Identity Crisis: Who's The Polo Pretender?

I am looking at the way a persona and identity can change the way in which the world around us perceives and interprets our behaviours. The channel 4 documentary "Faking it: bicycle courier to polo player" addresses this fully. Malcolm 'woody' Woodcock is a bicycle courier who lives in Manchester city, Malcolm has to change his whole identity and everyday behaviours to fool a set of upper classes polo judges into thinking he is a professional that has been playing polo from an early age. 

Malcolm's identity at the start of the show can be described as "alternative" and "punk" his appearance isn't one of a professional polo player. His self-image consists of multiple facial piercings, tattoos, scruffy clothes and his behaviour is out going, out spoken and consists of bad habits such as regularly smoking and drinking furthermore he presents himself as someone who has a lazy attitude. In order to mask his previous persona Malcolm has to have a complete makeover to fit in with the upper class society to what they would deem culturally acceptable. This process is done through complete removal of his facial piercings, cutting his hair "appropriately", new/smarter clothes and hiding his bold arm tattoos. At first Malcolm seems to be open and accepting of change to his identity to complete his task and fool members of the polo club, however during the processes we see concern to the new persona as he is anxious towards the new clothing he has to wear; he shows signs of attachment to his previous identity, this affects his self-esteem and Malcolm begins to lack the confidence in himself and fulfilling his task.

Alongside the Identity crises he is experiencing he must learn how to play polo at a professional level and express an upper class attitude and behaviour. His initial behaviour to this is overly confident he is open with his coaches and believes he will do well, this soon changes as his lack of experience and preparation is obvious. We see his ability to use of cognitive dissonance to protect his self-esteem he claims to never have sat on a horse in hopes this justifies his bad training sessions and poor involvements in games, another example is the lack of time he spends on the training horse (wooden horse) this is the aspects of his previous persona still being present, he is still lazy and isn't committed to the identity change. Furthermore we see later in the show more evidence of cognitive dissonance in his behaviour, after his first major game in which he does poorly; he excuse his bad polo skills with the previous night’s drinking antics and claiming of a hangover which clouded his thoughts, this is a way of protecting himself and his self-esteem by placing blame on an extraneous variable.

At his first opportunity to fool members of the select society he must create a convincing back story to accompany his new identity at a dinner party hosted by the polo club. Malcolm struggles with his new persona but regardless he creates a back story that fits the life styles of those he is trying to fool, although once again his lack of preparation is apparent as his story is doubted by many people at the party, they don’t believe he is a professional polo player and doubt what he says in regards to his career and past success. This is the last chance Malcolm has to perfect his new persona and Identity as he will be assessed the following day.

The day of the big polo game in which Malcolm will be assessed he finally begins to accept his new persona. Malcolm is committed on fooling the judges that he has been playing polo professionally for some time. After the game in which he did considerable well at he has one finally task, to sit down and talk with the judges. Despite struggling once again with his back story and noticeable northern accent all three judges were convinced he was indeed a professional polo player and had been a member of the club for a considerable amount of time. In summary our identity can easily shape the life we live and fool those around us; shown through dedication Malcolm was able to convincingly alter his persona and identity given a complete different life proving it is our behaviour towards our own identity that defines our persona.