Social Parallels on In the Flesh: Stigmatization of Mental Illness

Of the many metaphorical uses of zombieism on In the Flesh, the clearest and most direct comparison can be drawn to mental illness.  In fact, writer Dominic Mitchell evidently conceived the show as a drama about a young (living) man returning home from a mental health facility after a violent incident, but he decided that zombies would let him to explore his themes in freer, more inventive ways (also, let’s face it – zombies are a lot more “in” right now.)  Spoilers ahead.

At the barest description, those with PDS, in their rabid states, aren’t in their right minds.  They can’t control their actions, and they hurt people, even those close to them.  After treatment, they come back to themselves and are horrified at what they did unawares (Simon killed his mom in his untreated state – doesn’t get much worse than that.)  Despite doctors’ assurances that it’s not their fault, they can’t shake the guilt, and the world at large certainly blames them.  In situations like this, this allegory can be tricky, since the “people with mental illness” in the scenario killed countless people and literally ate their brains (like in District 9, where the “black South Africans” are giant bugs from space.)  If I lived with mental illness, I can imagine taking offense at the comparison.  However, brain-eating aside, the parallel is drawn with such thoughtful care that I think I’d find it affirming.  Though the medicated PDS folk are affected by their condition physically (undead appearance, cold to the touch, can’t eat or drink) and psychologically (post-traumatic nightmares/flashbacks, severe guilt, newfound phobias,) the series affirms that they’re not inherently damaged or dangerous.  With their PDS under control, they live, work and love, and while their official label is “PDS sufferer,” they spend plenty of time getting on with life, not suffering at all.  Yes, Kieren is undead.  He did awful things he couldn’t help, and he’s colored by his experiences – however, at his heart, he’s still the same young man he was before.

There are struggles, the daily injections and the fear of a repeat episode, but the greatest hurdle isn’t PDS itself but the public’s perception of it.  The living throw around epithets with nary a thought and regard the treated undead as murderous “creatures.”  Around people with PDS, they’re wary at best and hostile at worst, expecting fresh attacks at any time.  They liken medication to flimsy leashes on mad dogs, and they think regression is inevitable.  If they see someone without makeup/contacts or feel someone’s cold skin, they’re at once on guard – who let the monsters back into society?  Rumors and unfounded speculation on the medication’s efficacy circulate, and everyone has a story about a friend who knows someone who turned rabid again, just like that, without warning.  Better off locking them all up (the treatment center has shades of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, albeit on a much larger scale – untreated zombies can’t complain about their rights being violated, and no one listens to the protests of the treated.)

As with my post on homophobia, I like that the theme isn’t just symbolic.  Kieren himself dealt with depression in life; though all his violence was against himself (slitting his wrists,) his actions greatly affected his family, and it’s something that has to be addressed when he comes back.  When he receives a devastating, tragic blow at the end of series 1, his family is in a panic over his well-being, and two of the season’s best scenes come from it.  First, his mom comes to comfort him, to empathize and encourage him to find the courage to “stay” this time, and second, Kieren helps his dad by getting him to talk about Kieren’s suicide.  Much like Kieren and his family can only come to terms with his PDS by being open about it, his mental health struggles can’t be the thing they don’t talk about; if they want to heal, it must be brought into the light.

Romance in Buster Keaton’s Work

A while back, I went to a presentation on the leading ladies of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, comparing the different ways the love interests were used in the two men’s films.  The overall theme was “Harold = romantic, Buster = cynic,” but I don’t think it’s as concrete as that. 

It’s true that Buster’s films can sometimes be downright cynical about love (from what I’ve read about his first marriage, I’d say he came by it honestly.)  Buster’s leading ladies sometimes spurn him in the end, like in Cops, and they’re not always worth the effort Buster expend on them (College especially comes to mind.)  Frequently, we don’t get too much of a sense of who they are; the farmer’s daughter in Go West is a distant second to the cow, and the love interests in The Paleface and The Blacksmith practically materialize out of nowhere.  And then of course there’s The Frozen North (Buster’s breaking-bad short,) in which Buster shoots the woman he mistakes for his cheating wife, knocks out his actual wife, and tries to romance someone else’s wife.  Looking at that evidence, it’d be easy to say that Buster doesn’t do love.

Except he does.  Buster does some of the funniest, most endearing “smitten” acting I’ve ever seen.  In many of his films, when he sees his girl, all-but-literal hearts appear in his eyes, and from the way his gaze follows her, you’d think they were somehow attached.  Whether he’s shyly, awkwardly flirting or asserting himself over a bulkier rival, it’s clear that he’s head-over-heels.  Oh, and it’s hardcore adorable.  I think of scenes like the game of hand-holding “chicken” in Sherlock Jr., the dinner at the sinking table in Battling Butler, or the barbershop meet in Steamboat Bill Jr.  In these moments, I don’t know whether to laugh or “aww…”

(It’s worth noting that, for the most part, all the romances in Buster’s films are pretty much about Buster, not the two of them as a pair.  As I said, the girl doesn’t usually have a highly-developed role, and she’s largely there to give Buster a goal to work towards.  There are exceptions – Betsy in The Navigator goes through a pretty similar journey to Rollo – but in general, the romances focus on Buster’s lovesickness, Buster’s efforts to woo her, and Buster’s elation when they get together in the end.  He described his independent shorts as essentially involving three basic characters – himself, a rival, and a girl, and the girl was only there so the other two could fight over her.  That’s the sensibility that comes through in much of his work, that the girl isn’t a character so much as a plot.  Given the period, I don’t mind it much, but the more three-dimensional love interests are definitely my favorites.)

More than anything, I think Buster’s love stories are comedy-driven.  He’ll gladly use romance or cynicism, depending on which will give him the bigger laugh.  Sometimes, that falls on the sweet side, like when he tries to protect her from hitting her head during the bumpy train ride in Our Hospitality.  Other times, it’s wryer, like when he gets engaged by accident in The Scarecrow.  It’s all about the gag, all about doing the unexpected to catch the viewer off guard.  In that sense, I don’t think you can really discover Buster’s philosophy on love from the romances in his movies – or if you try, you’ll find more than one.  Rather, you’ll simply see his real priority.  Like everything else in his films, from his deadpan expressions to his cobbled-together gizmos to his imaginative chase scenes, the love stories are in service of the humor. 

Classic References in New Who

New Who is terrific.  Despite my griping, I love it.  But you know what makes it even better?  Classic Who.  I adore nods and winks to the classic series; there’s just something so warm about the love that goes into this show, the fan devotion stretching back over 50 years and continuing to reverberate through the current series.  Here are some of my favorite classic references.

Best Throwaway Line:  “The Fires of Pompeii” – Talking about Rome, Ten insists to Donna, “That fire had nothing to do with me.”

Runner-Up:  “Tooth and Claw” – Ten’s Scottish pseudonym is “Dr. James McCrimmon.”  Love!

Best Real-World Reference:  “Human Nature” – John Smith (a.k.a. Ten) says his parents were named “Sydney” and “Verity.”  Aw…

Best Image: “School Reunion” – Sarah Jane sees the TARDIS again.  When Ten sees her as well, but Sarah Jane stumbling across the TARDIS?  I get chills.

Runner-Up:  “The Vampires of Venice” – Eleven’s library card has a picture of One on it!

Best Tribute:  “Time Crash” –Ten’s heartfelt speech to Five is, to me, the best part of the lovely “Time Crash.”  “Back when I first started at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important, like you do when you’re young.  And then I was you.”  I just love it.

Best Repeated Line:  “The Almost People” – Eleven’s ganger struggles with past regenerations and cycles through several different Doctors before settling in.  We get One (“Yes, one day,”) Three (“I’ve reversed the polarity of the neutron flow,”) and Four (“Would you like a jelly baby?”), with a little Ten thrown in for free.

Runner-Up:  “Closing Time” – Eleven, upon seeing Craig’s new flat, says, “You’ve redecorated!  …I don’t like it.”

Best New Reveal:  “The Doctor’s Wife” – All this time, the Doctor’s been thinking that he stole the TARDIS, but here, she tells Eleven that she deliberately left her doors unlocked so she could “steal a Time Lord” and see the universe.

Best Channeling of a Past Doctor:  “Mummy on the Orient Express” – When Twelve talks to himself, he totally replies in Four’s voice, and it’s amazing. 

Runner-Up:  “Death of the Doctor (Part 2)” (The Sarah Jane Adventures) – I adore Eleven’s heart-to-heart with Jo.  He’s not specifically acting like Three, but the dynamic is perfect.  In that one scene, you could totally buy that she’s a young woman again and he’s her avuncular friend.

Best Return Appearance:  All of them.  Seriously.  Sarah Jane every time, Five and Eight in the minisodes, the Brigadier and Jo in The Sarah Jane Adventures, Tom Baker in the 50^th…  Actual audible squeeing – so much love for them all.

A Brief Note about Diversity in the Divergent Series

I still don’t do as well as I ought in actively seeking out stories with diverse perspectives (though I have expanded my “palette,” so to speak,) but I do keep my eye out for diversity in whatever stories I consume.  While Divergent is definitely about the Straight White Able-Bodied Girl Who Becomes a Heroine, I did notice a fair amount of variety within the series.  (A few spoilers.)

Many characters are described as being people of color, including personal favorites Christina, Tori, Uriah, and Johanna.  All are supporting characters without a ton of individual focus, but the PoC supporting characters don’t get less attention than their white or unspecified counterparts.  Christina is Tris’s best friend, and while the Black Best Friend of the White Protagonist trope has its own issues, she’s a tough, likeable character with flaws and struggles.  Similarly, though Tori’s role isn’t huge, it’s a fascinating one, and I’d have loved her even if Maggie Q wasn’t playing her in the movie.  Uriah is hugely entertaining, and Johanna is by far my favorite of the faction leaders (true, not a hard contest, but that doesn’t diminish her coolness.)  Plenty of other characters are mentioned as being PoC, even down to the briefest bit-character descriptions.  And Tris’s boyfriend Four, the second lead, is biracial.  From the books’ descriptions of him, he’s probably white-passing, and it’s true that his PoC mother was out of the picture for much of his life, but it’s at least a bit outside the typical Attractive White Leads at the Center of Everything.

It’s interesting that, while their descriptions imply it, no one is identified as a certain race.  I get the sense that the City inhabitants no longer have names for race groups.  Thus, Tris has no words for “Black” or “Latina;” she only has colors (and eye shape in the case of Asian characters like Tori and Jack, which is super awkward to read.)  It’s logical; like many other words her society, these concepts have fallen away.  Still, it makes me a little torn on Tris’s descriptions of race-identifying features.  What does it say that Tris notices people’s races so particularly in a society that has no words for race?  If race is a social construct, would citizens even register racial distinctions?  On the other hand, describing characters’ races prevents readers from auto-assuming them all as white.  So, it has real-world benefit, but the in-story implications are weird.  Which wins out?  (The films do fairly well with keeping the PoC characters PoC – except for Four and his mom.  Granted, Four’s not described as noticeably biracial, but his mom definitely isn’t white, unlike Naomi Watts.  The series missed a chance to put an interracial couple at the heart of their franchise.  Additionally, I get a whiff of colorism from Christina being portrayed as a light-skinned Black girl when the books describe her as having “dark brown skin.”)

The books also have three queer characters:  Lynn, Amar, and George.  They’re all minor characters, and they all imply their sexuality without explicitly naming it; Lynn, in fact, is this close to a posthumous outing, vaguely confessing her love for Marlene as she dies.  Amar and George are a couple, but their physical affection is limited to hugs and some significant looks.  One could say the minimized visibility is justified – it’s possible that, as with race, society has lost these words, and Amar and George have valid reasons to be discreet in a procreation-obsessed culture – but it’s still annoying.  However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen characters in YA literature of this sort written so definitively as queer.  Yes, it’s vague, but I’d wager it’s pretty hard to miss; if I hadn’t heard J.K. Rowling’s post-series announcement about Dumbledore, I’m not sure I’d have caught the hints in The Deathly Hallows, and at any rate, that was very late in the game to bring it up.  So, Divergent gets my regard as at least a step in the right direction.

Favorite Characters: Caroline Thibodeaux (Caroline, or Change)

Also known as Caroline, or Why “Lot’s Wife” is Incredible.  Seriously – there’s a lot to admire about this character, and the entire musical provides great food for thought where Caroline is concerned, but “Lot’s Wife” is one of the most profound character-driven eleven o’clock numbers I’ve ever heard, and it will probably get pride of place in this write-up.  Superficially, there have been many “Carolines” in fiction.  She’s a black maid working for a white family in 1960s Louisiana, a single mother doing all she can to provide for her children.  It’s a familiar character template for period dramas with racial themes.  Sometimes she remains a lightly-shaded background presence.  Sometimes her poverty and struggles open the eyes of white people around her to injustice.  Sometimes she resists the call of the civil rights fight, and sometimes she joins the cause with fierce determination and aching feet.  With Caroline, though, this engrossing character explores the themes of race, poverty, and injustice in stunning ways.

Caroline is a strong woman who knows the importance of submission in her world.  Her livelihood, her children’s meals, depends on doing what she’s told.  She’s to hold her tongue, accept her meager pay, and close her eyes to the system that keeps her subservient.  But every day, burying her strength, spending her days in a sweltering basement, and watching her children long for what she can’t afford, she’s filled with anger and frustration that needs release.  It takes all she has to keep her indignation bubbling under the surface, and she can’t always restrain it.  Although her employer is trying to be kind when she tells Caroline to keep the loose change she finds in the laundry, this simple decree is a trial for Caroline.  It’s humiliating, dehumanizing, to root for nickels in other people’s pockets, and since the small boy of the house is the chief provider of coins, it feels like “taking pennies from a baby.”  Caroline wants to refuse the condescending offer, wants to hold her head high and pay her own way, but her head is filled with her children’s longing and all she wants to give them.  Though her employers aren’t rich, they’re much more well-off than Caroline is; over the course of a week, the boy will leave several hours’ worth of Caroline’s salary in his pockets in change.  The money means so little to him that he forgets it’s there, but it’s a world of difference to Caroline.  As she finally starts bringing home the money, “30 dollars (a week) ain’t enough” is the mantra she repeats.

“Lot’s Wife” occurs late in the show, after that loose change has crawled into her heart and infected it.  She does an awful thing because she can’t afford not to, and her hate and anger at life’s rigged deck, and her self-disgust at what she’s done, pour out in this exquisite number.  She vows to “slam an iron” down on everything within her that begs for release, asking “What else God give me an arm for?”  She prays to be made numb to everything around her that makes her hate white folk and fear she can’t provide for her family.  She begs God, “Murder my dreams so I stop wantin’ […] / “Strangle the pride that make me crazy […] / Scour my skin ‘til I stop feelin’. / Take Caroline away ‘cause I can’t be her. / Take her away – I can’t afford her.”  That she recognizes where her hate comes from but still wants to excise it is somehow admirable and heartbreaking at the same time, and the song ends with the quiet request, “Don’t let my sorrow / Make evil of me.”  It’s so complex – it’s wrapped up partly in Caroline’s knowledge that she has to reign in her anger if she wants to survive in her society, partly in her desire to be a better person, and partly in her determination not to let her situation rule her, to keep her hate from being master of her.  The song (and really, the show) doesn’t provide any easy answers for Caroline, but listening to it, what I wouldn’t give to offer her just a shred of peace.

Relationship Spotlight: Kieren Walker & Amy Dyer (In the Flesh)

A lot of bleak stuff happens on In the Flesh, and Kieren gets more than his fair share of it.  In the midst of all the sadness, regret, fear, injustice, and confusion that fills his new life, he’s in need of some spark of light, and for the most part, that light comes from his friendship with Amy.

Kieren comes across Amy when he first ventures out upon returning home.  He avoids her, fearing the society that hates him and abhorring the undead face beneath his makeup.  He left the house because he couldn’t bear to sit there any longer, but now, he wants to retreat again.  But Amy’s not what he expected.  She doesn’t fear or hate him; she’s like him.  She recognizes the PDS features he disguises, but she doesn’t mind them.  In him, she sees a potential kindred spirit.  She knows what he’s been doing since he came home – looking at old photos, wallowing in old memories, and tearing himself apart with guilt – and she knows that’s no way to live.

Amy’s death was the polar opposite of Kieren’s.  While he committed suicide, overwhelmed by pain and remorse, her life was taken by cancer.  Like him, she died young, but she died against her will, her health and vitality ripped from her.  Though Kieren has a hard time returning to life at all, let alone with PDS, Amy doesn’t waste a shred of her second chance.  Kieren absolutely needs her in his life, to remind him that life can more than just pain and that it needs to be lived.

Since Amy is quick to come to terms with her PDS, she’s also an important force in helping Kieren to accept himself.  Sometimes she simply leads by example, going “au naturel” (sans makeup/contacts) in public and speaking openly about being undead.  Sometimes she confronts Kieren about the self-loathing he pretends is really just about fitting in – she asks him how far he’ll have to go before he’ll let himself be who he is.  Sometimes she stands up for her and Kieren’s rights when he wants to back down, and sometimes she simply tells him how beautiful he is; a boy who can’t look at his own reflection needs to hear that, and not enough people tell Kieren.  While he doesn’t embrace the Undead Prophet’s teachings like Amy does, Kieren definitely grows under her influence, becoming bolder and more confident about being himself. 

Kieren additionally finds a confidante in Amy.  Her natural openness make her safe, and her curiosity pulls many of Kieren’s private feelings out of hiding.  Within days of knowing her, he opens up about his suicide and his history with Rick.  She accepts it all with sympathy rather than pity – no judgment, just comfort, and going forward, she doesn’t treat him like he’ll break.  They even joke, lightly, about his past depression, and when Rick returns to town (undead,) she tells Kieren while others try to keep it from him “for his own good.”  It’s a tough love approach that isn’t always what Kieren needs, but she generally knows when to ease up and stop pushing.

That’s a lot about why Amy is good for Kieren, and since he’s the main character, it makes sense that the relationship is largely from his perspective.  It’s not one-sided, though; Kieren is much more obviously in need of a good friend, but Amy needs him, too.  Her constant jokes and chatter serve in part to fill empty spaces, and Kieren keeps her from being alone.  His quiet, gentle friendship evens her out.  In Amy’s other relationships, we see defensiveness (Phillip) and bravado (Simon,) both fueled by a desire to be loved and a fear that she won’t be, but Kieren is a sure presence, someone who’s on her side and won’t leave.  He bemusedly accepts the mantle of her BDFF – Best Dead Friend Forever – and doesn’t plan to give it up anytime soon.

Christopher and His Kind (1976)

Oh, Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin.  He gave us the stories first, Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, fictional tales born out of his real pre-war experiences in Germany.  In time, those stories became plays (I Am a Camera) and musicals (Cabaret) and film adaptations of plays and musicals.  And finally, in Christopher and His Kind, he wrote the real story.

In reading Isherwood’s memoir, I was surprised to find so many differences between it and The Berlin Stories.  I’d been under the impression that the book spent much of its time sorting out the fact and fiction from the stories, offering up anecdotes of the real people who inspired the characters and putting Isherwood’s sexuality back into the narrative.  Part of this is down to Christopher and His Kind’s TV movie adaptation, which I saw prior to reading and which does mainly divide its time between Berlin antecedents and Isherwood’s romantic history.  However, stories about Gerald Hamilton (Mr. Norris,) Jean Ross (Sally Bowles,) and their contemporaries only make up a portion of the book.  There’s so much more to it than that.

First, Isherwood devotes a lot of attention to The Berlin Stories itself, discussing his writing process, his discarded drafts, and his reasoning for specific inclusions, changes, and deletions.  He gives the same treatment to other works he wrote during the years covered by the book and generally provides a fine, interesting portrait of the writer at work.  We meet other writers of the day, those Isherwood socialized with, admired, spurned, collaborated with, and was mentored by.  He includes plenty of correspondence between himself and other writers, letters and telegrams about his work and assorted other subjects.

Like the Berlin anecdotes, though, our look at Isherwood’s career isn’t the main thrust of the book.  At its heart, it’s about Isherwood’s homosexuality and his social, mental, and emotional journey in coming to view himself as a member of a tribe.  We see the connections he excised from The Berlin Stories, and he gives us both his justifications (narrative focus, audience relatability, legal issues) and his true reasons (fear of exposing himself as gay) for making his narrator avatar entirely sexless.  We go into detail about the men he loved, especially his years-long relationship with a young working-class Berliner and Isherwood’s efforts to help him escape Germany.  He visits Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research, reads E.M. Forster’s Maurice, and struggles with his mother’s perception of his life.

Most of all, we see Isherwood come into his gay identity.  Not just being gay but consciously aligning himself with a subculture and holding to their ideals.  He begins his journey as an individual looking to enjoy himself, fall in love, and get a taste of everything Berlin’s underground has to offer; he concludes it profoundly changed, recognizing himself as part of a community and actively working against its marginalization.  The memoir is so frank and vulnerable.  It highlights moments when he hid himself out of fear and his shame at not being bolder.  It details his awakening into the possibility of true love and his deeply personal outrage that his love is regarded as less authentic than other people’s.  It chronicles his growing political awareness and his realization that all of his allegiances are filtered through his existence as a homosexual, that he can’t hold with any party that fails to recognize his validity as a human being.  Reading the book, you can help but feel that this is a subject Isherwood kept quiet about for a long time, and he’s finally breaking his silence.