Sense8
is an American science fiction drama released on Netflix and created and
written by Andy and Lana Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski. The series
was released to audiences on the 5th July 2015 and has continued to
the present date. The Netflix viewership has rated the series at 4.2/5 stars
form over 1 million users. The series tells the story of eight strangers who
are thrown into a supernatural world in which they are all connected both
mentally and emotionally. Sense8 uncovers the more touchy subjects and the
genre and society generally disregard. This can include politics, identity,
sexuality, gender and religion.
Capheus
(Aml Ameen) is an African matatu driver working in Nairobi with an obsession
for Jean Claude Van Damme, as revealed to the viewer with the paint work on the
minibus. It is shown to the audience that Capheus works hard and consistently
in order to pay for his mother’s medicine who is suffering from AIDS. The show
here shows how tough it is for the working class in a third world country to
support their families. Sense8 also casts quite a unique group of actors and
actresses for their roles. An example of this would be the character of Nomi
Marks (Jamie Clayton) who in the series plays a transgender woman who is in a
lesbian relationship with her partner Amanita (Freema Agyeman). However the
actress who plays Nomi is actually a transgender woman herself. Another form of
homosexuality within the show is that of the Lito Rodriguez (Miguel Ángel
Silvestre) who plays a famous actor but is secretly gay and feels that he will
be seen differently by the public and media leading to his career to decline.
The difference between the two forms of homosexuality in the series is that one
has no problem with what the world thinks of them and kiss and celebrate their
love and passion in public; this being Nomi and Amanita. On the over hand, Lito
is somewhat ashamed of his sexual nature and has a secret boyfriend due to fear
of peoples’ opinion of him changing.
A form of region that is represented in the
series is when Kala Dandekar (Tina Desai) is praying to the Hindu God Ganesha.
She speaks to Ganesha about how she is to be married and how happy everyone is
with this news but she doesn’t love the man she is to marry. She is trapped by
the tradition of her culture and does not want to dishonour her family who are
so excited. Kala prays to Ganesha for guidance and help with her decision. The
writers could have choose this God in particular as Ganesha is God of wisdom,
knowledge and new beginnings, the new beginning or journey she is about to take
is that of this link and connection between herself and her new found brethren.
Politics is all represented throughout the
series as when Nomi and Amanita go to the park to join some friends who also
happen to be homosexual one of the friends confronts Nomi about their recent
political statement and how she believes she is unfit to be a hacktivist (a
person who promotes political agendas) and blogger. This verbal attack leaves
Nomi to run off and weep to which Amanita defends her and catches up to her to
console her. Nomi states that she is not upset by what the other person said
but the fact the “No one has ever stood up for me before”. This here could be
an inside campaign by writers to show the struggle that various groups in
society have and how it has a major effect on their life with this constant
bombardment of offence and hateful
negativity. One of the writers themselves (Lana Wachowskis) was born a male and
as of 2009 has since become a female. This could be from her forms of
experience as she will know first hand how the public can react to something
that is seen as different to them.
The
series can be seen as postmodern in the sense that it amplifies globalisation
with how in one scene we are in a club in London to the next being at a temple
in Mumbai. This way the writers and director can help the audience better
understand the different cultures that are in the same time period. However
this could be seen as in tensional but somewhat lazy with the lack of narrative
as the episode jumps from place to place allowing only a few minutes to gain as
much detail and knowledge about and form the characters as possible. I understand
the writers want to keep areas of the series a secret but with a little
narrative and direction the episodes can come across as a bit boring for the
audience to follow. Also the fact that eight different storylines are going on
at one can be seen as a tad complex for the audience to understand and track.
As well
as being postmodern the series has some elements of stereotypes with the use of
African-Americans. When Will Gorski (Brad J. Smith), a Chicago police officer,
goes to respond to a callout were shots have been fired and they are to secure
the premise. Will and his partner go to the location of the incident and find
an young African American teenager who appears to be shot. The young teen seen
the officers and pull his gun out on them in which Will does the same back. The
boy soon puts his weapon down and asks for their help. Will immediately goes to
assist the boy and ask for his partner to call for an ambulance, his partner
however replies saying that “it’s not going to make a difference away”. Will
then responds saying to his partner “I know you do not want to let this kid
die” to which he replies “What would he do if it was you or me?”. Will clearly
knows the answer to this rhetorical question but out of his good nature
continues to do his duty not just as a police officer but as a human being.
Will goes against the stereotype of American cops as he is going to stop at
nothing in order to make sure this boy survives. Yet, his colleague is depicted
as following all stereotypes of American police officers who are brutal to the
African American race that live in American and in most recent news have even
gone to the lengths of killed innocent citizens to represent their authority.
Will and his partner are the complete opposite and that was clearly intended by
the writers to do this to further represent that not everyone is bad even the
American Police Force in this instance.
What I
have watched of the series is that is completely postmodern and one of the
first forms of media to incorporate such bold subjects and explore them to the
fullest. The way in which reality and fiction in both in play is amazing as one
moment a situation which people of the audience can relate to is happening then
the characters are having visions or being teleported to an location thousands
of miles away from this previous one.
with it in a different way to how we would.
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