In our previous lecture we learned about the many forms of empathy and how one can come to understand the emotions of others around them. The movie Possessor and the episode I Second That Emotion from Futurama both display what happens when one is disconnected from all forms of empathy. This can be described as apathy and there are many examples throughout Possessor and I Second That Emotion.
Our main character in Possessor, Tasya, is being used as an assassin that can infiltrate and take over the minds of others in order to frame them for her murders. While she was in possession of the person’s body, Tasya viciously stabbed her target as though she absorbed the memories of the possessed and was fulfilling what that person always wanted. After the murder, Tasya attempted to commit suicide with the other body using a single gun shot instead of the knife used for the murder. Tasya’s crying while trying to kill the body shows that she was not completely emotionless by thinking about the host’s life. The Theory of Mind teaches us that we understand ones emotions by differentiating them from our own and realizing why and how they feel about whatever the case may be. When someone is constantly changing from person to person and all of their emotions and beliefs are scrambled, how would they be able to distinguish how to truly feel about anything or anyone?
In the episode of Futurama, Bender does Bender things and ends up flushing Leela’s pet Nibbler down the toilet. Leela realizes that he can not understand feelings in general let alone understand how the rest of them feel. After hearing this, the professor remembers that he can implant an empathy chip into Bender’s head that will force him to have emotions. These emotions become linked to Leela’s brain, making Bender feel whatever emotion Leela was experiencing. Watching this episode after watching the lecture made me realize that this made Bender an empath, completely connecting him to Leela’s emotions which can also be seen as a form of embodied cognition. He may not have felt the exact same way about whatever Leela was sad about but Bender still cried with her because he felt her pain. 
3 thoughts on “Analysis Blog Post #2”
Hi Jeremy,
I love the question that you ask at the end of your first paragraph about Possessor. As a result of her frequent possession of other people’s bodies, her experience of their emotions, what happens to Vos’s sense of self and experience of her own emotions. This leads to the concept of what we call “The Autobiographical Self,” which we’ll talk about in a few modules when we focus on memory. As you note, the merging of Vos’s self with her victims complicates Theory of Mind. At the start of the film, she forms an empathetic connection with the other, but it is difficult to tell which emotions are hers and which belong to the person whose body she is (literally) “living through.”
In your discussion of Futurama, it is worth noting that Bender does feel emotions: He feels pride in his cake, and rage at and jealousy of Nibbler. But, what he lacks, is the ability to empathize with others. As you note, the chip allows him to experience empathy, but that raises important questions about what embodied cognition looks like for someone who doesn’t have a (human) body. In addition, although Bender’s responses to feeling Leela’s emotions were embodied, he was not sensing into her body in the way that most of us do to understand the emotions of others.
Jessica Hautsch
I really enjoyed your analysis of Possessor, specifically the last point you raised about the switching from body to body making their own emotions and feelings indistinguishable. I totally agree with what you said about Bender becoming an empath when he had that chip put on. I think this episode is a great example of what empathy and apathy look like in really black and white terms.
Meghan Krulder
Hi Jeremy,
Hi Jeremy,
Great Job! 🙂 I love your analysis of the two films. I also agree that the combination of Vos and Colin complicates the theory of mind. Meanwhile, I would like to ask, do you think Vos lost her empathy at the end? When she saw her husband and son dead, she didn’t mention guilt in the final session of the psych test. At the movie’s end, Vos’s consciousness of Colin is out of control, and she lets the other party see her consciousness, so Colin finds her family and kidnaps her. I think it’s part of empathy; we can’t tell who is who through the body. Besides, the manifestation of embodied cognition in this episode of Futurama is that the Bender you mentioned becomes the empath, and his and Leela’s emotions are fully connected through the empathy chip effect. But this emotional resonance is forced, not active. And once the chip is removed, the empathy is lost. On the other hand, your analysis between Bender and Leela made me wonder if Bender understands what empathy means to him? Just simply feeling Leela’s emotions?
yichen8