Since my first posts about this new HBO series seem to have generated a veritable firestorm of overreaction and hysteria, I might as well continue talking about it. :-)
The more I see the overreaction to what I wrote here on FFL (most of it from people who haven't even seen the series themselves), the more respect I have for Mike White and Laura Dern, creators of the series. They *could* have taken the low road, and tried to create only a parody of the New Age and all things spiritual. Lord knows they need to be parodied and made fun of, for their own good, but still that's just so easy to pull off there is no challenge in it. What they did instead is to create the character of Amy and make her more multi-dimensional, more real. Yes, she's nuttier than a fruitcake. "Before enlight- enment, scream like a madwoman and act crazy; after enlightenment, scream like a madwoman and act crazy." But she may have ALSO had a realization experience of some kind while in that Hawaiian Woo Woo ashram. The questions that thus might be dealt with in the series (I've only seen one episode, after all, and can only speculate about the rest) are big ones: * Does having had a realization experience or having become enlightened actually MATTER? * Will or should anyone treat you differently if/when you become enlightened? So far in the series, the answers to both questions are "No." Amy is as insufferable enlightened as she was unenlightened. Having read reviews that reveal a bit of next week's episode, when she arrives at work expecting her bit of blackmail to have worked and be put into a management position, she's going to be shown to a dark, dingy basement and given a job in data entry. So how is one of the "enlightened" going to react to being treated just like everyone else, and be required to do repetitive, unrewarding work, just like everyone else? My bet is...uh...not well. Should be funny. But when you think about it, isn't this really a strong parallel to what we've seen on FFL many times? People show up here claiming to be enlightened, and expecting to be treated the way that they believe the enlightened "should" be treated. That is, with rapt awe and respect, and as if every word they write is precious knowledge conferred on us by our betters. And that doesn't happen. Instead, the world looks at these pompous enlightenment pretenders and judges them the same way they'd judge anyone else -- by their actual behavior and what they actually say and do. What the "enlightened" CLAIM about their inner experiences or their own state of consciousness doesn't mean shit; on FFL only what they actually DO matters. Same in "Enlightened," the TV series. Amy can believe she's enlightened all she wants to, but the world is going to treat her the way it winds up treating her. She doesn't get any special breaks for having had some nifty subjective experience. It should be interesting to watch how she deals with this. One thing is sure -- Amy simply CANNOT POSSIBLY react to others disbelieving in her enlightenment any worse than her fellow enlightenment pretenders on FFL have -- in the past and in the present. The parallels should make watching -- and continuing to report on -- this TV series really fun.
