Plants, Animals, and (Almost) Humans
Almost Humans
Animals
Plants
The Call of the Wild
The Goat, or Who is Sylvia
Little Shop of Horrors
Nature Poem
Never Let Me Go
Blood Child
Ex Machina
The X Files
S1, Ep. 5: "The Jersey Devil"
- Mulder and Scully investigate a series of murders caused by an enigmatic man-beast called the Jersey Devil
- It turns out to be a surviving member of the Neanderthal species, but it is still put down like an animal
S1, Ep. 11: "Eve"
- This episode follows clones, named Eve, with heightened abilities who are so smart that they are driven deranged
- They murder their adoptive fathers and are found by an older Eve clone and then murder her
- Mulder and Scully eventually are able to outwit and capture them, but they are taken to a facility where it is revealed that there is another live adult Eve in captivity and tests are being performed on them
Ethics
- Should such clones be created?
- Should they be given the same rights as humans even though they have no empathy and seem to enjoy killing? #
Agency
- Mulder and Scully, the older Eve, and the young twins all believe they are in charge
- The older Eve gets murdered, the younger Eves finally are captured by the agents, and the government takes the Eve twins from Mulder and Scully to continue performing tests
- They are all controlled by the people who made them, in the Eve's case, or who employ them, in the agents' case, which turns out to be the same people # # #
Futility
- Tommy and Kathy fight for a nonexistent delay
- Only a delay, not a salvation
Futility
- Both Nathan and Caleb believe they are in control, but Ava was pulling the strings all along
- "One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction." --Nathan # #
Relationships
- Normal family structure is destroyed
- Tlik serve as parents, siblings, confidants, lovers, and slavers
- Terrans are a mix between pets and livestock to the Tlik, but there is still a sexual component to relationships between Tlik and N'Tlik
- "'But you came to me... to save Hoa.' 'Yes.'... 'And to keep you for myself.'" (28) # # #
Relationships
- Ava tricked Caleb into falling for her with the help of Nathan, who designed her to be able to manipulate him
- Nathan builds female AIs and has a father-like relationship with them, but then reprograms them to be mindless sex bots for him to use
- "And the answer to your real question, you bet she can fuck." --Nathan # #
Gender Roles
- The female Tlik run the society, with males fertilizing as grubs and dying off
- The Terran men give birth because they are not valued as highly by the Tlik for keeping the Terrans alive
- Tlik do not impregnate women for fear of them not being able to bear Terran children #
Gender Roles
- Nathan created sexy female robots because he wanted something to have sex with
- He also created Caleb's perfect woman so he would fall for her manipulations in her attempt to escape
- Despite the AI "winning" in the end, she is still viewed as a sex object from both Nathan and Caleb's and the movie's perspectives. #
Plant Poems
Teaching a Plant the Alphabet
Eyewitness depiction of the Jersey Devil
(As seen on my water bottle)
Agency
- Tommy Pico said he would never write a nature poem, but he decided to redefine what a nature poem is and write it for himself
- He took his insecurities and other people's perceptions of who he should be and shone a light on them and forcing those who wanted to push certain roles on him to back away # # # #
Cultural Stereotypes
- Tommy Pico is caught between the "urban-gay" stereotype and the "Native American-one-with-nature" stereotype and he desperately longs to be seen as his own person
- He writes Nature Poem to try to escape that in his own way #
The Lives of Animals
Ethics
- Elizabeth, for all of her argumentative flaws, brings up a valid point about the ethics of eating animals
- Why are some animals considered not proper for eating, and others considered okay?
- We would never eat humans, so why should we feel comfortable taking the lives of other animals, who feel just as much as us? # #
Consider the Lobster
Animal Poems
Caddyshack
Relationships
Society
- Wallace uses the lobsters as a metaphor to critique people for being "tourists" in their own lives, passively moving through life without thinking about the consequences of their actions
- "As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing." (240, footnote 6) # #
Ethics
- Wallace forces us to actually put real thought into the way we consume animals, lobsters in particular
- He forces people to think about the fact that lobster feel when they are being boiled alive
- He wants people to understand that doing something without understanding the implications is much worse than understanding the implication and taking action anyway # # # # # # # #
"Bat"
- Society
- The speaker sees bats as frightening, but they have never actually caused him any harm that we are aware of
- There are very few stories of bats threatening human lives, so their stigma is entirely societal
- Even the speaker knows that in China they are viewed positively, and yet still refuses to see it
"Man and Bat"
- Relationships
- The relationship between the bat in this man's house and the man is violent and aggressive, but the man realizes that the bat has fears and emotions
- He feels as though he has no right to take the bat's life, but still relentlessly pursues it to the point of near-death
"Snake"
- Ethics
- The speaker sees a beautiful snake that he has been told to kill because it posed a danger to humans, but he cannot bring himself to do it
- He wonders if it is because he is afraid, but in reality he is brave for doing what he thought was right despite what he had been taught as a human
"The Fish"
- Ethics
- Should we really feel comfortable fishing for sport?
- Why are we okay hurting those animals when it is much harder to hurt the animals that resemble us?
"The Moose"
- Society
- This poem is mostly about living in Maine and communicating with other humans about how to live and be happy, but the thing that truly brings everyone on the bus together is seeing this massive, majestic beast in the road ahead
- The animals that we deem less significant than us are often what bring us together
"Sheltered Garden"
- Society
- The speaker is critiquing the tendencies of humans to make everything too safe and secure
- She believes that the way to make a more beautiful garden with tastier fruit is to leave it open to the elements, rather than protect it from all harm
- With this, she believes that giving people more experiences will make them more successful and better people #
"Reapers"
- Human Nature
- The speaker relates the relentlessness of the reapers to the realities of human nature
- We are cruel beings who kill not only to support ourselves but for pleasure
- Plants mean less than nothing to cultivate and destroy, and even when there is another living, breathing creature that is hurt in the process, humans continue on as if nothing had happened
"Sea Rose"
- Femininity
- The speaker is prioritizing women who have had more experiences, who lived life the way they wanted to rather than by how society expects them to stay beautiful
- The speaker is prioritizing women who have had more experiences, who lived life the way they wanted to rather than by how society expects them to stay beautiful
"Sea Poppies"
- Agency
- The speaker sees this flower as a beautiful tragedy, a once stunning flower brought low and strewn on a beach with the other flotsam and jetsam
- She wonders what meadow it came from, and how it came to be tossed about in the ocean waves with no control over its own fate
"In a Station of the Metro"
- Society
- The people in this metro station are all dots of beauty against an otherwise drab background
- They are each an individual, and yet part of something greater
Made By: Ciaran McEnroe