Identity, the Internet, and the Dollar Movies

It seems that a couple of strong themes have run through most of the TV, books, and movies I’ve consumed this fall, and I think they’re related to some of our current societal anxieties, as is usually the case.

One is identity, and how it relates to society at large. How do we define ourselves in a world where we know better than ever that all we are is DNA and firing synapses? It would seem that we’re more able to let others know who we are than ever, but at the same time there’s this fear that we have no control, that someone else is pulling our strings. Maybe this is part of the fear that the Glenn Becks and Michelle Bachmanns of the world tap into, that we have no control over our lives. And to an extent it’s true: never before has every detail of our lives been visible to our bosses, our government, and our enemies in the way it is now. This is the price we pay to make the world traversable in an instant, to have friends and business partners on other continents, to live in a world where anyone can be instantly famous.

Which brings us to another theme, that of our relationship to the media and the internet. Something is reaching critical mass, I think, and we’re now quite literally in Andy Warhol’s future, at least in America and Europe and a few other places. At the same time, we’re seeing objectivity disappear in our news media, replaced by opinion. This may not be a good thing, but what I think this environment of blogs and Fox News has given us is one huge conversation, a huge town hall meeting about everything all the time, rather than speeches by talking heads at set times. What does that mean? And is fame, more easily attainable for the average joe than any previous time in our history, one of the only ways to make your voice count more than someone else’s? And what is the price for that?

This is all brought on by a handful of stories, some of which are spectularly good and some of which are pretty awful. I’ll write about some more of the books I’ve been reading another time. As for TV, there are a large number of shows on right now, but I think the one that makes me think the most is “Dollhouse”. The show is not going to last beyond its current 13 episode Second Season, but that is fine, and it is worth enjoying while it is here. The show, which I’ve reviewed here before, had the best episode of its season so far this past week, focusing on Dichen Lachmann’s character, Sierra.

The episode, and to a certain extent the show itself, is about rape, and what it does to us on a personal and societal level. There is a scene near the beginning where the man we met in “Needs” who put Sierra in the Dollhouse prepositions her. She refuses and tries to leave. He physically prevents her. The entire party (which is mostly made up of Dolls) stands around and does nothing. The Dollhouse is (metaphorically) about how society inexorably “programs” us to take on certain roles… in a way are we all responsible when things like this happen? Of course, there’s more to the episode than this, it’s full of spectacular performances and feels like a step forward for the show’s mythology. io9 has a detailed review here: http://io9.com/5389040/rape-is-one-tick-short-of-armageddon-on-dollhouse

At the dollar movies, where movies usually appear not long before they go to DVD (a window which closes a little further every few months), I saw two SF movies this week. The first was “District 9”, which gives itself a sense of reality by appearing at least part of the time to be some sort of documentary. The story is about a group of aliens (refugees?) that appear above Johannesburg, and are settled in a camp known as District 9. Those familiar with South Africa will notice strong parallels with apartheid and the more recent influx of refugees to the country from Africa’s more impoverished areas, which has led to some violence. The film is cast almost entirely with local South Afircan actors, with unknown Sharlto Copley cast in the lead role, a petty bureaucrat who gets involved in events beyond his control.

The film’s biggest strength is Copley’s character, Wikus van der Merwe, who, as one “talking head” notes, “took the choices available to him.” He’s not really a good guy by choice. When we see the aliens, they’re a lot like people, subject to depravity, violence, and pointless addictions. There are good aliens, but they seem to be few and far between… the implication is that we are the same way. The film observes all this dispassionately, helped by the documentary format. Except it seems to really want us to hate Nigerians, for some reason.

The issue of identity comes up because (POSSIBLE SPOILER) van der Merwe finds himself infected with an alien “fluid” that is gradually changing his own DNA from human to alien. He finds himself fitting in nowhere, both a pariah and incredibly valuable in the view of the both “sides”. (END SPOILER) The media is omnipresent throughout the film, as it seems to me it now is in most people’s lives.

The movie is extremely well made, with the CGI aliens completely photorealistic with distinct personalities despite a budget of “only” $30 million (the film made this back and then some on its first weekend). The “documentary” style is used to serve the story rather than distracting with overly swirly shots. However, the film’s villains (especially the Nigerians) can be a little too over the top at times. Also, the third act turns into one long action sequence, which is not really what I was looking for from such an intelligent film.

Tonight’s film was “Gamer”, a fitting cap to a week where the two really memorable stories for me were “The Hunger Games” and “Dollhouse”, as the film strongly contains elements of both without managing to be nearly as good as either one. In the near future, the big popular media phenomenon is games where people control other real people. A weird southern guy played by Michael C. Hall (chewing large bites of scenery throughout) invented “Society”, which is essentially “Second Life” if your avatar was a real person. As Hall’s character, Castle, notes, people pay both to be controlled and to control, though it seems that at least some of the “I-Cons” are there because they’re desperate and they’re getting paid. Now Castle has invented “Slayers”, in which gamers control death-row inmates in pitched “battles”… a FPS with real deaths. These battles are incredibly popular just to watch, and the top gamers make millions.

And that’s pretty much it. The movie is from the writer/director team that gave us “Crank”, and it has the same feel of gratuitous sex and violence being presented in a way that shouts “Look how gratuitous this is!” I enjoyed “Crank” because it was so ridiculous and completely unexpected. “Gamer” has more there there, so to speak, but not that much, and while here the boobs and blood seem to actually have a further message behind them, the movie is still an exploitative violent media offering of nearly the same kind it is critiquing.

The action sequences are presented with the camera shaking crazily, completely preventing us from having any sense of the geography of any of the action sequences. Perhaps fortunately, this took away some of the effect of the violence for me. The movie feels like an extension of this, presenting its concept so frenetically we are prevented from caring or even being impressed. There are, however, two sequences I will remember for a long time. One is the opening minute or so, in which we get a sense of this future world, with “Slayers” advertisements writ large across skyscrapers, even on the Great Pyramid, all set to Marilyn Manson’s cover of “Sweet Dreams”. (“Some of them want to use you/Some of them want to be used by you.”) The other is the climax, which (SPOILER) includes a completely random musical number just when we’re expecting a big showdown. I’m not sure it was a good idea, or even well executed, but by that point I was very happy that they tried it.(END SPOILER).

Interestingly, both “Dollhouse” and “Gamer” deal with the concept of the powerful literally reprogramming the less powerful, and both of them come to the conclusion that this means the end of everything. Of course, since both take the concept literally, both show it leading to the literal apocalypse, when, at least today, this takes place more in a figurative way, so what these are both really saying is that what this does is rob our lives of their beauty and meaning.