Sense8: Groundbreakingly Dull

Not everyone can be David Lynch, but writers keep trying. And trying is the problem. In the Lynchian world of cinema, there are two groups of writers: those who are David Lynch, and those who are not David Lynch. Still, sometimes it's fun to watch writers get lost in the fine line between provocative television and the depths of their own ass holes. This, unfortunately, is not one of those times.

Let me back up a bit. With all of the buzz surrounding Netflix's latest original series (how great is Netflix? Seriously), you'd think that Sense8 would be the online network's greatest triumph since House of Cards. Like Cards and Orange is the New Black, Sense8 tried to stand out by changing the game. Its writers and producers, the Wachowski brothers, conceived of the series as a vehicle to break down barriers that plague science fiction. 

While it may be true that some of the lesser science fiction serials and movies tend to evade issues of politics, sexuality, and gender, it can be agued that the most lauded works within the genre are steeped in the divisive politics of their respective eras. Star Wars broke down race and gender barriers, and the rebooted Battlestar Galactica made analogies to the war in Iraq and rigged elections their foundation for story telling. In fact, with the exception of some of sci-fi's hokiest incarnations, the genre is often the first to tread into the taboo. 

Sense8 certainly can't be faulted for its attempt to join the ranks of such groundbreaking events, but what it does in the arena of political and social advancement is two dimensional tokenism. Unfortunately, the hype surrounding Sense8 is fixated on its cast, not its content. Namely, (SPOILERS AHEAD)...

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...one of the main characters is a closeted gay male soap opera actor, one is a lesbian played by a transgender actress, and a supporting character, another lesbian. That's great, but that doesn't tell Sense8's story.

Beyond its 21st Century cast, Sense8 is a story of eight individuals scattered throughout the world, psychically connected by what we believe to be an angel, played by Daryl Hannah. After the characters, the "sensates" are connected, we're carried from location to location learning a little about each of them, but ultimately not enough to care about more than one or two.

Dramatic music unbefitting each scene overshadows an underdeveloped storyline and weak dialogue. After you strip away the poor direction, we're left with a flat narrative dripping in arrogance. You'll easily recognize elements of the brothers' greatest project to date, the Matrix franchise, in each of Sense8's characters.

But the Matrix, a novel idea for its era, was ultimately killed of any value by its sequels. And Sense8, being somewhere between network television and a miniseries, doesn't have the bandwidth to send us on a trip across the big screen, even a bad one. 

Seemingly relying on their Hollywood reputation, the Wachowski brothers don't just try to take science fiction to a realm of gender neutral sexual ambiguity, they try to use science fiction as a vehicle for pious melodrama, something that hasn't been done with moderate success since Oliver Stone's Wild Palms. Only in Sense8, the campy comedic relief of Palms is replaced with a dull lecture that makes Crash look like an Adam Sandler movie. Sense8 is essentially castrated of the science and fiction that makes the genre exciting, leaving us with dramatic vignettes that make no sense. 

Exactly one hour into the series premier, something exciting finally happens, presumably in time to make you want to watch the next installment. 

It's difficult to tell if the premise is even worthy or knows where it's going, but there is potential in the mystery. How are these eight tethered together, and more importantly, why? But being left with a cast of stereotypes from the school of first-world hard-knocks, it's hard to care, and you're left to assume that the angel brought them together because no one else on earth should be forced to spend more than five minutes with one of these tired archetypes. 

What has made Netflix so great is, to date, we haven't been delivered cliches. Streaming original content requires an advanced level of writing and direction that can't rely on weekly focus groups. Releasing an entire series in one day is daring, and also risky, much like a blockbuster movie. Netflix caters to an audience that demands the unexpected, and often even its main characters are unlikable. But they are unlikable in a dynamic and interesting way. 

Netflix is bloody, it's sexy, it's provocative, and offensive. Its audience has network fatigue, they're intellectuals who understand that humans - even the most super - are flawed. But from Daredevil to Hemlock Grove, flawed as our heroes and anti-heroes are - we understand enough about them to understand why we identify with them, or why we revile them. Until Sense8, Netflix hasn't delivered a character disliked simply because they're an annoying cliche. 

What Sense8 has exposed are the growing pains of streaming original content. While some originals like Daredevil have proven that they can successfully engage us in what is essentially a pre-released series, or a thirteen hour movie, Sense8 proves the need for network consultation on behalf of writers and directors who've lost touch with their target audience. 

Even Netflix's most widely panned originals such as Hemlock Grove manage to engage our binge-watcing curiosity by being silly, grotesque, or just plain addictive. Were the premier of Sense8 aired on a major network, even the CW, it's questionable whether a second episode would have ever aired. 

Privileged Transgressions

Whether you think Caitlyn Jenner is a hero or just another media whore, owning a week of the internet has created a dialogue. And it's a dialogue that has been surprisingly supportive. But a similar story broke last week, and its timing couldn't be worse for the transgendered community. The only thing, it isn't similar in any way.

I'm talking, of course, about Rachel Dolezal, the President of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP who's been "passing" as black for the last decade. The sympathetic arm of the internet has already started praising her as "transracial," or someone who internally identifies with another race, and begun comparing Dolezal's journey to Jenner's. If you're a South Park fan, you probably thought about Kyle's transition into a tall, black basketball player and his father's into a dolphin. 

As laughable as the subject should be, they've been taken under serious consideration by legitimate organizations. The difference between Jenner's journey and Dolezal's is that Dolezal's journey was one of deception full of stereotypical appropriations.

With overnight fascination surrounding the transgendered community, others have hijacked the prefix to demand the same respect. And it doesn't stop at the "transracial." Perhaps the most disturbing are the "transabled." You may remember the Taboo episode about Chloe Jennings-White, an able-bodied woman who uses a wheelchair because she believes she's disabled. She isn't suffering from conversion disorder, a legitimate form of hysterical paralysis, either. She can walk. Others have staged accidents to lose limbs or deliberately induced blindness. 

While these disturbed individuals do deserve psychological study, they don't deserve a sympathetic paring with the transgendered. In doing so, psychologists are dumbing down the field by ignoring the foundations of science, foundations rooted in cold hard facts. 

In science - hard science - the most obvious theory is often the right one, and always the first to be explored. But here - in soft science - sensitivity has become a variable that influences the study. With regard to the "transabled" or "transracial," the most obvious theoretical cause would simply be a cry for attention. These people see the respect bestowed upon the disabled or the tremendous perseverance of the racially marginalized and, in short, want a piece of the action.

By acknowledging "transability" or "transrace" as a unique condition befitting a psychological label, the field of psychology is taking a Creationist approach to science: seeking facts to support a baselessly pre-drawn conclusion. Ironically, allowing sympathy to trump science with regard to the "transabled" or "transracial" fosters a culture that demeans the truly disabled and racially disadvantaged. It sympathizes with the privileged. 

It may be knee-jerk, even easy, to draw a parallel between the transgendered and these dubious "trans" causes, but the transgendered who've come to terms with their identities are living honest lives. Legitimizing the "transabled" and "transracial" allows these people to live lies and usurp resources meant for those born or faced without an alternative.

Obviously, the transgendered community, the disabled, and ethnic minorities have espoused outrage against the self-assigned disadvantaged. Perhaps these fringe movements are a sign that First World privilege has reached its cultural threshold, wherein some people are so bored with the luxury of walking, sight, or being white that they seek stimulation by fabricating discourse. 

Whatever the cause, whether these individuals have body dysmorphic disorders or simply want attention, legitimizing their conditions by rewriting psychology's Bible, the DSM-5, will only serve to delegitimize the entire field of psychology. There is cause for sympathy in the soft sciences where subjects are concerned, but sympathy is not a variable in the lab. Logic has been lost by an overwhelming call to coddle everyone's innermost quirk. As we charge towards greater equality for our once-most disadvantaged and marginalized, able-bodied white people have once again proven that they can make anything about themselves.