Lost by "Lost"
If the Rev. Wildmon has time for NASCAR drivers saying "shit", does he have time for Lost?
Really, I don't get that show, at all. Or maybe I get it too well. I don't do Tube generally, but my wife is a big fan, so I've seen a few episodes, and had more described to me.
Here's the premise, as I've seen it: these people are in a place where absolutly nothing is predictable. They appear to attempt to deal with this world as rational humans, which is impossible because it's an arbitrary and capricious universe. So generally, they operate on emotion, and pretend it's thought.
Maybe I'm missing something, and I'm sure some fan will attempt to tell me what (with Lost-like hysteria, no doubt). But as far as I can see, Lost is to The Endarkenment as Commander in Chief is to President Hillary Rodham Clinton. And I've got to wonder: to whose advantage is it that the message is sent out that life makes no sense at all?
Comments
Posted by: Trish
Posted on: March 31, 2006 02:32 PM
I'm a lost fan and I don't think that the message is that life makes no sense.
The island is unusual, it has its own logic. But then the logic of the Sun and Jin's lives is different than the logic of Jack's. The logic of Eco's life is different than Charlie's. As the chararacters try to figure out what's up with the island, they all come from different cultural contexts and backgrounds and often arrive at different conclusions, like the legend of the Blind men and the elephant http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/blind_men_elephant.html.
I think the message is that how we make sense of the world is determined by a lot of cultural and individual factors. And when you are taken out of your context and put into a very foreign/alien one, it's not easy to know how to interpret events.
Finally, while unexpected things happen in Lost, I think what keeps fans coming back are the synchronicities that surpass all logic. Hurley's lottery number being the code of the hatch. The hatch's keeper being a guy Jack once ran into.
Well, I come back for that and the complex characters.
And the fact that Naveen Andrews is hot.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: March 31, 2006 03:00 PM
Trish:
And I think that's ultimately my problem with it: its radical deconstruction. The characters each make sense of their world in radically different ways. But when everyone has their own take on reality, the net effect is for there to be no shared reality. It's hard to say whether the irrational happenings on the island are cause or result of the characters' extreme subjectivity. If everyone could let go of their personal baggage, they'd be off by now. Instead, they can't even really conceive of and agree on a plan.
It's not Gilligan's Island, for sure. There we saw purposeful action, which however was sabotaged by Gilligan's stupidity and his dysfunctional relationship with the Skipper. The moral? "Don't be an idiot". The analogous moral in Lost? "It doesn't matter if you're an idiot or not, because even if you get it together The Island will do something to you."
Posted by: Trish
Posted on: March 31, 2006 03:21 PM
No it's not Gilligan's Island.
It's been a crazy day, revealing that I don't quite share a reality with some of my co-workers. I think recent events reveal that our faculty and administration don't share quite the same reality. And I don't think I share a reality with Bush.
I think real life is more like Lost than most of us like to believe most of the time. Perhaps I feel that way because my family is more disfunctional than average...as in..did you hear the one about the engineer, the shrink, a pollyanna and an alcoholic walking into a bar?They sit down at the bar with a cat...
Posted by: rightwingprof
Posted on: July 10, 2006 12:45 PM
I don't agree at all that that is the point of the show. First, there is one, and only one, reality. Culture has nothing to do with it, nor does perception. There is no such thing as "my reality" vs. "your reality." That's postmodernist bullshit, solipsism resurrected. You jump out the window and fall to your death. That's reality. Jun Sik may believe that he'll float, but he'll fall to his death. Jun Sik is irrational.
I don't think the show has a message. I wouldn't watch it if it did. I don't need to be beaten over the head with "messages," particularly from Marxist moonbats. So stop worrying about what the "message" of the show is and watch it. From the beginning. Great writing. More than a little creepy.
Posted by:
Posted on: July 10, 2006 02:02 PM
My point was, exactly, that there is only one reality. And the characters of Lost are working under that premise. But conditions on the island are such that reality is not self-validating (as normal reality is) so that the characters can only subjectively experience what reality is. And to the extent that they perceive reality differently from what reality actually is, they behave insanely. And we don't know either, as we see reality on the island only through the characters' eyes. Since we don't live there, we have more distance, and see more points of view, so we're a little better off.
But is it "mere" entertainment? Or are we being played with as much as the characters are? And to what end? Maybe the producers and writers are so good that you don't realize there's a message.
Posted by: rightwingprof
Posted on: July 15, 2006 11:56 AM
The characters are not in any way subjectively experiencing reality. Everything that has seemed like only one person saw it, others also see. The polar bear. The black horse. Walt. There is nothing at all in the show that suggests anything about "alternative" reality, other than the weird objective reality in which they find themselves, and all share.