In “Possessor” and Futurama‘s, “I Second That Emotion“, the seeming antagonists of both the pieces show apathy and even exhibit behaviors similar to sociopaths. Tasya Vos and Bender have a hard time socializing with others and being aware of the human experience. They seem to go about the world simply observing and reacting, without feeling any emotions.
With Vos’s line of profession, we see that she often has to become her victims in order to occupy their mind and body, living as them until she completes her mission. With countless times spent away from her personal life imitating actions of strangers, soon it shows the psychological effects weighing on her. Slowly she becomes detached from her identity reliving herself in her last victim until bits of her reality pulls her back out. Through our lecture we learned the term “theory of mind“, which is the ability to perceive and interpret others thoughts and actions separate from our own. Connecting it to the film, I personally see Vos having a hard time with this, possibly due to her immersiveness and inability to separate her own emotions from her victims. With the first victim, her tactic for murder is quite personal, stabbing instead of using the gun provided for her. With countless Criminal Minds episodes I’ve watched, stabbing someone, especially as many times as she did, shows a personal vendetta. Possibly, she might have inhibited her victim’s emotions and was not able to differentiate it from her own or it is a means to signify something greater in herself that she wants to kill. Nonetheless, going back into her own body, she has a hard time adjusting back to her identity and seems lifeless, practicing over and over again how to say hello to her son and husband. This shows great apathy and her inability to connect with human emotions, but due to her profession she is able to act as if she feels the way she should feel.
There are many moments of embodied cognition throughout the film as well. Due to Vos’s inability to feel her emotions, she uses embodied cognition with the body language of people around her to adjust accordingly and react normally. She acts as a parasite in her own body as it seems easier for her than taking time to get back in her own identity. As she inhabits Colin, she does this with the people around him as well. The turnover of the film shows Colin trying to take control of his body again. Now that Vos and his own identity are living together in his body, they seem to fight over dominance. Both have access to each other’s memories making it difficult to differentiate reality and illusion. With two minds in one body, they fight for control. However, Colin’s consciousness is full of empathy and normal human emotions, while Vos is without, so ultimately it seems to be a fight of empathy vs. apathy. In the end, Colin loses the fight with Vos in complete control of the body as she kills her son. Does this mean that apathy is stronger than empathy? Does having emotions signify a weakness in humans?
In turn, we see that Bender has no human emotions because he is a robot. However, we see this gets out of hand when he flushes Nibbler down the toilet. To reflect on his actions, the professor inserts an empathy chip into him that radiates on Leela’s frequency, allowing him to feel everything that she feels. Bender’s emotions after insertion shows empathy; he literally feels every single emotion that Leela does. He cries when she cries, gets angry with her, and even misses Nibbler. It is a great example of embedded cognition and theory of mind as well because of the connection to her. He is able to feel what she feels, but is able state that this is not his own emotions. In the end, it shows he was able to imitate his own feelings in response to Leela’s, but is still unable to actually feel emotions. Leela states she learned more from Bender than he did her, showing her preference to apathy. Does this make apathy better than empathy? Does empathy just get in the way of the human experience?
7 thoughts on “Learned Emotions”
Hi April,
I agree that Vos and Bender both have a hard time socializing with those in their environment. When Vos went home after killing the lawyer, she seemed highly disconnected from her family and their friends when she and her husband played host. I do not believe Vos wanted them to go home because she wanted intimacy with her husband (she did not look interested during the act); moreover, she just wanted them gone because she was not in the mood to be social. Bender, on the other hand, is the antagonist in every episode he is mean to everyone, but, that is because he is a robot and can not feel empathy or display affection, at least positive affection, it seems. Bender displayed anger, jealousy, and mean-spirited behavior (when he flushed Nibbler) makes one think is empathy something people have to learn as opposed to the more negative emotions?
cstiglianese
Hi Christina,
Excellent point about the sex scene between Vos and her husband. As you note, we already see her being pretty disconnected from him. We might think about how that connects to how the film ends.
Jessica Hautsch
I think all emotions are learned, but I feel that it is easier to resonate with the negative emotions more than the positive ones becuase it is simply easier to give in to the negativies. I think it’s something with human nature that is prone to succumb to things we shouldn’t and I think that’s the ultimate weakness in humans that
amyint
Hi April,
Yes! We will be learning in Module #5 about how emotions are learned. There is some fascinating research about how we actually are not subjected to emotion, but actively work to construct them.
Jessica Hautsch
Hi April,
I love the point that you make in your analysis of Possessor that Vos begins having difficulty with Theory of Mind, becoming increasingly unable to distinguish her thoughts and feelings from those she possesses. Your analysis of the film’s opening scene is great! And the question that you raise about who or what is responsible for the brutality of that first murder is important. It also connects to later in the film, when we see the struggle between her and Colin and the different ways that their identities are merged. This connects to some of your observations about how the film represents embodied cognition and how we know the bodies of others through our bodies. How are bodies visually used throughout the film to represent the struggle between their consciousness? And I love the questions that you ask about the ending of the film and its message about empathy.
In your discussion of Bender, I think it is worth noting that he is able to feel emotions—after all, he is largely motivated by jealousy of and anger Nibbler. He just doesn’t seem to be able to feel empathy for others—something that doesn’t change throughout the episode. Your observation that the chip is a form of embedded condition is really interesting, can you say a bit more about that?
Jessica Hautsch
To elaborate more on how Bender’s chip can be viewed as embedded cognition, the way the chip was able to resonate Bender’s emotions to those of others is important. It picked up those around its environment and their emotions to mimic it in him. Going on, the struggle between consciousness are shown through how bodies are used in Possessor by the conflict in emotions between Vos and her host. Particularly at the end of her missions when she has to kill herself aka her host. I believe that parts of the struggle are between her not wanting to kill herself, but maybe it could show the host body recognizing danger to itself and struggling to not die through itself.
amyint
Hey April!
I really loved how you highlighted the concept of apathy vs empathy in your analysis. I agree the that in the film Possessor there is a disconnect between Vos and her emotions. I mean we really see her struggle throughout the film. Whereas Colin was the opposite of Vos and felt all his emotions. I feel like this apathy vs empathy fight also existed in Vos herself. Eventually apathy won as we see in the final part of the film when she kills her family. feel like the film did essentially suggest that emotions a weakness in humans which is why it was a necessity for Vos to forsake her emotions.
Alesha Gutierrez