When Netflix announced that it would not be renewing Sense8 for a third season, its small
but devoted fanbase was distraught. I
never fully took to the show, but at worst, it was one of the most ambitious, visually stunning, and good-hearted failures I’ve ever seen. There were things that Sense8 could do with its premise and passion and production budget
that no other show could, and that’s part of what made it frustrating that it
so frequently settled for being, as I tweeted awhile back, “Chick Tracts for
progressives.” I don’t love the 140-character glibness of that assessment, so I
wanted to elaborate on some of the ways I found that the show stumbled dramatically,
by focusing on planting cultural flags instead of laying narrative track.
Because while the show itself has been deceased for months now, I think the
sort of indulgence it traffics in is becoming more commonplace. And will continue to, barring some sea change
in the way social media, hot takes, and increasing fan engagement with creators
have been influencing TV and movies over the last however many years since I
became a cranky old man that yells at clouds about kids and their internets.
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| By the way, I'm aware of the irony of appearing on the internet to criticize it, so don't bother pointing it out |
Sense8 was
beloved for its characters, and the attitudes of inclusivity and sex-positivity
that it wears on its sleeve. What it is
not beloved for is its story, because frankly, the story kind of sucks, in ways
it really didn’t have to. It had the
pieces for a solid sci-fi conspiracy plot, something more than serviceable
enough to hang its bravura setpieces and grand thematic pronouncements on. The
trouble is that Sense8 loved its
characters too much to ever really challenge them, much less actually hurt them, and it turns out that is sort
of essential for drama. The premise is
such that there are eight protagonists rather than one – the titular cluster of
individuals from far-flung corners of the world that find they can step into
each other’s minds and bodies. It’s a
cool concept, and one ripe for exploring the themes of discrimination and
empathy and uncanny karaoke that the show wants to tackle. But that premise also makes it difficult, if
not impossible, to ever isolate any of the main characters, as they are
literally never alone and even at their lowest points have constant access to a
half dozen perfectly sympathetic ears.
Isolating the protagonist is an important part of drama,
though, all the more so when it’s ultimately in service of themes about the
importance of interpersonal connections.
There’s a reason why most fantasy, sci-fi and Disney heroes are orphans,
and it’s the same reason why most detectives are loners and sitcom characters (assuming
it’s not a family sitcom specifically) have only strained or distant
relationships with their immediate families.
Starting the characters with a clean slate relationship-wise enhances
our level of identification by having their emotional state more closely mirror
our own lack of connection with their world beyond what we are seeing onscreen.
This in turn makes what we’re watching feel more important. Not only does the lack of a strong safety
net, emotional or otherwise, heighten the dramatic stakes for the protagonist
and our empathy by making them feel more vulnerable, it also allows for the
building of that type of support network to function as a clear arc for the
story as it progresses. Underpinning
that is the unspoken assuarance that the characters’ most important
relationships are those that we as the audience are “participating” in. Doesn’t the name Will And Grace imply that that
particular relationship is the most important one to those two characters? If Luke’s attachment to Uncle Owen and Aunt
Beru remained stronger than his with Leia and Han, wouldn’t the drama of the Star Wars trilogy fall flatter?
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| "I...I..." "I love-.." "I have a dermatologist appointment at 2:15... I'll text you later, though." |
Given how the premise grants the protagonists such an
extensive and immovable support network, Sense8
naturally resists the ability to create drama by limiting or threatening
it. That lack of isolation also serves to
undercut the progressive themes it trumpets so loudly. There is no shortage of dialogue telling us
how empathy can triumph over the omnipresent forces of bigotry, but the sensate
connection is a powerful conceit for showing
that. The importance of that connection
would be heightened, dramatically and allegorically, if everywhere else they turned, the sensates were faced with opposition and hostility, leaving
them only each other to rely upon.
Instead, everywhere they turn they are faced with…unconditional love and
endless, selfless support. And the
forces of bigotry and corruption are rendered the flimsiest of paper tigers,
triumphed over handily not just at the end of the series, or each season, or
each episode, but essentially each and every scene.
If all the sensates had was each other, that would still be
a hell of a lot more than a lot of people (if you have more than seven close
friends, good for you! You’re pretty
much crushing this Life thing). But each
of the cluster also has their own little world of supporting characters around
them. Joseph Campbell and the rudiments
of dramatic structure would dictate that they be ripped away or even forced
into opposition with their prior world as they step into this new one. But there is only the mildest of actual
conflict between their new lives and old, because they all happen to be surrounded by a saintly smorgasbord of endlessly patient paragons
of understanding. This can be rather
delightful on a scene by scene basis, but at the cost of neutering any overarching drama
that might threaten to develop organically.
For instance, Nomi is a transgender hacker that goes on the
run from The Man. Exciting stuff! Except The Man is basically one Keystone Kop,
who never presents enough threat that she has to, say, leave town, or stop publicly
attending family events with her astonishingly beautiful, intelligent, saintly
and unflinchingly devoted girlfriend Amanita.
Their relationship is depicted as almost perversely healthy, constantly sickly-sweet,
unfailingly supportive, and utterly romantically and sexually fulfilling at all
times. The big dramatic climax of the
relationship is when Nomi decides to surprise propose, only for Nita to whip
out her own surprise ring she had just bought, so marvelously in sync is this
one soul in two bodies.
See, it's like The Gift Of The Magi, only with all the irony and melancholy and
everything that made the story memorable replaced with unbridled exuberance.
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I understand why the Wachowskis would feel a compelling need
to portray a healthy trans relationship, and avoid the sort of storytelling tropes
that have traditionally plagued Tragic Gays. But after a point, it's not even a love story. It's just two people in love. And it renders Nita one of the most unbelievable parts of a show built around magic psychic kung
fu masters. She comes off as a sort of manic pixie dream hacker, a collection
of uniformly positive traits masquerading as an actual character, and the lack of anything to "fix" in her also-idealized partner removes even the standard Manic Pixie’s animating purpose. But fine, there is plenty of room to spin drama out of the non-romantic aspects
of Nomi’s storyline instead, if the incessantly positive ethos of the show did not resist putting even external pressure on the characters or relationship. Being on the run and branded and enemy of the
state would seem to be kind of harrowing by default, but the pair also enjoy the
selfless support of the lesbian community in San Francisco, which hides them
from the half-assed federal dragnet. And that of another brilliant hacker in Bug, who
is a bit of a weirdo but also just super-duper stoked to have the opportunity
to risk his life for these amazing sprites. And
Nita’s intensely well-adjusted polyamorous parental collective, whenever they
feel like visiting.
The only holdout with any reservations about Nomi’s gender
transition or outlaw lifestyle is her mother.
And she basically only serves to provide a contrast for her father to
play off when he publicly declares his love and support of Nomi’s decision…in
his first actual scene in the entire series.
To be clear, it’s the structure more than the content I take issue with
here. If this were the payoff to a
longer thread with the father, that would be one thing and the
moment may carry some weight. But the conflict is essentially resolved as soon
as it is introduced, by everyone involved being just as nice and lovely as
possible. Which is the show's most consistent motif.
| Her sister, meanwhile, is just super happy to have her wedding interrupted so her maid of honor's personal drama can upstage her. Not even kidding. |
And that’s just one of eight protagonists. Lito also enjoys an intensely supportive, idealized throupling with his gorgeous, devoted boyfriend and gorgeous, devoted former beard. His struggles with coming out are another area that would seem to be full of dramatic potential, but his mother immediately and whole-heartedly accepts him, once again resolving what could have been a messy emotional arc in the span of a single scene and in the cleanest, happiest way possible. When his career as an action star is threatened by his outing, the show demonstrates a rare commitment in dedicating an entire episode to him comically moping before his pseudo-girlfriend makes a phone call and lands him the role of his arthouse comeback dreams. The girl and boyfriend also have the briefest of flirtations with actual conflict when her parents and his students challenge their publicly nontraditional lifestyles. But to call these challengers flimsy strawmen would be to insult the structural soundness of the brave effigies that hang limply in fields across this great land. If you think it takes more than a single scene for them to be righteously reprimanded and sent slinking away in shame, or that those scenes come as some sort of climax rather than like 20 minutes into a random middle episode, then I don’t think you’ve been reading this very closely.
Kala is unhappily married to the sweetest, kindest romantic
obstacle ever created, who the show flirts with making interesting by having
him running a corrupt corporation, only to spring the twist that surprise! He’s actually been acting shady because he’s working
undercover to de-corrupt it. That her family is doting and only pressures
her to stay in the arranged marriage in the most gentle and guileless way should
go without saying at this point. Sun’s
brother betrays and imprisons her, but luckily she finds a fellow inmate who is
willing to risk her life to save Sun’s, help her escape, and hook her up with
another stranger who is also willing to hide her even when the police come
looking for the famously violent escaped fugitive. That the officer chasing her promptly falls in
love with her should also go without saying.
Sometimes people hold Capheus at gunpoint just to tell him how special
and inspiring he is, not that he doesn’t have a loving mother and
beautiful/intelligent/saintly love interest and fawning sidekick to do that
already. Wolfgang can’t even get his own
fawning sidekick killed off when the show realizes it needs to shoot someone to
up the stakes for a season’s climax, and even his supposed enemies in the
underworld are extremely quick to fashion him a mighty king among men. Will ostensibly makes a big sacrifice by
addicting himself to heroin to block their enemies access to his mind, but he
remains vital and lucid enough to clown those enemies at every turn, and his
“recovery” is so perfunctory that this nominally hellish ordeal doubles as an
amusingly enthusiastic ode to the wonders of skag. And his own fawning sidekick is as quick as
anyone to commit some moderate treason for a stranger who shows up claiming to
be his friend’s new girlfriend.
| "No, really. He never mentioned me, but I'm from |
It's not that any of these elements are individually
terrible or indefensible. There is a
degree to which subverting common or expected dramatic tropes provides a
welcome change of pace, and giving underrepresented communities heroes to root
for is a laudable goal in itself. And
heck, maybe part of the reason the Wachowskis idealize everyone to such a degree is to make things inclusive enough to let
even a basic straight white dude like me know that there is room for me to join
the rocking karate-orgy party as a kick-ass ally. If that was the idea, though, it didn’t work. Instead of pulled in by the excitement, I
found the relentless positivity to drain the story of weight, preventing any
real investment in anything or anyone. I
can’t really feel Sun’s desperation
at being imprisoned when she spends so much of her time “behind bars” attending
exuberant raves, daring heists, blissful orgies, enormous outdoor festivals,
and transcendent karaoke sessions. Or
Lito’s depression at losing his superstar status when his rock bottom still
involves being invited to lead the biggest Pride parade in the world. Chalk it up to overweening privilege perhaps,
but I have trouble empathizing with the plight of an oppressed character when
50% their screentime is spent in ecstatic celebration.
| The Christmas Special alone features a joyful communal orgy sequence, a joyful communal birthday party sequence, a joyful communal Christmas party sequence, and a joyful communal NYE party sequence. Not even kidding. |
Having a happy ending for each of the members of the cluster
would be one thing. But a happy ending
doesn’t mean much when it is a tag for a happy beginning and a happy
middle. Conflict is the lifeblood of
drama, and by denying the characters genuine obstacles and faults and
contradictions, it robs their story of meaning and power. It becomes something more like
representational pornography. And hey,
it’s not as though I’ve got anything against porn, or all of it needs to be for
me specifically. If you loved Sense8, or found its unrelenting optimism a balm in dark times, that's legitimately great. This is not to say
“good riddance”, so much
as bemoan that it never got the chance to get comfortable enough with itself
to hit pause on celebrating its characters and start actually testing
them. If it didn’t have so many great performances and set pieces, if there
wasn’t a really good show visible under all the treacle, it wouldn’t be
frustrating enough for me to have belabored the points above at such
length.
And it’s certainly not the only example I could cite of this
type of well-meant effort at positive representation sapping the drama from the big picture. I could have done another
whole version of this post focusing instead on how The Force Awakens does essentially the same thing with its new
heroes, lionizing Rey and sanding off the edges of Finn and Poe to such an
extent that they get to play the entire movie on Easy Mode. It actually bothers me more in that case,
where it feels more like an accident borne of the movie being so anxious at the
prospect that we won’t like the new
characters, or that the internet will cry misogyny if a single scene is allowed
to play out without Rey forcibly asserting complete control over her
situation. It leads to a lot of the same
issues, but I’ll take the Wachowskis’ evident and genuine enthusiasm for how
awesome their characters are over that sweaty eagerness to please every day of
the week.
| To put a finer point on it, it's actually more like terror at the possibility of ever displeasing, however briefly. |
But I still think there’s a sense in which such fully idealized
representation is settling for less. To
be perfect is to be, on some level, unreal. Being an unfailingly virtuous paragon sounds good on paper, but in
practice it comes off as phony, and that absolute worst narrative sin – boring.
They say perfect is the enemy of good,
and that generally means that obsessing over correcting every minor defect in a
thing will prevent it from ever actually getting out in the world. But in terms of fictional characters, to be
perfect is not a good thing at all. Narratively, to be flawless is to
be pointless. A story doesn’t have to be
nice to a character all the time to establish their worthiness as a person. It only needs to take their struggles
seriously.
You don’t even have to leave Netflix to see that alternative
in action. Orange Is The New Black is not a perfect show by any means, but it has
a sprawling, multiethnic cast featuring people of pretty much all sexual and
gender orientations. And because it is
not as intent on idealizing them, the characters come off as something more
than perfect: human. Flawed, funny, annoying, vindictive, generous,
lazy and clever and stupid all at once.
Like actual people. Their stories
aren’t always uplifting, or sanitary, but the show’s conviction that they are worth
telling anyway speaks more forcefully than all of Sense8’s shouting of positive slogans. It may be absurd to rate fictional characters
against each other in such terms, but Sophia Bursett feels like a much more
real person than Nomi Marks. Because the
former has been through some shit, while the latter consistently skates right
over it. Likewise, Rogue One’s motley crew of oddballs and killers feels much more
alive and “real” than TFA’s more
forcibly friendly trio, and I relate to them more as a result. The masses obviously don’t agree with me on
that one, but that’s okay.
What worries me, though, is that I could see the
sensibilities at play here gaining rather than losing steam in the near
future. Because look, I’m aware that
this could be read as so much bitching by a straight white dude about how he
won’t stand for dem dar’ queerz and wimminz getting too big for their genre
britches. But what I really take issue
with here is not the sentiment underpinning the depictions, but the impatience
that mars the execution by refusing to even feint at the possibility of an
unhappy outcome or vulnerable moment, for fear of scaring off the audience or
provoking the dreaded hot take. The
desperation to avoid criticism for less-than-perfect depictions of any particular
demographic should become less acute with time, as having a lead who is not a
white dude becomes more common and thus less fraught with import. But the impatience of something like TFA paying such big dividends gives me
pause, since as I said before that entire movie that lives in palpable terror
of displeasing its audience for a single second. And audiences only seem to be getting more
and more plugged in and loud and entitled when it comes to monitoring the
creative process, talking to the creators, and at least in the case of Rick And Morty, harassing them as well
as innocent employees of large corporations that try to capitalize on that
audience’s loudness and entitlement.
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| Rick And Morty fans, heal thyself |
I don’t see that access changing any time soon, so I can only hope that going forward, artists become more adept at engaging with audiences without letting that noise steer the ship. Because in general, audiences are not to be trusted. They are experts at determining what they like, but decidedly unexpert at discerning why they like it. They responded JJ Abrams’ style because he’s the divorced dad who will feed them ice cream for breakfast - the ice cream in this metaphor being an entire trilogy worth of payoffs delivered in a single movie, without the proper set up or any real room for the hero to grow moving forward. If you ask the kids, they'll tell you they only want to eat ice cream, because it's their favorite, and their dumb, soft brains don't realize how unsustainable that is as a lifestyle. They don’t understand how much the structure and vegetables that mom forces on them during the week allow them to appreciate those sweet treats all the more. Good storytellers understand that, and they accordingly design narratives to have long and significant valleys, rather than just leap from peak to peak to peak. Hopefully Rian Johnson can be that mom for Star Wars, introducing some structure and discipline to the characters Abrams spoiled in his eagerness to please. Maybe he’ll find something actually interesting for the terrific actors TFA assembled to play, instead of just being amazing and winsome in each and every moment. Because you can’t have ice cream for every meal, no matter what Sense8 would have you believe.
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