In Defense of Penn & Teller

I will not lie to you. I think Penn & Teller are probably the most important magicians working today. Do they perform the best illusions around? No, although many of their tricks are top notch. There are still a few who can beat them in this category. Is their stage personality better than all the others? No. Though they are among the best, they are not so transcendent to be considered the absolute best. But what they have brought to magic is the one thing it's always needed most: meaning. They have a real message.

Most magicians do amazing things that seem impossible. That's great, and it's wonderful entertainment. I love it. But what does it mean when a magician saws a lady in half, vanishes a coin, or brings a selected card to the top of the deck? Not a thing. It's fun to watch, and a strong presentation will keep the audience emotionally engaged, and maybe even make it a very memorable experience. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't mean anything.

I include myself in this group of magicians, though I strive to improve. And when I say that I strive to improve, I mean that I strive to me just a little bit more like Penn & Teller, because their performance is nothing but meaning (just sometimes more overtly than at other times).

For instance, their flag burning trick is probably the best magic trick I've ever seen in my life. Is it the best because the mechanical method by which it is achieved is so superior to any others? No. In fact, they show you exactly how it's done during the performance, as we'll see in a few moments. It is the best magic trick I've ever seen because they bring to the performance something very few magicians ever seem to: a strong, real, and heart-felt message about really important issues.

Penn & Teller don't just "vanish a flag in a patriotic flash of fireworks." By performing this trick, as simple yet beautiful as it is, they ask very important questions that the audience is left to answer for themselves: What does it mean to be American? What does freedom mean? What does the flag mean? What if you burn a flag, not in protest, but in celebration of those very freedoms?

Even when David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear, there was not the same emotional or intellectual attachment to the trick. It was an amazing trick, and the method by which he accomplished it still makes me smile, but even performing the trick with a national monument failed to capture the essence of a simple little flag trick on Penn & Teller's stage at the Rio.

What about their other tricks? The one they do with a rabbit and a wood chipper, for instance. Is that a meaningful exploration of anything worth considering, or just a fun bit of gore? Admittedly, it's just a fun bit of gore on the surface, but when you roll back that layer, you're left with something more important (or at least I am left with something more important). Namely, you're left with a consideration of what death is, and what it means. Though this was not an explicit part of the performance when I saw them live, it was brought to light in no vague terms by their performance of the same trick on an episode of Bullshit.

Or how about Teller's trick, Shadows? It's a beautiful trick, but does it mean anything? Nothing explicit. But it's almost like visual poetry. You get out of it what you bring to it. Can an audience member explicitly label the "meaning" of the trick? I'd wager not. But I'd also wager that many audience members find watching that trick to be an emotionally charged experience.

And as for the rest of it, even though some tricks may have no particular meaning, their overall performance has a definite message, or at least it seems so to me. Many magicians have long complained that too much emphasis in magic is put on keeping secrets, taking something away from the overall art form. It's as if imagining one of the great painters refusing to tell anyone the mechanical forces behind applying paint to a canvas. Penn & Teller have once again transcended the norm, by openly exposing some of the secrets to their own tricks, not out of any malicious intent, but as an expression of their message: knowing how something works doesn't make it any less beautiful.

That, I think, is one of the most important messages humans need to learn. Keats complained that Newton's experiments with prisms had destroyed the poetry and mystery of rainbows. He thought that knowing the truth, that knowing the precise mechanisms by which something seems to work, takes all the poetry and life out of that something, making it just another cold reality. This is the message that is destroying both the intellectual and the emotional climate of human culture.

Penn & Teller counter this line of thinking in a most clear and beautiful way. We'll turn back to their flag burning trick. The essence of the trick, reduced to only a few descriptive words, is that they place a folded American flag inside a rolled-up replica of the Bill of Rights, and igniting a wad of paper at the bottom of the tube, cause it to vanish. Is it burned, did they just vanish it, what happened? It's a powerful trick.

Indeed, part of the power of that illusion is in the ambiguity of what they've just done. The audience member doesn't know if they've burned a flag, or if it's just vanished. The ambiguity is powerful, and is representative of only the best magic elsewhere in the world. However, the effect is made all the more powerful when the power of that ambiguity is sacrificed in favor of the beauty and poetry of the truth.

So, although many magicians may be annoyed when they perform the trick again, this time using the Chinese bill of rights (actually a piece of clear acetate with no printing on it at all) so you can see exactly what they do, I'm not like most magicians. I see the beauty of the method as a magician might, but I also see the beauty of the message, both of the trick, and of their entire show.

And at the same time, while poetically expressing themselves through magic during their stage show, Penn & Teller are a couple of our most devoted champions of truth and reason today. Through their Showtime series Bullshit, or through other forms of communication, P&T have done more for truth, honesty, science, and reason than most human beings will ever dream of doing.

Penn & Teller call themselves the "bad boys of magic." By popular standards, that seems to be the case, but I must respectfully disagree. They're rebels, oh yes, but rebels are not "bad." Indeed, it takes rebellion on some level to bring anything good at all.

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