In this week’s module, we watch one film, “Possessor,” and an episode of Futurama, “I Second That Emotion, and connect them to the lesson about empathy and how one processes empathy as it correlates not only to themselves but how they observe, interact and process the empathy of others.
In the movie Possessor, we are introduced to the main character Tasya Vos, who is not her physical self, but she has possessed the body of another woman. In this first scene, the young African American woman Vos has inhabited turns a dial linked to a device in her head. The device allows Vos to feel emotions daily to keep her consciousness grounded. The young woman then goes from laughing to crying and then almost instantly emotionless on her face. I do not know what causes the range of emotions or why Vos displays them in that order, but it caused me to feel cognitive empathy. The 13th anniversary of my grandfather’s passing last month, a few days after his birthday, is still fresh in my mind. I remember smiling and laughing at stories my dad told me mixed with my memories of fishing and bowling with my grandfather and then the pang of sadness that brought on tears because my children will never know the joys of being around their great-grandfather and then holding back the pain because I know my gramps would not want me to be sad.
This movie is not something I would watch myself because I am not a psychological thriller fan (well depends on the movie), and I do not like horror. Still, I found it exciting and realized a few types of empathies learned in this module in the movie. The movie “Possessor” displays a type of embodied cognition because specific individuals’ consciousness is uploaded into the body of an unwilling host. Therefore the possessor is linked or sensing the host body and living through it. Tasya Vos is very disconnected from her emotions which I would assume is why she was chosen to be an assassin. However, she could not do it when it was time to kill herself or, more accurately, the host body. Being directly linked to the host’s emotions, the reluctance to take the host’s life was a display of mirror neurons because before the police take out the assassin, the host cries out, and Vos second guesses her decision; one could assume that was the host’s consciousness unwilling to “take her own life.”
The episode from Futurama, “I Second That Emotion,” had me singing Smokey Robinson and The Miracles’ song, I Second That Emotion, around my house! Lol.
This episode is centered around Bender, his disdain, and his jealousy of Nibbler because everyone treats Nibbler with the type of love and respect Bender wants. Bender lacks basic empathy, so he causes Nibbler to go to the hospital, and the crew discovers he is 5, so they give him a birthday party. Bender’s need for attention causes him to flush Nibbler down the toilet, Leela becomes extremely emotional, and those around her directly perceive how she is feeling, except Bender. The professor then links Bender to Leela’s emotions which causes Bender to be influx with sad emotions.
In this episode, Bender’s lack of basic empathy creates a hostile environment between him and Leela. The empathy chip created by the professor is an example of an ecological perspective on perception in Bender, who is now connected to Leela’s consciousness; he can sense the environment indirectly through her and how she relates to situations that may not affect him similarly. This link is also embedded cognition because he is connected to a host consciousness and can cognitively think as another being. However, he is not exactly in her body but sharing her consciousness.
These episodes also remind me of the link between Jake Sully and his brothers Avatar in the James Cameron movie Avatar. Jake and the other humans linked to their Na Vi avatar experience the cultural and religious love and respect the Na Vi have not only for each other and their land but also empathize with them when their existence and the home tree are threatened by earth’s capitalism and military bullies. The link between the host and the possessor creates a different kind of embodied cognition because the perception of another person and how they live through things are more closely related than individual sensing from the outside. After all, the cognitions are linked.
5 thoughts on “What I feel you feel, we all feel together.”
hey,
I know that your not in my group but after reading your blog post, I had to comment. Avatar, I believe is a great example of this weeks lesson. I think it every way, showing empathy towards something he never thought he would care about. Showing perception, and even primordiality. It could help that it is definitely one of my favorite movies. Soo, I might be a bit bias but great job, making that observation.
Glynis
gcoito
Hi Glynis,
This is a great point about Avatar. The film has some problems–especially given its white savior trope narrative. But it is interesting to think about the role of embodiment when it comes to Jake Sully’s developing empathy (and the relationship of mind and body in the film).
Jessica Hautsch
Hi Christina,
I really love how you are connecting Vos’s possession to her victim’s bodies to what we learned about embodied cognition and empathy. I really like your discussion about how Vos “senses in” and literally lives through the bodies of others. Your analysis that this connects her to the emotions of her victims is great, and I really like that you relate it to the empathy that she struggles with throughout the film. It’s interesting, because her ability to upload her consciousness into other people suggests a pretty disembodied view of the mind, but the film still explores the role of the body in how we think and feel.
One this to note about Bender’s experience of empathy in “I Second That Emotion” is also somewhat disembodied. Embodied cognition argues that we experience empathy by seeing and sensing into other people’s bodies, which is what enables us to experience and understand the others’ emotions and intentions. In the case of Bender, though, he doesn’t need to be in Leela’s presence in order to feel her emotions because they are transmitted to him through the chip. What does this suggest about what emotions are and how we feel them? It’s something that we will return to in two modules when we talk about emotions.
Jessica Hautsch
I thought that scene in the beginning with the woman’s emotions was peculiar as well. I agree it causes the audience to feel empathetic towards her. The control of the mind in Posessor was one of the themes that creeped me out. Should humans have this much control over one another? Even though the same concept is seen in Futurama, I suppose it didn’t matter as much because Bender is a robot. However, if you really think about it, he probably went through a lot experiencing Leela’s emotions. I love the connection The Avatar because it is a great example of embodied cognition and having a full experience as a Na’vi. The feeling of pain, pleasure, and all the emotions are felt. So that makes me wonder if that is why Vos could never kill her host off because that would mean she would feel the pain of killing herself.
amyint
Hey Christina,
First of all, I thought the connection you to made to Avatar was really cool and interesting. It is interesting because in Avatar he is able to feel emotions for things he otherwise would overlook. This is completely different from Vos in the film Possessor because here we see a complete disconnect from the hosts emotions until the host starts trying to take control. However, Vos was never able to kill herself when in a host which draws the question if the hosts feelings were overpowering her own? Or was it her empathy the still somewhat existed at the time?
Alesha Gutierrez