The Impostor as Celebrity

On Sunday The New York Times published an obituary for Barry Bremen, self-proclaimed "professional impostor" who gained notoriety after mostly unsuccessfully impersonating athletes and celebrities in the 1980s. It seems clear from the warm, sympathetic obituary (do obituaries come in other tones?) that Bremen was admired, perhaps even envied, for his outlandish attempts to become part of events that only a select few ever experience. It seems to me that his greatest act of imposture is this New York Times obituary; just like he snuck onto professional ball fields and awards stages, Bremen has somehow slipped into the most popular daily newspaper in the country.

It also strikes me that Bremen was a sort of class-clown impostor, the type whose existence depends on the (often fairly hasty) revelation of his impersonation, and that perhaps this is why he's been so sympathetically treated. After the initial con, I conjecture that there is an inverse relationship between length of time conned and sympathy for the conman. We all like a trick, but we don't like to feel as though we've been tricked for very long, or the trick becomes the more pejorative "deceit" or "fraud." I doubt anything Bremen every did was termed "fraud," and perhaps for that reason he is celebrated instead of reviled.