Game On!

Greetings all,

First, your comments from last post…

1. Polar Bears: I’m not sure how significant the polar bears actually are to the show other than to give us insight into the Dharma Initiative. I’ll revisit this later in this project as the DI becomes more important.
2. 4-toed Statue: Really interesting connections to Egyptian and potentially Norse mythology. I defer to Doc Jensen (of Entertainment Weekly fame) on this one for now.
3. The Numbers: No insights yet…give me a few more episodes.
4. Drugs: My first instinct on the heroin in the statues of Mary is most certainly Marxist. “Religion…is the opium of the people.” Since heroin is an opiate, I first read this situation as a shout-out to Marx and a bashing of religion; however, my views have changed since that first viewing. While the science/faith duality/conflict plays a major role in the series, I don’t feel that the writers have taken a side in this debate. The show has countless, and positive, allusions to the Judeo-Christian belief system—particularly major references to Genesis and Job.

This actually brings up an interesting point. Today a student asked me why we have to look so deep into literature and pointed out that we often over-analyze texts to the point of idiocy. I told this student that they were right, and many texts should not be analyzed like that—we should just read for fun in many instances. Using this strict text-based methodology, the interpretation of the drugs in the statues is really quite simple: the dude smuggling the heroin was a priest. It was the perfect cover from him. Personally, this is what I really think the deal is.

However, I also told this student that we can analyze for fun as well. In many cases, analysis is the “game” we play with literature. Chess doesn’t teach us anything about war; however, it certainly has militaristic connotations and can be fun. Likewise, the critical theory / analysis we bring to literature doesn’t necessarily shed any worthwhile insight on the text, it just exposes us to new possibilities. It’s also damn fun.

Now might be a good time for a disclaimer about this blog: I do not claim to have any right answers about LOST. I do have tons of wrong, but hopefully interesting, ones. This blog serves a few major purposes for me:
1. I miss LOST. I can’t wait until January. I have forgotten so much of what has already happened. This is keeping me into it. I know I’m a nerd/geek/pathetic waste of a mind or human. Hey, I could be devoting my life to a cult-like Latin dance and exercise movement. :)
2. I’m practicing what I teach. I tell my students to come up with original analysis all the time; however, when I lecture or “give them the answer” I find that I’m giving the same answer every year. This keeps me mentally engaged in critical analysis.
3. It’s my foray into cultural criticism. One day I hope to be the next Slavoj Zizek or Jeff Jensen. You can say you knew me when…

So, speaking of tangential analysis that’s probably missing the boat entirely, I’ve chosen to focus on shoes for this entry.

Shoes are cinemagraphically significant throughout the first four episodes (that’s as far as I am yet.) I the pilot, the first evidence Jack has of the crash is a single shoe hanging in a tree. He actually ignores it, but the camera does not. We get a nice close-up and a dramatic swelling of music. We also get tons of references to Locke’s shoes and many other scattered shoes appear in these first few episodes.

So what does it mean? Shoes represent movement and mobility. Psychoanalytical dream analysis would say that shoes represent a desire to change our lives. This ties into episode three (Tabula Rosa) perfectly! The episode is all about forgiveness and moving on. Kate is once again central to the forgiving. I love Kate. She’s such a good person. This sense of mercy is best illustrated when she tells the marshal that was extraditing her to be sure that the farmer who turned her in gets his money…well, she intended to tell him that on the plane. After she tells him that, she promptly has Sawyer kill him, but out of mercy!

It seems that all of the characters in LOST need/want to seek forgiveness of someone and to forgive others—Jack of Christian, Locke of Randy and now Jacob, Allison of Boone and vice versa, Charlie of his brother and himself. Perhaps Kate will end up as the Christ-figure of the show. She is clearly the most forgiving of the characters. My prediction: Kate dies in season 6, but her death allows the others to live and prosper. Perhaps a scenario would be her death allows Aaron to be returned to Claire which restores order to the universe per the psychic.

In conclusion, Charlie is my favorite. I forgot what a sympathetic character he is. He’s addicted to drugs, no one cares about him or Driveshaft, and everyone likes to kick him when he’s down. The episode in which he died, I cried uncontrollably. I probably will again.

Keep sending your comments and questions!

Namaste,
PC