Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Why I'm ok with the End...
I just got a Blu-Ray player, and regular updates are on hiatus until I purchase/rent/steal LOST on Blu-Ray. So in the meantime, here's why I'm okay with season six being the final season.
In all actuality, I'm extremely new to LOST. It wasn't until last summer that I had even seen a single episode. Much like it was with my love of Harry Potter, I was resistant to anything to do with LOST for a long time. Out of sheer boredom, I download a couple of the first episodes. I wouldn't say I was hooked instantly, but was interested enough to watch the rest of the first season. It was ultimately Charlie's storyline and The Hatch that had me totally engrossed. Soon my viewing was exceeding my downloading, so I watched the rest of the seasons streaming from some Russian website.
LOST has given me quite a bit of entertainment, enjoyment, and things to think about. In having an end point in mind for quite some time, it has focused their writing in the same way students are forced to be concise when there's a maximum page limit. Gone were the days of meaningless episodes like Expose in season 3. The writers now had to move the overall narrative forward. Having a definite end point keeps things on track and relevant to the story arc. Imagine if LOST kept getting renewed...perhaps we would see stories such as "Jack discovers yet another hatch. In it is a green porcupine that guards the now-living bodies of everyone who had previously died on the island. How will Jack deal with this while coming to grips with Cyborg-Kate's pregnancy? Tune in to the season 11 premier Wednesday on ABC to find out!"
The long and the short of it is, I'm looking forward to seeing a somewhat meaningful, and hopefully sensical, resolution. Also, maybe I'm okay with the end since I really only invested 2 years into it.
Side note: y'all should leave comments. Don't make me whore myself out for feedback! Absent feedback, I'm going to end up writing about my Great Shoe Theory all the time...or maybe the homoerotic undertones in the Jack/Sawyer/Locke power struggle.
In all actuality, I'm extremely new to LOST. It wasn't until last summer that I had even seen a single episode. Much like it was with my love of Harry Potter, I was resistant to anything to do with LOST for a long time. Out of sheer boredom, I download a couple of the first episodes. I wouldn't say I was hooked instantly, but was interested enough to watch the rest of the first season. It was ultimately Charlie's storyline and The Hatch that had me totally engrossed. Soon my viewing was exceeding my downloading, so I watched the rest of the seasons streaming from some Russian website.
LOST has given me quite a bit of entertainment, enjoyment, and things to think about. In having an end point in mind for quite some time, it has focused their writing in the same way students are forced to be concise when there's a maximum page limit. Gone were the days of meaningless episodes like Expose in season 3. The writers now had to move the overall narrative forward. Having a definite end point keeps things on track and relevant to the story arc. Imagine if LOST kept getting renewed...perhaps we would see stories such as "Jack discovers yet another hatch. In it is a green porcupine that guards the now-living bodies of everyone who had previously died on the island. How will Jack deal with this while coming to grips with Cyborg-Kate's pregnancy? Tune in to the season 11 premier Wednesday on ABC to find out!"
The long and the short of it is, I'm looking forward to seeing a somewhat meaningful, and hopefully sensical, resolution. Also, maybe I'm okay with the end since I really only invested 2 years into it.
Side note: y'all should leave comments. Don't make me whore myself out for feedback! Absent feedback, I'm going to end up writing about my Great Shoe Theory all the time...or maybe the homoerotic undertones in the Jack/Sawyer/Locke power struggle.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
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
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
Thursday, August 20, 2009
What do Secular Humanists and Puritans have in common? LOST!
So I really don’t know where this blog will go; however, for now it’s going to be a somewhat crazy English teacher-esque exploration of LOST as I re-watch the series. Forgive me.
Season 1, Episodes 1-2 (Pilot)
The first thing I noticed was the solitude of Jack. He’s alone in the jungle/forest/woods and disoriented. Traditionally, trips in the woods reflect a deeper journey into the subconscious. Since Jack leaves the woods, I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. It’s also noteworthy that when Jack first arrives at the beach, it appears to be normal—there is no sight of wreckage or other passengers in distress until a few seconds later. While this normally would suggest to me that he’s hallucinating; the further textual history of show that doesn’t include Jack should strongly dissuade anyone from thinking this is all his hallucination.
More importantly, I think they create a very interesting contrast between Jack and Kate in these first couple episodes. I think there is some support that they function as some sort of odd duality. In the second part of the pilot, Locke beats us over the head with the light/white and dark/black symbolism we will see repeat throughout the series—most importantly for me in the season five finale with Jacob and “the man in black” (who I will refer to as Esau.)
When Jack tells Kate to give him the stitches, she is wearing a white shirt. Jack is shirtless; however, elects for black thread for his stitches. Okay, I’m reading a bit much into that, but we do see Jack established as the traditional hero while Kate takes her place as the antihero. Jack fits the epic hero archetype rather well (I could go into explaining, but I prefer that you just believe me.) Kate is the perfect antihero—the noble criminal (Wikipedia—which is apparently a credible source according to the U of Iowa, and if I can’t trust them to tell me what’s credible when doing cultural and literary criticism, who can I?) The pilot episodes establish that Kate is a criminal (crime unknown in eps. 1 and 2) but chooses to protect others over herself. When the plane crashes, the air marshal guarding her is knocked unconscious. When the oxygen masks drop, she secures the unconscious marshal’s before her own. Clearly, she paid no attention to the flight safety information presentation before take-off, and she’s noble.
So now that Jack and Kate are established as hero and antihero, two sides of the same heroic coin, let’s talk about the Puritans! Puritans (the Salem witch burning ones) believed in and practiced this crazy form of literary analysis known as typology. They would read a story in the Old Testament (this story would be called the “type”) and find it’s parallel in the New Testament (the “antitype.”) I’d give examples, but I don’t know the Bible that well/at all. Puritans, after understand the type and first antitype, would then look for the second antitype in their own lives. In other words, they would see how their lives lined up with Bible stories to determine if they were going to Heaven or not. (Puritanism is and off-shoot of Calvinism, so they believed in predestination.)
For clarity’s sake in this post, I will consider the five current seasons of LOST as two different texts. The Old Testament of LOST (OTL) is everything up until the Dockey Wheel Magic at the end of season 4. The NTL is season 5.
So anywho, this relates back to the primary relationships and leaders in LOST, I think. I think we can all agree that Jack is the leader in the beginning and his primary relationship is with Kate. That’s Jack as hero plus Kate as antihero and also the type in the OTL (perhaps The Book of Charlie? I like Charlie.). The first antitype in the NT of LOST is the Sawyer/Juliet relationship. Sawyer is now the leader (and the antihero) while Juliet is his obvious lover (and has heroic qualities.) Our goal then is to predict what the second antitype will be in season 6. I offer the following incongruent theories:
1. Since LOST is a postmodern* text, it is logical that the antiheroes are the true heroes. I would posit then that Sawyer and Kate hook-up (hooray!) and time doesn’t reset post The Incident.
*If you disagree with me about the postmodern nature of the show, think about the fact that they call people they don’t the Others…with a big O even. Yup.
2. Juliet and Jack end up taking most of the responsibility for The Incident (deservedly.) They become the second antitype and drive the series to the conclusion. I don’t know if time resets or not from this theory.
3. Locke is the leader in the second antitype. His relationship, as we know, is with the island.
4. Claire is the leader in the second antitype. Her relationship is with Aaron. Lots of crying will happen when they are finally reunited in the series finale in May. The crying will be on my part.
5. I’m totally off the mark on all this typology stuff.
I think my theories are ranked from most likely to least likely in this order: 5,1,3,2,4
Number 4 is what I actually want to happen. Claire and Charlie have always been my favorite relationship. Rumors are flying about Dom’s return to the show. I wish I went to Comic-Con this year.
Also, why do I, a Secular Humanist, know this much about Puritanism? Seriously, I know how to give a Conversion Narrative...
Season 1, Episodes 1-2 (Pilot)
The first thing I noticed was the solitude of Jack. He’s alone in the jungle/forest/woods and disoriented. Traditionally, trips in the woods reflect a deeper journey into the subconscious. Since Jack leaves the woods, I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. It’s also noteworthy that when Jack first arrives at the beach, it appears to be normal—there is no sight of wreckage or other passengers in distress until a few seconds later. While this normally would suggest to me that he’s hallucinating; the further textual history of show that doesn’t include Jack should strongly dissuade anyone from thinking this is all his hallucination.
More importantly, I think they create a very interesting contrast between Jack and Kate in these first couple episodes. I think there is some support that they function as some sort of odd duality. In the second part of the pilot, Locke beats us over the head with the light/white and dark/black symbolism we will see repeat throughout the series—most importantly for me in the season five finale with Jacob and “the man in black” (who I will refer to as Esau.)
When Jack tells Kate to give him the stitches, she is wearing a white shirt. Jack is shirtless; however, elects for black thread for his stitches. Okay, I’m reading a bit much into that, but we do see Jack established as the traditional hero while Kate takes her place as the antihero. Jack fits the epic hero archetype rather well (I could go into explaining, but I prefer that you just believe me.) Kate is the perfect antihero—the noble criminal (Wikipedia—which is apparently a credible source according to the U of Iowa, and if I can’t trust them to tell me what’s credible when doing cultural and literary criticism, who can I?) The pilot episodes establish that Kate is a criminal (crime unknown in eps. 1 and 2) but chooses to protect others over herself. When the plane crashes, the air marshal guarding her is knocked unconscious. When the oxygen masks drop, she secures the unconscious marshal’s before her own. Clearly, she paid no attention to the flight safety information presentation before take-off, and she’s noble.
So now that Jack and Kate are established as hero and antihero, two sides of the same heroic coin, let’s talk about the Puritans! Puritans (the Salem witch burning ones) believed in and practiced this crazy form of literary analysis known as typology. They would read a story in the Old Testament (this story would be called the “type”) and find it’s parallel in the New Testament (the “antitype.”) I’d give examples, but I don’t know the Bible that well/at all. Puritans, after understand the type and first antitype, would then look for the second antitype in their own lives. In other words, they would see how their lives lined up with Bible stories to determine if they were going to Heaven or not. (Puritanism is and off-shoot of Calvinism, so they believed in predestination.)
For clarity’s sake in this post, I will consider the five current seasons of LOST as two different texts. The Old Testament of LOST (OTL) is everything up until the Dockey Wheel Magic at the end of season 4. The NTL is season 5.
So anywho, this relates back to the primary relationships and leaders in LOST, I think. I think we can all agree that Jack is the leader in the beginning and his primary relationship is with Kate. That’s Jack as hero plus Kate as antihero and also the type in the OTL (perhaps The Book of Charlie? I like Charlie.). The first antitype in the NT of LOST is the Sawyer/Juliet relationship. Sawyer is now the leader (and the antihero) while Juliet is his obvious lover (and has heroic qualities.) Our goal then is to predict what the second antitype will be in season 6. I offer the following incongruent theories:
1. Since LOST is a postmodern* text, it is logical that the antiheroes are the true heroes. I would posit then that Sawyer and Kate hook-up (hooray!) and time doesn’t reset post The Incident.
*If you disagree with me about the postmodern nature of the show, think about the fact that they call people they don’t the Others…with a big O even. Yup.
2. Juliet and Jack end up taking most of the responsibility for The Incident (deservedly.) They become the second antitype and drive the series to the conclusion. I don’t know if time resets or not from this theory.
3. Locke is the leader in the second antitype. His relationship, as we know, is with the island.
4. Claire is the leader in the second antitype. Her relationship is with Aaron. Lots of crying will happen when they are finally reunited in the series finale in May. The crying will be on my part.
5. I’m totally off the mark on all this typology stuff.
I think my theories are ranked from most likely to least likely in this order: 5,1,3,2,4
Number 4 is what I actually want to happen. Claire and Charlie have always been my favorite relationship. Rumors are flying about Dom’s return to the show. I wish I went to Comic-Con this year.
Also, why do I, a Secular Humanist, know this much about Puritanism? Seriously, I know how to give a Conversion Narrative...
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