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May 23, 2014 why “lost” is the greatest tv show ever made

by dave k.

from the richest places in the world to the poorest, television has made it’s way into peoples lives all over the world. there are so many tv shows out there it can be overwhelming. there is certainly no way you can watch all of them. now, if you were stranded on a deserted island and could only see one tv show which one would you watch? for me it would be the television show “lost” (running from 2004-2010) – that is actually about people stuck on an island who find that they may be there for reasons greater than they know. today being the day that marks 4 years after the airing of the final episode, here are five reasons why i think “lost” is the greatest television show ever made.

5. ITS PERPETUAL SENSE OF MYSTERY

the premise of this show is so hard to explain it often sounds preposterous. yes, it’s about people stranded on an island after surviving a plane wreck but it slowly reveals itself to be so much more…from betrayals to savages to polar bears to secret societies to doomsday devices to time travel to resurrection and, oh yes, a black smoke monster. this show even took on one of the greatest mysteries of all: death. just when you think you’ve figured out something you find you are lost…again…like an onion with endless layers the viewer is taken deeper down a rabbit hole. it was this inscrutable nature of the show’s mystery after mystery that frustrated people most about this show but also beckoned the more patient viewers further in. much like in life when you are lost, answers are not always easy to come by nor are they always easy to understand.

4. ITS CONNECTIONS TO HUMAN CULTURE

no other television show i’ve seen has made the breadth of connections to human culture that “lost” has made: from history to art to literature to music to pop culture to games to philosophy to science to religion.

this television show itself made an impact on our popular culture in that there are manifold allusions to the show itself from other outside sources from advertisements to video games to books to comics to music to films and even to a multitude of other television shows.

like a theme of the show itself, these allusions remind us that everything is connected.

3. ITS PERSPECTIVES ON RACE

although we live in a globalized world most tv shows in america still fall prey to one dimensional portrayals of minorities. this show took these stereotypes head on and flipped them on the head, not only for the characters in the show, who run into some conflicts because of race, but opened the eyes of the viewers themselves to see our own prejudices.

2. ITS USE OF TIME AS A NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE

This show boldly and effectively played with every conceivable way to tell a story in time:

– limited perspective with flashback (season 1)

– alternate perspective of the same time (season 2)

– past perspective leading to present perspective (season 3)

– future perspective leading to present perspectives (season 4)

– time travel perspectives (season 5)

– parallel universe perspectives (season 6, final season)

1. ITS FLESHING OUT OF HUMAN CHARACTER

character: this element of storytelling is the greatest reason why this show was so amazing…and why i was able to let go of being consumed with trying to unravel every mystery and just enjoy the ride. there is no other show i have seen that has been able to take such a large cast of characters and develop and examine them to the depth that this show did. especially with the creative use of time in the storytelling, the audience could learn from all periods of a character’s life to get an incredible sense of everything that has, does, and will make this person who they are. by the end of the series the audience can grow to know each of its main characters so intimately that they can not only anticipate but empathize with each person’s response to the events that unfold, even if it means confronting the inevitability of their own deaths – something that not many shows have the bravery and honesty to allow.

“lost” reminds us that the greatest battle is not to survive but to face ourselves.

Tags: allusions, best tv show, character, character development, dave, lost, mystery, narrative technique, Race, television, time, tv

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September 15, 2013 Eye of the Beholder

This week Julie Chen admitted that she had plastic surgery done on her eyes to be more marketable and to look less Chinese. Asian eyes, apparently, are too small and not expressive enough. “You look disinterested. You look bored,” Chen reports her boss telling her. An agent also told her that she was not marketable because she was Chinese. Chen reports struggling with the decision before going through with it. She also says that after the surgery her career began to advance. “The ball did roll for me,” she says.

Did Chen’s career advance because of her new eyes? Did her success come because she matured as a journalist? I don’t know. I only know that this story is appalling. I was in shock listening to it. What shocked me more was her co-hosts’ reaction to it.

Chen shared something really deep and it was glossed over. Sharon Osbourne chimed in saying she looked “fabulous” and this was “the right thing to do.” Sheryl Underwood completely missed the point with her remark about how Chen didn’t know about “givin’ in to the man.” I couldn’t tell if she was implying that Chen wasn’t a sellout because she never slept with a boss or if she doesn’t know what it means to give in to the man because she’s not black. Sara Gilbert spoke up with some reassuring words. Aisha Tyler was the only one who remained quiet, and perhaps the only one who understood the gravity of it.

Chen just shared something very deep and personal. Had she continued her story she would have talked about the doubt that plagued her when making this decision, the conflict about having to sacrifice a physical trait deeply tied to her culture. Instead her co-hosts brushed it off. I’m not upset that they reassured her and comforted her, but they completely missed the point. Chen was pressured into plastic surgery by standards of beauty that went against her physical appearance as well as her culture. It’s a double layered insult. Your face isn’t good enough and neither is your culture.

What could have been the beginning of a conversation questioning Western ideals of beauty collapsed into platitudes. Osbourne thought it was “the right thing to do.” It was? How is this a fair trade? As for Underwood, she made no sense to me. She said that Julie represented her race and women well. I don’t see how getting surgery to look less Asian because a man tells you you’re not good enough represents Asians or women well. Having this surgery is only the right thing to do when a society’s conception of beauty is so unbreakable that we have to break ourselves to meet it. I’m not condemning Julie at all for making that choice. I’m condemning our social norms that presented her with the (false?) dilemma that she had to choose between her appearance and her culture or her success.

A few weeks ago, I was a part of roundtable discussion about student success strategies at the college where I work. We were given the finished product this week. As I watched myself and hoped that I didn’t say anything foolish or look awkward in the video, I thought of Chen’s confession. I looked at my own eyes in the video and thought of the eyes that she used to have. Were mine too small like hers? Did they make me look tired, disinterested? Would I not be invited to participate in these roundtables again because I was Chinese and bad for the camera? None of my “bosses” has told me so, and, in fact, the reception to the video has been positive overall. I only wish Chen’s superiors had been as generous.

Tags: Beauty, Chinese, Culture, gender, Julie Chen, Race, The Talk