Cataluna: The current trend of pretending to slow down

As Dave Chappelle said, everything looks cooler in slow motion.

Well, almost everything.

Surfing does. Walking along the shoreline does. Tossing noodles in a wok does. A flag waving in slow motion brings a tear to the eye.

But some things don’t particularly look better in slow motion. In fact, they look kind of dorky: walking in business attire, shopping for vegetables, nodding at something your doctor just said, pointing.

Yet these are the images of Hawaii so often played back to us in ads on TV, online and in social media.

It’s not just Hawaii, of course; it’s everywhere. And it’s not just advertising. It’s anybody shooting cellphone video and posting it to social media, perhaps after running the clip through iMovie.

Film school professors lecture that slow-mo makes the experience more intense. It allows the viewer to see each small moment of sensory detail. It gives greater emotional impact. It can make the visual image indelible in the viewers’ minds.

One of the first American movies to employ slow motion into the storytelling was 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde.” In that film the final hail of bullets that brings down the titular characters is slowed for maximum visceral impact.

So yeah, it’s probably way too much to slow-mo somebody picking out bell peppers at the vegetable section of the market.

But whatever. We’ll laugh about it in a few years, but it’s fashionable right now.

And maybe we like seeing things slowed down because so much of life requires a frenetic, unsustainable pace.

Slow motion is such a contrast with the daily scramble, when too often you feel like you have to rush around to get everything done and to avoid being run over by someone who is in an even bigger rush (and driving a bigger car). A few seconds of video of a slowed-down lawn sprinkler can feel like a momentary respite. Watching a drink being slowly poured proffers an unspoken assurance that whatever is in that glass could give you that languid, unhurried moment of peace. Watching a surfer in slow motion ride, clean and sure, on a towering wave is mesmerizing, even if you’ve never surfed in your life and have no idea how that would feel. The slow motion allows time to appreciate each fraction of a section as the surfer adjusts to the water and becomes one with the power of the wave.

Watching a group of lawyers or doctors or a political candidate walking in slow motion doesn’t quite have that grandeur. What is it supposed to mean, anyway? That they’re thoughtful? Deep? That they’re so good at what they do that they’re in no hurry to get to work?

When Dave Chappelle said that everything looks cooler in slow motion, he was, of course, joking; and the sketches he created to illustrate his point are not safe for work. While slow- motion imagery may be popular, it is an altered perception of real life, and changing the way things appear doesn’t change the fact that you often have to move fast to get stuff done in this town.