I recently started watching the second season of Sense8, an original Netflix series that revolves around eight people from eight strikingly different walks of life who become psychically tethered to one another*. While I’m often excited to analyze television and film, being one of those people who adore symbolism and social/political commentary, a straight analysis won’t do here. Granted, I’m only five episodes into the second season, but that nagging question won’t stop: Why the hell was such an exceptional series canceled?
Maybe I’m being preemptive in my presumptions, but it seems to me Sense8 might have rocked the boat just a little too much—and I mean that in the most bittersweet of ways. The series is too real, too bold, too beautiful. It said everything everyone else floundering haplessly in this nightmare world of bigotry and ethnocentrism was too afraid to say; it spotlighted courage, standing up for ones fellow human beings. A few of my favorite quotes:
“Who am I? I guess who I am is exactly the same as who you are. Not better than. Not less than. Because there is no one who has been or will ever be exactly the same as either you or me.” S2, E1
“If I didn’t take people where they hired me to take them, I wouldn’t expect them to get back on my bus. We expect leaders to take us where we want to go. The problem, it seems to me, begins when they don’t. When things do not improve and yet these leaders keep expecting us to get on their bus, I think this is when leaders become something else: politicians.” S2, E3
“Your life is either defined by the system or by the way you defy the system.” S2, E4
“There’s nothing as expensive as being poor.” S2, E5
The first encourages people to embrace difference in an intricately divided world. The last three speak directly to the average lower- or working-class adult: Why do you continue to elect people who don’t care about in interests of the common man? Why do you let corruptions, corporations, and greed continue to rule your lives? If you don’t do anything to change a system designed to feed the gap between the rich and the poor, then the masses will remain poor.
We have become the elephant bound in place by a thread of yarn around the ankle; we have been taught to believe we’re virtually helpless, and so we are. We’re taught our place from nearly day one, and we’re taught to conform, or we’ll lose even that. We’re taught to spend our money on the newest gadgets and vehicles at the expense of ever really getting ahead financially, and we’re taught to value those things we think we need to much based solely on how others value them. (Note those others defining said value are typically among the leisure class—people who don’t work because they were born into money, the people who rule this world.) We’re taught it’s better so seem than to be, and we’re taught not to rock the boat.
Too many people are still too afraid to jump alongside the boat rockers. A series like Sense8 didn’t have a chance. It was just too brilliant. Too powerful. And sadly, the people who need to watch this series the most probably never will.
Maybe I’m being preemptive in my presumptions, but it seems to me Sense8 might have rocked the boat just a little too much—and I mean that in the most bittersweet of ways. The series is too real, too bold, too beautiful. It said everything everyone else floundering haplessly in this nightmare world of bigotry and ethnocentrism was too afraid to say; it spotlighted courage, standing up for ones fellow human beings. A few of my favorite quotes:
“Who am I? I guess who I am is exactly the same as who you are. Not better than. Not less than. Because there is no one who has been or will ever be exactly the same as either you or me.” S2, E1
“If I didn’t take people where they hired me to take them, I wouldn’t expect them to get back on my bus. We expect leaders to take us where we want to go. The problem, it seems to me, begins when they don’t. When things do not improve and yet these leaders keep expecting us to get on their bus, I think this is when leaders become something else: politicians.” S2, E3
“Your life is either defined by the system or by the way you defy the system.” S2, E4
“There’s nothing as expensive as being poor.” S2, E5
The first encourages people to embrace difference in an intricately divided world. The last three speak directly to the average lower- or working-class adult: Why do you continue to elect people who don’t care about in interests of the common man? Why do you let corruptions, corporations, and greed continue to rule your lives? If you don’t do anything to change a system designed to feed the gap between the rich and the poor, then the masses will remain poor.
We have become the elephant bound in place by a thread of yarn around the ankle; we have been taught to believe we’re virtually helpless, and so we are. We’re taught our place from nearly day one, and we’re taught to conform, or we’ll lose even that. We’re taught to spend our money on the newest gadgets and vehicles at the expense of ever really getting ahead financially, and we’re taught to value those things we think we need to much based solely on how others value them. (Note those others defining said value are typically among the leisure class—people who don’t work because they were born into money, the people who rule this world.) We’re taught it’s better so seem than to be, and we’re taught not to rock the boat.
Too many people are still too afraid to jump alongside the boat rockers. A series like Sense8 didn’t have a chance. It was just too brilliant. Too powerful. And sadly, the people who need to watch this series the most probably never will.
* Capheus “Van Damn” Onyango, a matatu driver in Nairobi who is trying to earn money to buy HIV/AIDS medication for his mother.
Sun Bak, daughter of a powerful Seoul businessman and a burgeoning star in the underground kickboxing world.
Nomi Marks, a trans woman hacktivist and blogger living in San Francisco with her girlfriend Amanita.
Kala Dandekar, a university-educated pharmacist and devout Hindu in Mumbai who is engaged to marry a man she does not love.
Riley Blue, an Icelandic DJ living in London who is trying to escape a troubled past.
Wolfgang Bogdanow, a Berlin locksmith and safe-cracker who has unresolved issues with his late father and participates in organized crime.
Lito Rodriguez, a closeted actor of Spanish background living in Mexico City with his boyfriend Hernando.
Will Gorski, a Chicago police officer haunted by an unsolved murder from his childhood. (Wikipedia)
Sun Bak, daughter of a powerful Seoul businessman and a burgeoning star in the underground kickboxing world.
Nomi Marks, a trans woman hacktivist and blogger living in San Francisco with her girlfriend Amanita.
Kala Dandekar, a university-educated pharmacist and devout Hindu in Mumbai who is engaged to marry a man she does not love.
Riley Blue, an Icelandic DJ living in London who is trying to escape a troubled past.
Wolfgang Bogdanow, a Berlin locksmith and safe-cracker who has unresolved issues with his late father and participates in organized crime.
Lito Rodriguez, a closeted actor of Spanish background living in Mexico City with his boyfriend Hernando.
Will Gorski, a Chicago police officer haunted by an unsolved murder from his childhood. (Wikipedia)
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