Orphan Black: Echoes

Transcription

Here's an idea: Orphan Black shows us how we all might be clones. Okay so, first thing's first! Fair warning: spoilers ahead! So if you don't want Orphan Black spoiled for you, you should go and watch goat videos. I'm sure you know where they are by now, or you could watch another Idea Channel episode, would be good too. Orphan Black is a tv show starring Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany... and... Tatiana Maslany. In it, main character Sara--a con artist--discovers she is a clone when she sees Beth--a detective WHO LOOKS JUST LIKE HER--commit suicide at a train station. What follows is an intense and ACTION PACKED unraveling of a story involving a number of couldn't-be-more-different-except-they-share- each-other's-DNA ladies. Who are they, why are they clones, who did this, is there more behind it, and WHAT does it have to do with the vague-yet-menacing DYAD INSTITUTE? And aside from being an awesome TV it is also weirdly-- --so weirdly, in fact, I'm not entirely sure its not on purpose-- --a perfect illustration of something called THE SIMULACRUM. So before we talk more about OB, lets talk about simulacra. Generally speaking, outside of philosophy, a simulacrum-plural SIMULACRA-is a depiction or representation of something. But over time it took on an additional connotation. In the way many philosophers use it, a simulacrum IS still a representation or depiction of something, but its relationship to its source is ... weirded up. It *is* a copy, but a kind of SUPER copy, a copy or image--as it's sometimes written--without reference to an original, that stands on its own right. I'm sure you can see why we're eventually headed toward Orphan Black but just ... bear with me. What does that even mean: "a copy without reference to an original"? How is that even possible? Well! Philosopher Gilles Deleuze uses POP-ART as his paradigmatic specimen. Andy Warhol's Double Elvis, for example, is a double-image of Elvis Presley... but it's not really ABOUT the Elvis born in Tupelo who sang I Forgot To Remember To Forget. It's about the production of images themselves, not their referred to significance. Insofar as popular culture squeezes real people with lives and histories into two dimensional objects for mass consumption, Pop Art does the same. Double Elvis isn't ABOUT Elvis, but by RESEMBLING Elvis it can become ABOUT images and copies and mass culture. As Brian Massumi writes: "the multiplied, stylized images take on a life of their own." The "life of its own" part is really important; a "copy"--no matter how bad or inauthentic--ALWAYS references its original. By its very nature it is TIED to it. A simulacrum, like Double Elvis, might RESEMBLE an original, but it becomes its OWN. THING, lacking what Deleuze calls an "interior, spiritual resemblance" that a COPY does have. And a simulacrum can be a lot more than a piece of pop art... Grumpy Grandmpa of Postmodern Philosophy Jean Baudrillard, who we last talked about in our Mobile Phones and Reality episode, wrote EXTENSIVELY about simulacra. He and other pomophilos identified tons of sources responsible for GENERATING them: --amongst them: the church creates iconography, science and institutions create "knowledge", the law upholds "justice", corporations create value and wealth, and Disney World... well we'll talk more about Disney World in a second-- All of it simulacra: things claiming to reference a more base level "original"--be it God, truth or value--when really they are something else ENTIRELY. BUT HOOWAIT A MINOOT: let's take a look at that list of simulacra producers again. The Church? The Law? Corporations? Science? DISNEY. Ok that last one didn't work out so well but Baudrillard DID WRITE about how Disney World constructed THE PERFECT AMERICAN TOWN... ...perhaps, as a way, to distract us from the fact that there is no such thing as the PERFECT AMERICAN TOWN: suburbia is just another simulacrum. Clones Helena, Cosima, Beth, Rachel and Allison are all "copies" without--at least as far as we know--originals, and who are all "products" in some way of a system responsible for producing SIMULACRA. Though I think... scientifically at least there has to be... an original in order for there to be a clone? Hey - JOE? Joe: Yeah? Mike: Is that true? Can you make a clone without an original? Joe: Well, we've synthesized life on the scale of bacteria but synthesizing DNA on the scale of the human genome is technically beyond the limits of human science. So to make a clone you need an original. Just think how Wheezy Waiter does it. Mike: Wait. Are you saying that Wheezy might work with DYAD? Mike: Did you just eat a packet of sugar? Joe: No...Yes... So who knows what will happen but as of right now there hasn't even been TALK of an original, and maybe that's the end-point of Sara's search for answers? And speaking of which, what does all of this make Sara? WELL that's a good question. Clearly something different, in more ways than one. Perhaps that she is not a product of one of those systems and was able to give birth to Kira are related? Maybe that she is a "copy" who is able to create an "original" uniquely positions her to upset this situation as she has? This could also explain why Helena is so valuable to the Prolethians: she is their chance to fuse religion and science to create a DIRECT result of God's power, not a SIMULACRUM of it. So but anyway fan theories aside: Orphan Black, in addition to being an illustration of and possibly ABOUT simulacra, is also arguably a simulacrum itself. The images on your screen comprising ProClone being the worst or Cosima and Delphine making science together are themselves "copies" of something with no clear original. Is the original the footage? The first edit? The first export? Michael from VSauce talks about this in his Where is this Video? ... video. So we won't spend too much time on it... ...except to ask if the video doesn't also, in some way, turn YOU into a simulacrum. If we were being Gloomy Gus Baudrillard we might ask if the clones of Orphan Black don't exist to somehow distract us from the fact that we are all already clones. But really, from the point of view of the video itself, if you can even claim such a thing exists, are we not? Each and every piece of media tracking audience metrics reduces that audience to representations of their presence based upon whatever actions they've taken, even if those actions are sitting idly by and watching. Every view count you've ever seen is collected simulacra, copies of something claiming to reference an original-- --the presence of a person-- --but it's really something else entirely. The most extreme case is NEILSEN, the go to ratings system for television in the US. Target audiences are given diaries and meters to record their viewing habits. Those viewing habits are then extrapolated to represent total viewership. Those target audiences, though, are arguably the ones most valuable to advertisers; they're comprised of what're called NEILSEN FAMILIES. Neilsen families represent TV viewers in their demographic, but the demographics collected are very small and don't NEARLY illustrate the diversity of tv audiences as a whole. So when you tune in to Orphan Black, you really ARE a member of #CloneClub in that as far as the ratings are concerned, you might not REALLY be there. Rather, it's a simulacrum of you: a copy, a CLONE of a metered viewer, that claims to represent you... ...but is actually something else ENTIRELY. What do you guys think? Is Orphan Black about and itself a simulacrum? Does it turn its audience into simulacra? Let us know in the comments and if you want to subscribe, click on one of my clones. I would consider myself a member of the fandoms fandom. What can I say? I'm a big fan of fandoms. Let's see what you guys had to say about the future of fandom. Olly, I'm really glad to hear that you are willing to call yourself a fan of Idea Channel but I think I disagree with your idea that being in a fandom or being a fan of something puts you in a positive mindset that kind of blocks you from being critical of the thing that you love. And a lot of people said this in response but I just want to echo this idea that, I think being a fan of something might even cause you to be more critical of something because you love it so much and you want it to be as good as it could possibly be. I think that this is actually one of the biggest features of fan culture, is the presence and vocalness of criticism. Shessomickey talks about the inherently queer nature of fandom, which is especially interesting given that Henry Jenkins, the guy who we quoted in the episode, talks in one of his books about how fan studies was itself inspired by queer studies because a lot of queer studies academics were some of the first people to champion the idea that you could be a member of a culture and still describe it appropriately and effectively. That you didn't need to be outside it trying to describe it objectively, which is yeah, what does that even mean? I usually try to stay on the positive side during the comment responses but Jeffrey, this attitude drives me crazy. If someone wants to write a fanfic about a story or set of characters or setting that they love, how does that ruin your day? How does that...how is that bad? Why...why? Drudenfusz talks about a future of fandom that resembles the past of storytelling where people who are consuming stories feel greater permission to change and adapt them and do things with them that the sacredness of pop culture texts is not so great. And yeah, I think, I agree with this, and I really look forward to this, and again can't help but veer back into the questions of copyright and related things, but yeah. ReiAyanami8, KerlyFries, and a bunch of other people expressed a great concern over the growing control that fandoms have over the content that they love because, you know, as far as group think goes, that kind of control over something that you love might not be the best thing for the thing itself and, yeah, I think we all kind of have to trust that to some degree the auteur will always exist, that we will always have to trust our creators to make the right decisions, and yeah, I can definitely see a bad side to this kind of thing, but also a good side, right? Like, there are things that get resurrected, there are story arcs that get fixed, there are problems with narrative and representation that get addressed and I think that that stuff is, that's the bright side to look forward to. Michelle Harrop sees a very bright future for fandom where the fact that we understand everybody is a fan of something can lead to greater cultural harmony. But Alias of Apacolypse sees kind of the opposite in that, even as they exist now in their relatively small size, fandoms always appear to be fighting one another so that maybe it will just be business as usual. Let's hope that the positive wins out, yeah? Pegasusexpress2010, invalidimput and a bunch of other people see fandom contributing to a real shakeup in the businesses models for the entertainment industry providing real challenge to things like publishing and the Hollywood industrial complex and yeah, we've already started to see a bunch of stuff like this. And I'm really excited to see what happens when Kickstarter and Indie GoGo are suddenly old news, when they are things that aren't exciting any more. What is the next, what's five steps from Kickstarter as far as crowdfunding is concerned? I think it's probably going to be really cool. Lisa Duncan writes a really great comment that touches on something we didn't talk about at all which is, how fandom has kind of raised the prominence of some showrunners and cites Joss Whedon and Pen Ward as two examples of people who seem as though they are fans themselves. They maybe have their own fandom but then also have massive and important shows at their own control and I wonder, are we gonna see more people like that? Sounds exciting, I'm in for it! And speaking of Joss Whedon... :( This week's episode was brought to you by the hard work of these monitors we have a Facebook, an IRC, and a Subreddit, links in the doobly-doo, and in case you were wondering whether or not you had any reason to go to Vidcon you have at least one because we will be there! So if you are gonna be at Vidcon come and find me and say hi. Let's high-five! Alright so first thing's first, for forgetting a record last week I will do my penance and wear a dunce cone that we happened to have in the studio. And for our record swap this week we are going to replacing a record that you didn't even know we had. The Marshall Tucker Band with Lalo Schifrin's Black Widow. That was actually recorded about twenty blocks north of here in 19...76 I think? Anyways, here we go. Alright, so, adios Marshall Tucker Band, welcome, Lalo Schifrin's Black Widow.