More Thoughts on Pluribus

Last week I posted a video about my frustrations with Pluribus, and some of the responses have been interesting.

Lately when I post a video I get a wave of sticky anxiety that stays with me for a few days. There is something frightening about dropping the video over the cliff and into the deep, dark ocean of viewers - a distinctly unusual feeling, so different from posting here to a small, usually very chill audience of blog enthusiasts.

It makes one shudder. 

Many of the comments on this video, though, were reasonably similar to the comments on the Pluribus-hating post I made here a while ago. Yes, some agree, the plot meanders and the season stretches out its episodes in a sometimes unsatisfying way. Maybe, some say, Carol isn't that interesting when left alone for long stretches of episode time.

But some of the ways people disagree with me (and they sure do!) are fascinating. Maybe most baffling of all is the stalwart conviction that I can't be right about the season's position on the plurb, because they (the commenter) think the plurb is morally excellent. Regardless of your own philosophical wrestlings with the plurb as a force of good or evil (which, I have to admit to you, I do find deranged), the season makes it clear by the finale that this is a sinister force with absolutely no concern for preserving any facet of humanity beyond an encyclopedic pilfering of its knowledge. Those humans aren't in there! Not really!

Yes, the season wants to play with our moral view of the plurb, make us ask questions about whether there could be a net positive in such a complete takeover of human life, or at the very least if it could rock ass to be the lucky individual who gets to interface with the plurb as if it's a personal sex butler, but why is Manousos rushing to the action if not to be our vector for rooting for the plurb's reckoning and destruction? That's the arc, baby!!

Not that I begrudge rooting for a villain - I said I'd love a more evil Carol in this very video - but let's call a plurb a plurb here.

Another related thing I'm seeing is impassioned defense of the non-Carol individuals who love that plurb. No Lilly, people are saying. You don't get it - they accept the plurb because their family members are plurbed, and because to them, this collective mass is not such a nightmare. They come from more community-minded cultures, you see, and quite frankly they're right and I love the plurb and I wanna get plurbed myself.

And to that I say, okay plurb-lover, I get that you love the plurb and that you wanna for real get plurbed. However, there's a few reasons I'm not into this one. The first is that, as I said in my video, the season doesn't explore why these people think the plurb is fine. We don't see a single meaningful interaction between one of these individuals and a plurbed family member of theirs. We categorically don't explore what their reasons are for deciding they're cool with it, and I don't buy that coming from a culture which values community over the inidividual would mean you'd see a big alien thing that absorbs all of the humans you know and love as equivalent to said community. I think one could see that as a threat to community! I mean, community is a thing comprised of individuals, not a hivemind. They're not the same. Couldn't it even be reductive and insulting to reduce community-focus to this extreme erasure of the individual? Individuals can exist without community, after all, but community can't exist without individuals.

I would love to see a more complex view of these characters within the show. I'm not saying these characters are simply 'bad people' for having no problem with their apocalypse, just that the show gives us no reason to understand them. We don't spend time with them, and we don't gain any perspective on what their views are. Koumba is the only real mouthpiece for pro-plurb sentiment within the show, and he both doesn't offer a convincing argument (unless you love the no crime thing), and seeks to primarily use the plurb to have all the young women of the world service him indiscriminately. The plurb-lovers, then, come across as idiots and dweebs. I can't relate to them. And I don't think I have to, but it would be nice to feel that they weren't so much like cardboard cut-outs.

Finally, if these characters are so happy with the situation - with their family and friends being enplurbened - because of their alleged cultural predeliction for community, then why do all of them (with the exception of Darling Kusimayu) refuse to join the plurb themselves? You'd think if this was such a culturally defined moral good in their eyes that they would join too, but no - they're happy for their families to be sucked up into the plurb without consent, but when they have the choice: it's a no. That's pretty interesting. It's almost as if the show is categorically characterising them as a hypocritical group of thoughtless rubes who are willing to destroy the world and throw other people away for the benefits afforded to them in a mass-death event. Hmm...

But perhaps my favourite viewer response was one commenter's claim that reviewing the first season of a TV show, that judging an entire hypothetical show by its baby season, is like judging a movie based on its first ten minutes. A very silly one, but yes, perhaps. Let's all be quiet until father Gilligan feeds us a scrumptious fourth season. Then, some say, I may be permitted to judge.

 

The Pitt Frightens Me

Yes, I love The Pitt for its fast pace, its interconnected educational PSA structure, and its lovable goofballs, but I have found myself clutching the edge of the couch in fear and shuddering with each new episode. There is little more anxiety inducing than this stream of escalating injuries. I feel a deep fear rise from within.

When I was a kid I had a real fondness for hospitals. I once had to have grommets put in my ears to ventilate the middle ear because my hearing was a little bit off - the things that happen to the body are, sometimes, cartoonish - and I distinctly remember my excitement. The hospital had a pufferfish-themed info pack (which I think included pufferfish stickers - yay!) and I felt very taken care of and fascinated by the workings of the hospital.

Back then, hospitals seemed like magical places. This was the height of human knowledge, a locus of academic brilliance and cool machinery, and I was obsessed. The hospital is like a sort of library. Doctors and nurses were little sweeties, and all things clinical, instead of frightening me, comforted and impressed me. If anything happened that required a hospital visit, I felt relieved to be heading to and arriving at the place where you were almost certainly the safest.

I've had a few ambulance rides in my time. Once I had a random neck spasm in the bath, and two paramedics had to help me out and place me in a neck brace. The solution: a beautiful muscle relaxant that made me feel very relaxed (too relaxed) for a few days. The doctor told me: "sometimes that just happens".

I still have a great reverence for hospitals, and think they're very cool, but as an adult I steadily replaced my awe and excitement for them with straightforward discomfort and anxiety. I guess there was a sense of innocence to my love of hospitals, and now I've seen and heard too much. Instead of feeling relieved and joyful that I've made it to the best place for treatment, I've come to associate the hospital with OH GOD OH NO SOMETHING BAD IS HAPPENING. Now I gotta get outta there.

And so, when I watch The Pitt, I can't help but imagine all of those injuries and diseases happening to me. I can't help but remember that one day I categorically will die. And I think: oh. I don't want that. I actually really want to live and not be harmed.

But okay, I try to think of this sort of anxiety as a kind of test. If I watch a show like this, and I feel that white knuckle freaky feeling when something bad is happening to someone onscreen, but then after the episode is finished I can come back down to a calm baseline and accept the horrors I've seen, maybe it helps me to be better able to handle such feelings. After all, if you experience anxiety, but then you're okay, you can reinforce your ability to go through it. You have evidence that it's all gonna be okay. I'd say that sometimes I might feel a sense of heightened anxiety and worry for around ten to twenty minutes after an episode of The Pitt ends. My mind lingers on the bloody lacerations. I breathe heavily and I feel a bit shaky or tingly. But then it's over. Nothing's happening to me. And if something does happen, well, I'll go to the hospital. It's the best place to be.

Once I was in the cardiology dept. of a hospital and I heard the young doctors singing "boom, clap, the sound of my HEART, the beat goes on and on and on and on and", and I thought, God, that's beautiful. I love the hospital.

Interesting iCarly Episodes

I just watched through the first season of iCarly. For the most part, it's a solid show that I think adequately captures the growing mass appeal of online media via some charming and goofy performances. I like that the responsible adult character is a twenty-five-year-old big kid, giving the show more of an anarchic feel. I like the extremely cartoonish and fake image of a livestream and/or web show it presents. It's fun to spend every episode asking, "who the hell is watching iCarly?"

But beyond its basic, serviceable plot and characters, there were a few episodes in particular that I found a little bit thornier, and its those I'd like to talk about here.

#1: iNevel & iRue the Day

In these episodes, we deal with a repulsive, villainous boy blogger named Nevel, who writes a nasty review of the iCarly webshow on his famous blog when Carly refuses to kiss him. This is a bold exploration of sexual assault and coercion, and it's pretty striking to see Nevel plainly try to use his power and influence to gain sexual favours.

It's also pretty iconic that they revisit it in a second episode, in which Nevel simply tries again to sabotage and ruin iCarly by, this time, hacking their website. There's no new slight he's had to suffer, no repeated refusal, he's just still mad about the first one. Relentless. There's something so great about that.

What I also find notable is that while the topic is very much taken seriously, they still manage to make Nevel's character funny. This is largely because of the actor's really wonderful, theatrical performance. So, strangely, Nevel the would-be abuser is a joy to watch. How unusual and special.

#2: iPromote Techfoots

This one is about sponsorship. A shoe company makes a deal with the iCarly children, and they begin promoting the shoes (Techfoots) on their shows. But oh no, those shoes are comically horrible to the point of being a genuine hazard, so now the iCarly team are stuck promoting shoes that spontaneously combust. They get out of this via some nonsensical legal wizardry whereby they describe the shoes sarcastically positively on their show, and all is well, but the lesson has been learned: advertising is evil.

It's a nice bit of silly satire that perfectly reflects the unbearable nature of sponsorships. It also tickles me that the kids are so excited to be able to get a few hundred dollars out of their show when it's clearly worth so much more.

#3: iCarly Saves TV 

This episode concerns itself with the awkward relationship between TV and online media. The boss at a TV network hears about iCarly from his daughter, who finds his programming excruciatingly dull, and grabs it up for broadcast. The iCarly kids are delighted, but soon discover that the boss insists on increasingly misguided changes to the content.

He brings in an ugly mascot character called 'Zeebo'. I love Zeebo. Terrible, hideous Zeebo.

Zeebo moment.

After a while, the changes irritate Carly so much that she leaves the show, and learns that the deal they made was very bad - the TV station owns the iCarly intellectual property or something. But this is solved quickly when the boss decides he doesn't want his show to be called iCarly anymore. They really couldn't think of a neat way to end the episode with iCarly re-instated and back to normal, and that in itself is sort of interesting.

Of course these sorts of issues need to be easily solved on the show to keep the episodic continuum intact, but it's fun that legality often has to break in order for that to happen. It's just like in Columbo, where Columbo doesn't have to actually find any evidence because the killer always confesses in a deranged, smug monologue at the end. 

***

These three episodes paint an interesting picture of iCarly's cultural criticism. Media figures here are always out to dupe these poor kids in some way. The wider world of success and influence is dangerous and ugly. And the legalities of the world are, of course, flexible and game-able so that the universe can remain as imaginative as possible, as reactive as we need.

Probably my favourite single image from iCarly so far.

So Carly escapes attempted sexual extortion cleanly, and ducks out of restrictive, punishing contracts with simple trickery. What a beautiful world. 

Dexter's First Season is Odd

It happened unexpectedly. I saw Dexter's devilish face peering from the Netflix carousel, and I thought: yeah. Now's the time. Let's get into Dexter, I guess. And so, I watched the first season in something of a trance. Every day, first thing in the morning - perhaps a rousing episode of Dexter. Before bed, nice and cosy - perhaps a soothing episode of Dexter. 

There's our boy.

What I loved about it immediately was its bold, wry sense of humour. We open with a voiceover monologue from Dexter himself, and the presence of this voiceover steers the show, and sets up a beautiful solid line between the functioning world of Miami and its utterly repulsive police department, and our cutely childlike fully grown serial killer.

LaGuerta + Dex 4eva

We only hear his perspective through this narration, and so there's a wonderfully insular feel to it. We, the audience, are the only ones with ears pressed right up to Dexter's heart. And he is, as it turns out, one of few sympathetic individuals in an ecosystem of malignant freaks.

There's the corrupt, rancid crew of officers and forensics boys - ranging from Masuka, a man who can't resist making lurid, pervy comments on every chopped up female body he swabs, to Doakes, the stern muscle-man who always has one eyebrow raised, easily the best of them. Arguably most important, though, is Deb - Dexter's chirpy cop sister. I despise her.

Every line she delivers, every thought she has, even, has the distinct energy of a delighted, scheming twelve-year-old who is about to be massively brought down to Earth. She seems to do zero police work, instead relying on her brother to feed her spontaneous crime-solving clues. I hate to see her happy, honestly. She's like an amoeba.

Dexter himself has an unshakeable appeal. He's a little sweetie. Michael C. Hall plays him with this wonderful, wide-eyed quality. He's always vaguely startled, yet he is also always smizing impishly. This guy is up to something, but in a cute way. This is bolstered by his relationship with his timid girlfriend, Rita, who is by far one of my favourite characters. I just love their dynamic together as two people with very different interpersonal fears that ultimately manifest in very similar, often complimentary ways.

Rita is a victim of rape and battery, and I find the scenes that deal with her hesitance surrounding sex in relation to that very sweet and touching. Unfortunately, later in the season the show starts to irritate me by bringing in her evil husband Paul and sort of making him a normal guy character that has to be in the episodes just to piss me off. His ongoing presence and the flippancy with which the show begins to treat him and his abusive behaviour ultimately undermines some of the more thoughtful writing that comes earlier on. And that's a big clanger.

She's just so cute.

At first, the show appeared to have a sort of complicated and interesting relationship with its cast of characters. Here are the corrupt and magnificently peurile police force, failing at everything and generally being unbelievably stinky. And then here's Dexter, the secret killer with a heart of gold. They are at odds with each other, and yet they fit perfectly together. Dexter defiles, harms, and kills people in the name of justice (à la Light Yagami), and so do the police. But the more I watch, the more simple it seems.

We're not supposed to consider Deb a whiny incompetent when she acts put upon when her superior asks her to hurry up and bring a bottle of water to a thirsty child who had been trapped in a car for days. We're not supposed to judge her when she solicits a prostitute for a misogynistic amputee and sends her into his hospital room with a grin. We're not supposed to judge Doakes when he shoots first at a fleeing suspect, because that suspect did really bad stuff and so it's simply justified for a police officer to execute him.

Sad Doakes :-(

We're not, obviously, supposed to judge Dexter for killing nasty guys either, but the show reveals through its moral consideration of the other characters that he is less a subversion of the justice system, less a warped, acerbic continuation of it, even, and more of an expression of the average person's vibes-based approach to justice - just get the bad guys. Everything else is window dressing.

Yes, Dexter is a killer, but the point is that his inhuman urge to do murders, his inability to feel, gives him an almost heightened humanity. He cares about his victims' victims in direct contrast with almost every other character's ceaselessly narcissistic view of the world. It works so beautifully, until the show unravels into gratuitous, weird, and reprehensible behaviour by the others thats treated as if its on par with Dexter's Dextering. Enough. I can't buy that.

By the end of the season, the Ice Truck Killer feels idiotic. The reveal that he's Dexter darksided older brother is, yes, very funny, but it's also like - who is this dweeb? Why on Earth did Deb accept a marriage proposal from this wiry little freak? There is a flattening that happens here. Yes, this man can use his one contraption to drain people of their blood, but beyond that, he really isn't so smart and special. The end of his plan feels like playground stuff. Then again, that's what they're doing. Playing.

Kiss <3

In any case, some of the electric lustre wears off by the finale. The misogyny running in a thick current through the show is not there to be explored as much as it is there to titillate, no matter how good and kind and murderous a man Dexter is, and how interesting that dichotomy is. But Dexter is there, nevertheless. And he's pretty great.

The Pitt is Sensational

Rejoice, injury lovers, for we have been blessed with new episodes of The Pitt, and I for one am glad to have the opportunity to see many more bleeding body parts. Yay!

He's back!

Last year I was dazzled and amazed by The Pitt's first season. The ensemble cast are a gorgeous tapestry of personalities, smirking with knowing mirth and/or shaking with nerves. I love the autistic one, Dr. King, an utterly charming geek. I love Dana, the sarcastic yet warm charge nurse. I love Javadi, her eyes wide with fear or narrowed in judgement at all times. I love them all.

Not that there are a lot to choose from, but she is easily my favourite autistic character of all time.

This show was, I thought then, maybe the best-paced TV show I'd ever seen. Each episode covers an hour of the shift, and so the season takes us, minute by minute, through a full twenty-four hours in the ER, and it goes at a breakneck pace.

The sense of urgency and very particular time management is conveyed through extremely tight scenario writing here, and it's impressive. We see the doctors and nurses weave through escalating emergencies and deaths and other surprises with a determined, relentless, unstoppable energy. Triage is an insane, twisted spider web, and our little flies are working themselves loose over and over again. It's incredible.

There are some wonderfully shocking moments that come from both excellent, surprising writing that keeps the viewer on their toes, and perfectly placed visual effects that unceremoniously show you the nasty conditions being dealt with. While much of this is gory and uncomfortable, I love how un-sensational it tends to feel. The human body is a marvel, in all its bloody, pulsing glory.

You are not gonna wanna open up that cast.

All of this great stuff continues into the second season, where we have yet another day to get through. It's main man Robby's last day before a fun little trip, and it's the fourth of July baby!!!! It's America's special day. Anything could happen.

What I immediately love is the way this season crafts the feeling of reunion. Some time has passed in-universe since that awful day that was the first season, and so we see that Whitaker has grown confident and can now instruct a new little man, his own little puppy dog, in the art of being a real, actual doctor.

Whitaker also has the tender start of a mullet forming. Powerful development.

We also see that Langdon's back after a long absence and stint in rehab, and can reunite with his bestie, King.

Aww.

The sense of that time having passed and the dynamics having shifted slightly in the absence of the audience is so well done - it really feels like getting to see old friends after having been away for a while.

And we have, as expected, some horrifying and downright spooky patient issues. I will say nothing more than that there is a penis draining. And it is so horrible. And so perfect.

Pure fear.

I Love 1970s Tennis Anime

A while ago I watched through the 1973-74 shoujo anime series about girls' tennis, Aim for the Ace! 

I can't remember how I came across it, but something about the visual style really struck me. The long, angled faces sometimes warped to a sort of dream-like alien degree. The beautiful, blurred backgrounds in purple tones. The colourful airbrushing and paint stippling. It's a gorgeous, odd-looking show.

It centres on a vaguely tomboyish tennis player, Hiromi. She has a fluffy Donny Osmond cut, a reserved personality, and a dream - to play some tennis. We start out with her about to move up to the senior team, and follow her as she takes part in more high stakes matches and gets into more intense training.

She has a little black cat, by the way. This creature isn't particularly important, but rest assured: that cat is there.

What I love about the series is its claustrophobic intensity. At the beginning, it seems that Hiromi and her friend don't care all that much about their tennis prowess, but it quickly becomes the beautiful, sparkling jewel at the centre of Hiromi's life. An intoxicating, visceral passion expressed so vividly by the textured backgrounds and often conspicuously empty, slightly abstract locations.

A figure of great inspiration to Hiromi is Todo, the sparkling and gentle boy tennis player she admires. He is an iconic 1970s boy. He has the most luscious eyelashes in the world, thick, flowing sideburns, and bewitching, geode-like eyes. He is quiet and unassuming, statesmanlike, and a very good tennis player.

The distant intensity with which she views him is so deliciously communicated. She is always gazing at him, and he is always leaping in slow motion, a graceful gazelle of a man on the court. And so, there is an impeccable, tentative sensuality to their relationship. Nothing feels quite real, but every detail is magnified, made huge and shiny.

Balls.

I also love the way the show explores the fraught position of women's tennis, and women in tennis. There's a powerful scene in which Hiromi talks about the extreme challenge she faces in making up for her relative weaknesses in strength and size.

It's so great. You're punching the air at this point. Our girl needs to win. She deserves it.

Another moment has a coach observing Hiromi's training, and he says this:

It's such an interesting and sad look at some of the stark realities of women's sports and their dismissal, but it's also inspiring and invigorating. Here is a girl who is truly in it for the love of the game, giving it her all, pushing her body to the limit - and carving out a space for women of pure, dogged athleticism.

I just love her so much. 

 

p.s. here's a dog: