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The Anglican Church in Tasmania Search |
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a healthy church...transformingLIFE |
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June 2005 |
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Review - Lost reality?Are we seeing the end of 'reality television'? Is
the tide finally turning against cheap 'real life'
productions (like, err … Survivor) and finally
running back to big budget dramas? the kind that employ real
actors instead of real people? Lost is the network's dramatic follow-on from three seasons of 24. For those not familiar with the set-up, a plane flying from Sydney to Los Angeles has crashed on a deserted island. The jet was thousands of miles off course, of course, so no-one is coming to save these frequent flyers. To make matters worse an unseen monster turns up and makes a meal of the pilot. Throw in a fire-arm, an FBI fugitive and an old man with a fascination for knives and you've got the makings of some quality sleepless nights. Our key character is a surgeon named Jack who is confronted with moral dilemmas from the moment he awakes alone in a bamboo forest. A trail of destruction leads him to an explosion of wreckage where he must quickly decide who can benefit the most from his skills. The audience is painfully aware that there is far more than one man can handle even if he was equipped with modern medical equipment and not simply his bare hands. Contrasting starkly to Jack's saintly efforts are a number of passengers who can't see beyond their own immediate needs, even if they only amount to their need to get a tan. However the realisation that no-one is coming to rescue them forces a moral re-think. Jack struggles to decide what resources should be devoted to a hopelessly injured man. Others simply ask themselves what they are prepared to do with, and to, each other to survive, and then start acting out their personal answers. Morally speaking, there actually isn't that much distance between Lost and Survivor. Both ask the same question: 'How long will our ethics last under pressure?' How much of what we hold to be right and fair is actually flexible, dependent on circumstances? How much is sacrosanct? And this is where reality television and this particular drama diverge. Reality television tends to demonstrate that humans will cross any moral boundary to gain that last bite of food. The ends are always held to justify the means. However, through Jack, Lost sets a goal one step higher than simple survival. When an unlikeable druggie falls in the path of an on-coming monster, Jack abandons self-preservation and turns back to help. That's because the scriptwriters recognise our human ideal requires the prosperity of all rather than merely the survival of one. Jack can't live happily in the knowledge that he let another person suffer, let alone die. Now where does this ideal come from? Certainly not from the mass of humanity. If the number of Lost characters angling for personal benefits weren't enough to convince you, reality television should. When society's limitations are absent, we can be a decidedly selfish lot. Ideals like these appeal to a notion that comes from somewhere above and beyond Jack and us. It's the sort of attitude that finds its home in the character of Christ. People rail at God for not doing anything about suffering and forget that Jesus was not content with simple self-preservation. God's love was prepared to pay for the prosperity of the many by sacrificing the survival of the one. Maybe that is why Lost is proving to be so popular with audiences. Beyond the drama of a romp through a monster-filled jungle, people are deriving satisfaction from a return to values that reach higher than 'you vs. me'.
Mark Hadley is Editor of sydneyanglicans.net where this review was first published. |
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