THEY'RE NOT WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE

"They're not who they say they are. They're pretending."
"Three Minutes," written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz

Note from Jan 24, 2010 -- That generated some fun discussion, but let's move on.

...

7/10/10 -- I added my original post back in, because "why not?":

I didn't intend to write this post so early in my blog. As I mentioned in my first two posts, I wanted to at least start out this blog discussing only the show that we have already watched on our television screen. I thought that maybe if I built a case up one step at a time, perhaps some of my later posts would be easier to accept. I have shared a few of my thoughts about point of view, as well as the way identity is treated on the show. I have partially composed another post about memory in LOST. I also want to tackle the nature of narration on LOST and the question of what is "real" before getting in too deep into what fellow fan aohora a.k.a. "Amy Monroe" might call LOST GONE TOO FAR. Then there is one of the most important elements of my journey into this kind of storytelling--the connections--which I have not discussed yet. Also, I need to do a post on secret codes.

Instead, I skipped ahead and wrote most of this post in the middle of the night. I felt that I needed to write it for myself. Have you ever noticed that sometimes events in your life that you have numbed yourself to will suddenly hit you full force at 2 AM? I couldn't sleep thinking about the enormity of what has been accomplished. Warning: this post is actually probably about a different, bigger story than the one that has to do with LOST, but LOST is definitely part of it.

"You look worried. I'd be worried, too, I was you. But you've got to stay positive, kiddo. You know, there's always that off chance that they'll believe your story. I know I sure did."
~"The Pilot, Part 2," written by J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof

Okay, ready? "The Others" on the show aren't the only ones who are pretending...so are the characters who we have been following from the beginning. However, that particular revelation isn't going to be the focus of this blog entry. Instead, I am going to take a step back and look at the fans of the show.

Many vocal fans of the show are plants. Those of you involved in reading and theorizing about LOST outside the show already know this fact, even if you don't know you do. You watched Paul Scheer stand up and babble about his black velvet painting starring Damon, Carlton, and a polar bear last summer at ComicCon. (I wasn't there, but I saw the YouTube video). Some people recognized right away that he was planted in the audience, but I wasn't 100% sure at the time. Maybe you winced and were embarrassed for this guy. He was so desperate and out of touch with how uncomfortable he was making the producers. Lindelof and Cuse politely smiled and nodded--looking like they would rather be anywhere else. (I imagine that they were dreaming of making a getaway on a yacht.) Were you as relieved and delighted as I was when you realized that Paul was actually there to promote a LOST alternate reality game?

Do you really think that Emerson and Garcia have had a grudge match since season one over who would play a better Hurley? (Hey, maybe they have!) I'm also going on record that the adorable Hurley lookalike fan that Garcia laughed at is also a plant of some sort. (I know why Garcia laughed, by the way--do you?)

So...who else isn't who they say they are? The short answer is that a lot of people aren't who they say they are. We shall focus our attention on the various incarnations of fans for most of this blog entry.

My father owns a jewelry store. I think I can spot a fake.
"Left Behind," written by Damon Lindelof and Elizabeth Sarnoff

FOUR DIFFERENT KINDS OF ONLINE FANS WHO ARE PLAYING PRETEND

1 -- Viral marketing moles

There are marketing moles online who are interacting with us online to get us to watch television shows and sell us the paraphernalia. I've known about them forever. Let's face it, some of them are really bad at it or only pay lip service to their so-called personas as fans. Listen--if you only show up to leave polls on message boards or try to create buzz about movies, DVDs, or other merchandise--it's pretty obvious you're a fake. It's difficult for me to begrudge these people. I assume they're just doing their jobs. Everyone needs to feed themselves or their families, pay their rent, and pay off any debt that they have. Some of them may actually be genuine fans of the shows. (Aside: Hey, viral marketing--now there's an idea! Could that be the infection on LOST?! I guess being a marketing mole is kind of like being possessed...but I digress again.)

Some of these plants get really into it, though. They have fleshed out characters, back stories, and unique personalities. I knew that they existed, but it took me longer than it should have to realize just how pervasive they are. Now, this part is the weird part--their characters appear to be paralleling the shows that they are fans of--and they seem to be leaving deliberate clues about future events in the shows. The question is, why? Before you dismiss this idea out of hand, take a moment and think of your favorite online fans that you have interacted with about your favorite shows. Have you ever found yourself thinking "what a coincidence" about how something that they say is happening in their personal lives is also happening on the show that you are discussing? Think about it.

Now, why are marketing moles' "lives" paralleling the shows? Is it because the writers were trying to include the fans in the game, and the marketing moles figured it out? Were they amused enough to join in? On the other hand, since it does seem like it is part of their mission to leave clues...maybe some of these "marketing moles" were actually planted by someone at the top of this game in an attempt to see if any of us would eventually notice how odd it is that all of our television shows not only seem to be riffing off of each other, but they also seem to be "breaching"* into real life. (I haven't told you about the breaches yet in this blog. The aforementioned fan aohora likes to call them easter eggs, but I think that they are more than that. The breaches are probably too complicated to explain in this post, but I'll make a note to try to come back to them in a later entry.)

2 -- People Creating the Show

Have you ever noticed how many of the actors, writers, and crew love to tell us that they are "also a fan of the show"? I want you to pause for a minute and think about this comment, because my guess is that it is going to become very important next year on LOST. Most of them claim that they don't visit message boards, although some of them once did. However, even if they don't visit fan sites anymore, they still might have other people reading message boards online and selecting some of the more interesting ideas about the show to share. I know that if I were writing a television show, I would be curious about what people were saying about it.

3 -- Family and Friends Recruited to Help Out

If I was posting on a message board, and I knew someone on the show personally, I probably wouldn't mention that I knew them. I wouldn't want to be mobbed by questions. Instead, I would interact and theorize like everyone else, even though I might have the advantage of having more information about the show by nature of my tight relationship with Matthew Fox. Of course, maybe I might also be recruited to leave clues about the show, in which case--I probably would spend a lot of time leaving clues for free. I mean, it's such an amazing game, who wouldn't want to be a part of it?

4 -- Famous People and Media Personalities Recruited Into the Game

There are famous fans and people involved in the show who are using their real names, but they are also leaving clues for us. They are kind of on the borderline, because while they themselves are real, many of the stories that they are telling us about their own personal lives or interactions with other people are fabricated or exaggerated for our benefit. If they weren't part of the game from the beginning, I'm guessing that they were recruited over time.

"Fantastic, give it to the guy who's not even in the game! Hey, it's taco night, dude, let's blow this pop stand. What?"
~"Dave," written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz

Did I miss anybody? I think that only leaves the last kind of fan: the non-plant. I am one of those clueless fans who just wanted to watch and discuss my favorite television shows and blundered into this game of collaborative storytelling several years ago, quite unaware of what I was getting into. I am who I say I am. However, I am also part the game now...because as I have discovered, once you are plugged in, it doesn't matter if you know what is going on or not. If they notice you, you become part of the story.

"You trust these people? They are liars! Why would you believe a word that..."
"I trust them because you told me to, Kate. When you asked me to save Sawyer's life."
~The Man from Tallahassee," written by Drew Goddard & Jeff Pinkner

All of these people pretending online and in interviews doesn't keep me up at night as much as the people who have infiltrated my real life. It was easy to ignore at first--I just pretended it was all a series of coincidences. After awhile, I knew it couldn't be that anymore, but I just kept acting like I normally act. Most of the time I even forget. I believe most people are good at heart. I have to believe that the writers have a purpose for being this intrusive. It's not comfortable, but I'm trying to just be myself.

Some days I have doubts, though. I think of how bad the budget crisis is at our school, and I worry that the students who are planted might be taking time away from other students who we could be helping instead. I think about how bad people at my job feel when these people in masks tell them about terrible things that are going on in their lives. I have to react to these confessions as if they are true--in case they are--even when I realize that it might all just be more storytelling.

I wonder if I'm supposed to be quiet and let them come to me, or if I'm supposed to turn to one of them and say, "I know. I know that you're pretending. Just tell me what all this is about. When are you going to tell me that I'm being Punk'd?" I wonder if I'm supposed to write more blog entries and expose the people who are pretending, or if I should have faith, stay silent and protect them. I don't want to choose sides in this game, but if I am forced to do so, it would be nice to know exactly what is going on in order to make an informed decision.

So there you have it. I know it sounds crazy. I have only told a select few in real life about the connections, and I have so far only told my sweetheart about the people infiltrating my real life. He is the only one who (mostly) believes me, and the others think that I am on the verge of a mental breakdown. Some days I worry that I have had a mentral break. I'm the right age for it. Then I remember my visit to Bumbershoot's LOST panel, or my fellow fans online who I can tell really want to tell me but aren't allowed to do so, or the amused glint in the eye of one of my student workers--and I think, okay, no, it's real. It's all pretend, but it's not only in my mind.

Has anyone else noticed this happening to them? Have you noticed that you fell into your favorite television show, or that your favorite television show broke out into your real life? What do you think about it?


~~~

*The use of the word "breaching" in this context came originally from Jane Eire, one of my favorite LOST fans from the Fuselage, and one of the few people to ever agree with me about any of my LOST theories. Thanks, Jane. You are an amazing storyteller. For better or worse, when you told me that we needed to trust each other, I believed in that.

WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?

"Who are you? Who are you? Who are you people?"
~"Homecoming," written by Damon Lindelof

I have read and listened to a lot of LOST interviews and commentary by those involved in the making of LOST, and I have also discussed the show online with other fans. I think it is fair to say that, in general, what we all love about LOST--creators and fans alike--is the characters.

When I began watching the show first season, I was intrigued by all that fantastically weird stuff that was happening on the show. Inexplicably, no one comes to rescue them and Boone can't get out a cell phone signal. There's a crazy, strange sounding monster that at first we don't see at all. We have a radio tower that is broadcasting on a repeat loop a distress signal in French. Everyone we meet has survived a plane crash that Sayid points out no one should have survived at all. We see in flashbacks that Locke and Rose were both apparently miraculously healed...and everywhere we look, there is evidence that the people we are following are "not the only people on this island" ("...In Translation," Javier Grillo-Marxuarch and Leonard Dick). I was intrigued with the mysterious island from the pilot episode on, but it was when I watched "Walkabout" that I fell completely in love with the show. Locke, who should have been bound to a wheelchair, wiggled his toes. I knew from that episode on that anything was possible.

However, I don't watch LOST because the writers throw a lot of weird stuff at us. The success of The X Files had nothing to do with conspiracy theories, and Star Trek isn't about how the warp core works. It's cool, yes, but if a narrative is going to sink its teeth into you, you need to care about the characters. Several shows have a lot of weird stuff happening in them that I didn't continue to watch after the first few episodes. With LOST, I cared about the characters. I connected. I wanted to solve the mystery of the defiant expression on Yunjin Kim's face when she unbuttoned that top button more than I wanted to know what the monster was. I wanted to know if a tiger could change its stripes, if our characters with darker pasts could find redemption. I wanted to know what made the doctor get that tattoo. I wanted to know what Kate did. Watching the characters interact on my screen made me laugh, hold my breath, and even tear up. I speculated with my family and friends about who these people really were and what the writers intended for them. Did some of these characters know each other before the flight crashed? Did Sun or Jin actually understand English? With all that strange chemistry going on between them, were Shannon and Boone actually not siblings? Why did Locke seem so sure of everything?

Even in season one, our different characters had stories that paralleled each other, both on the island and in their flashbacks. In season one, the audience's lack of familiarity with the characters and LOST's outstanding ensemble cast were the writers' secret weapons. The actors sold us on all of the drastic character shifts and emotional somersaults. We believed.

As I continued to watch the show, especially upon rewatching episodes, I began to suspect that something strange was going on with identity. I couldn't quite place my finger on it, but there was ample evidence. There were those close ups on eyes. Sometimes characters would do things in perfect sync, as if they were puppets pulled on the same strings. Everyone kept asking each other "who are you?"--"who are they?"--and even, "who am I?" The same situations kept happening over and over, with different characters...

"Everyone was asleep. So, I had an idea. I'm out here looking for some psycho with Scott and Steve, right? And I'm realizing, who the hell are Scott and Steve?"
~"Raised by Another," written by Lynne E. Litt

Background characters Scott and Steve seem interchangeable to both our characters and our writers. On camera, Christian Bowman introduced himself as Steve and Dustin Watchman introduced himself as Scott. Yet after one of the two characters died--Scott, both the characters and the writers insist--it was Dustin Watchman who remained an extra on the show. The writers don't seem to care much one way or another who is playing Steve, as long as we know that it is Scott who is dead. Maybe.

Carlton Cuse: And we were struggling, we actually thought we knew who was Scott and who was Steve, but we really didn't, and in fact…then we got into a huge thing, we got the dailies back, and it was still hard to determine who was Scott and who was Steve.
Damon Lindelof: Then we gave each actor a rock, and then we said, "Whoever's left standing gets to be Scott!"
Carlton Cuse: That's right. So one of them died, but we don't know which one!
Damon Lindelof: We don't know which one. So…that's the true story.

Okay, but who cares about Scott and Steve, right? They're just an ongoing gag...or are they? Is it just me, or does the Scott vs. Steve discussion seem like it could be an important clue in the ongoing discussion about how character and identity works in the mythology of the show? Whether or not the corpse incident was intentional or just an accident that happened on set, the end result is the same. The writers repeatedly claim that LOST is about the characters, but it doesn't seem to bother them too much whether specific actors decide to leave the show or remain. In fact, it's almost like the characters are interchangeable to them.

"So, he's a doctor, right? Yeah, the ladies dig the doctors. Hell, give me a couple of band aids, a bottle of peroxide, I could run this island too."
"You're actually comparing yourself to Jack."
"The difference between us ain't that big, sweetheart. I guarantee you, if he had survived a few more weeks on this island you'd have figured that out."
~"The Moth," written by Jennifer Johnson & Paul Dini

Ever since I started reading and listening to interviews, podcasts, and commentaries about LOST I've heard the producers and actors emphasize that the important element of the story of LOST is the characters. I went searching for a few specific quotes of this sort, and Sam G. from The Fuselage helped me dig up this interview that Lorne Manly did of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof from way back in September 2005: link (Thanks, Sam!)

"The genre aspects of the show are cool, and we have fun doing it,'' Mr. Cuse said. ''But I am much more engaged by the people on the show, and I think that is fundamentally what we try to do."

Apparently, Damon Lindelof agreed with Cuse, for Manly reports that Lindelof apparently chanted the word "character" as a mantra. (As an aside, I would love to know how many times Lindelof chanted the word "character.")

''Everything,'' Mr. Lindelof concluded, ''has to be in service of the people. That is the secret ingredient of the show."

If I understand this interview correctly, they are saying that not only is characterization important, but that all mythology in the show is there to help us get to know the characters. In short, in LOST, the characters are the mythology.

Now check out this video excerpt from an episode of The Write Environment, in which Damon Lindelof discusses LOST and storytelling: Damon Lindelof on The Write Environment

In this clip, Damon Lindelof doesn't seem worried when he suggests that in the next two years that Matthew Fox might choose to leave the show--Matthew Fox, who last time I checked, most people consider to be the leading man! He also tosses out the suggestion that the writers might decide to kill Kate--again, last time I checked, a character most people would consider to be the leading lady in the show. Finally, he suggests that Terry O'Quinn might want to play his character Locke differently. Was this an early hint not that Terry O'Quinn would be playing Locke differently, but that O'Quinn would be playing a different character entirely? Is it, in fact, possible that Terry O'Quinn is not the only actor who is playing multiple characters?!

I believe that any comprehensive theory of LOST needs to consider the evidence that somehow there isn't a 1:1 ratio between actors and characters on LOST. If we accept this idea, both little inconsistencies and dramatic personality changes begin to make more sense. Why do people's eyes change color? Why do our characters occasionally have the voices of other characters? Why are the same phrases repeated over and over by different people? Didn't anyone else think it was odd when Matthew Fox said "Don't tell me what I can't do" when we all knew that was supposed to be Locke's line? Doesn't anyone else find it odd when other actors say "son of a bitch"--especially when we are so used to that line being uttered from the lips of Josh Holloway? How many characters have we seen slap each other? Drink too much? Swim out to sea in exactly the same manner? Change their minds or feelings at the drop of a hat? Who are these people?

As I watch LOST, I am moved by the characters. I love watching how the interactions play out, especially when we have scenes with small intimate groups of two or three. However, do I know definitively who the characters of the show are? In my heart, I feel like I know the character, but from an intellectual standpoint, I'm not so sure. I suspect that the mystery of character is the central LOST mystery, and for that reason the writers probably saved the real meaty questions of existentialism for the final season. Either that, or they never intended to completely delve into that mystery, which is one mystery that takes most of us a lifetime to figure out. Anyway, whatever they have in store for us in season six with the characters, I'm looking forward to it!