur_affect
I'm just now reading up on this on wikipedia, and it's kind of amazing. "You snubbed me, so now I will spend the rest of my life pretending to be Chinese and steal your name and act for my own" is some pretty amazing obsession.
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Replying to @MadScientist212
Yes, the main way in which the Chung Ling Soo saga inspired The Prestige is the picture it paints of magicians as bizarrely petty and vindictive human beings
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Replying to @arthur_affect @MadScientist212
Which, you know, might be an unfair stereotype, but, well, Randy Pitchford
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Replying to @arthur_affect @MadScientist212
Mitch Hurwitz, creator of Arrested Development, actually is also a stage magician, and created the character of Gob to roast his fellow magicians as hard as he could "We Demand to be Taken Seriously" is way too accurate a burn to ever live down
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Replying to @arthur_affect @MadScientist212
For my sins, I used to be really into stage magic and harbor thoughts of being a magician someday I remember reading a book by Derren Brown that just goes into hilarious self deprecation about what kind of person makes magic their career
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All performers have the inherently childish desire to make other people pay attention to you But magic is the most absurdly desperate and shameless manifestation of it Actors and comedians etc just lie for a living, magicians lie that they have SUPERNATURAL POWERS
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Replying to @arthur_affect @MadScientist212
You're so desperate for people to notice and like you you're trying to sell the inherently ridiculous idea that you are some kind of superhuman being who can violate the basic laws of reality and yet you only use your powers for dumb shit like making a pencil go through a quarter
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Replying to @arthur_affect @MadScientist212
(The self deprecation is because Brown sees legit stage magic as existing on the other side of an often thin line from actual scammers and charlatans, professional psychics and the like, and he's a skeptic and debunker of such people, who deeply offend him)
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