Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Ryan Sheely, and Jordan Stokes to overthink James Cameron’s Avatar, from the visuals to the narrative to the cat boobies to the political message.

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Download Episode 77 (MP3)

“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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“The spirit of enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved.”

— Alexander Hamilton

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“Excuse me, I have to go. Somewhere there is a crime happening.”

— Robocop

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I had always intended for the second installment of this oldest and most waited-for (if not awaited) Overthinking It series to be about a character I have often described as the Quintessential American Tragic Hero: Alex Murphy, a.k.a. Robocop from the truly excellent Paul Verhoeven film of the same name. Then, of course, other things happened.

Well, this is VerhOeverthinking It week, and as Darren Aronofsky will hopefully showcase for us Robocop’s durability — both as a cinematic subject and as a cybernetic apparatus — so will I persevere in hewing to one of my earliest intentions on this site.

Let us venture into the glory, the flaws, the fall and the suffering of that bechromed bulwark of semivoluntary justice — the American who is Half Jeffersonian, Half Hamiltonian, All Cop.

Do you want to learn more? Well, dead or alive, you are coming with me –

Ryan Sheely and Matthew Wrather consider the sociological implications of Gossip Girl and Glee, with reference to the political philosophies of Hobbes, Rosseau, and Bentham, the uses of terror, and the interplay of structural institutions and individual agency. Also The Wire.

This is the last episode of TFT that will appear on the main Overthinking It Podcast feed. Make sure you subscribe in iTunes or via RSS.

There will be no spoiler warnings and there will be many naughty words. If either of those things bothers you, don’t click!

Reactions to the show? Email us or call 20-FAT-JOG-01 (that’s (203) 285-6401).

Download TFT Episode 5 (MP3)

In the first article of this series, I set forth the hypothesis that Lost is a modern-day retelling of The Lord of the Flies.  That famous novel, you’ll remember, was an allegory with the moral of “Anarchy bad; British society good!”  (Also, “Anarchy bad; Jesus good,” but that’s another story for another day.)  I argued in that post that LotF espoused a Hobbesian view of humanity, and that Lost, through the character of Jack, did the same, sans all the Jesus-talk.

This week, I’d like to talk more about the differences between Lord of the Flies and Lost, particularly the differences between views of modernity in the 1950s, when the novel was written, and views of modernity now, in the era of Lost.  And anthropology!  Lots of anthropology.  But first, let me quickly summarize the episodes I watched this week.

Preface

I’m a Lost virgin.

Really.  You’d think such a thing would be impossible in today’s world.  Lost has been on for, like, fifteen years by now.  You can’t watch an episode of The Supernanny Bachelorette in a Shark Tank on ABC without being interrupted by some commercial announcing that This! Week’s! Lost! Will Change! Everything!  And let’s not forget about the Lost converts who have just consumed the entire show on DVD from Netflix in two weeks flat and who will not sleep until they have converted another to their strange cultish religion.  They’re not as bad as The Wire’s fans, but they’re close.

But I’ve felt recently that I haven’t been ingesting enough popular culture lately, and I had to fill that hole in my diet with empty calories, and ABC.com happened to have Lost streaming online for free.  It’s like if someone left a box of cookies out in the open and said, “Go ahead.  Eat the whole thing.”  Except that every five cookies you ate, you had to watch a VISA ad.

So I have officially popped my Lost cherry and am here to overthink the series for you, in order, over the course of the next however many weeks.  In case you’re curious, I included this overly long preface in this first of what will hopefully be a long and exciting series in order to emphasize that I have never seen an episode of Lost before this week.  The only things I knew going into it were

1.    There was an island.

2.    One of the characters was named John Locke, which is not heavy-handed at all.

3.    For some reason, polar bears.

Over the past two weeks, much digital ink has been spilled about the political meanings and messages embedded in The Dark Knight. In this particular corner of the intertubes, considerable (over)thought has gone into dissecting the layers of philosophy in the film. However, looking closely at the intersection of the two reveals that the filmmakers pose some very important questions that probe the very nature and origins of social and political order.

No spoilers here, so read on, even if you haven’t seen the film yet.

JK!

Words only after the jump, so if you’re just here for the LOLJoker, read no further…