The Worlds of Farscape (32 page)

It is Crichton's very “deficiency,” in fact, that enables him to defeat Traltixx. In comparison with the others on Moya, he has impaired sight and hearing, yet his visual “impairment” allows him to resist the overwhelming light. He is also considered mentally impaired by the others, but again, this cognitive “inferiority” actually allows him to function well in the crisis, while the others suffer acutely from the disruption of their more “advanced” cognitive skills. Crichton is the dubious hero of the day, and the crew ultimately acknowledges his courage and his shortcomings. He is not what Colin Barnes would call a “super crip,” for his powers are no more amazing than our own. Put another way, we, the audience, recognize Crichton for what he is: a mere human being. It is the environment that he is required to inhabit that defines his superiority or inferiority or, as seen in various
Farscape
episodes, both. Here again we find ourselves struggling to remain in Hall's preferred reading position, as humans who cannot imagine Crichton considered as anything but “normal,” in exemplary health and embodiment. Yet in “Crackers Don't Matter,” as in many episodes, Crichton is seen by the on-screen society as inferior or deficient and is consequently portrayed that way. Thus we are forced to assume what Hall terms a
negotiated
viewing position: we know Crichton to be embodied in an acceptable manner in our own human society, but must accept that in the environment of
Farscape
, he is impaired, as we, by extension, would be impaired in that society. In short, we would be disabled.

“Crackers Don't Matter” invites the audience to contemplate the subtext or what rhetorician Barry Brummet describes as the “hidden rhetorics” or “social issues in disguise” of the story (1). Writing about the episode, novelist Jim Butcher calls us to look below the surface of the narrative:

The implied questions the story asked were surprisingly serious: What consists of value in a human being? Why are some traits more valued than others? What happens when the assumptions of value are suddenly trumped by a radically altered environment? ... [The episode] stated that even those whom our society deems as valueless may have a more significant role to play in our future, and that one should not be too swift to judge what an individual may be able to contribute to the changing environment of our existence. It stated that the variety provided by those outside the mainstream of society may at some point prove useful, even necessary, and that a policy of tolerance is the wisest course [71–72].

Butcher's invitation to consider such connotations may be a tall order; many will view the episode, and the series, as little more than a light-hearted send-up of science fiction tropes and homologies. That, however, is part of the magic and cunningness of science fiction. It is not necessary for a consensus to exist regarding possible readings of a cinematic text in order for individuals or populations to interpret a text in a particular way, whether in reference to sexuality, class, gender, race, ability, or other identities. In fact, it does not necessarily even matter what “message” or meaning the producer or writer intended. After all, television and cinematic texts are produced by increasingly large teams of writers, editors, producers, technicians, and actors. “Indeed,” notes Brummet, “some hidden rhetorics remain hidden even from those who created them” (216). Fantastical worlds such as that of
Farscape
provide what John Fiske describes as “gaps” or “fissures”: moments in the text where, whether intentionally or not on the part of the text producers, characters provide discourse or behavior that invites alternative or resistive readings (391–408). One such reading that I have proposed in this essay is that of the disabled body: the body that is atypical in the environment in which the individual lives and moves.
Farscape
is a feast of atypicality, and it offers an opportunity for the viewer to take an unflinching look at the very concept of normality.

Cinema studies web writer David Church argues that while all cinemas may be seen as imaginary, “fantastic” films have a potential for “positive critical readings and empowering depictions of society ... The fantastic film could be self-reflexively indicative of the potential for a new critical lens” (n.p.). Church includes science fiction as coming under the umbrella of the “fantastic” which he describes as films, which “deliberately and substantially violate verisimilitude and recreate unrealistic situations, worlds, characters, or effects that are typically relegated to the domain of the imagination” (n.p.). It is precisely this violation of verisimilitude that entices the spectator to consider “normalities” outside of his or her life-world experience; the fantasy film provokes these comfortable hegemonies and invites consideration of the unthinkable: that we are the Other, and the Other is us. Cinema studies scholar Steven Neale describes such films as challenging “the boundaries of the human and the issues of difference” (103) and in this aspect
Farscape
certainly does not disappoint.

The refreshing thing about
Farscape
is that it disdains and discards the entire notion of “political correctness.” It is not a matter of being correct; it is a matter of learning to live together in a limited space and with limited resources. It is a matter of earning one another's respect, of never assuming that difference means a threat, and acknowledging that blue butts are just as good as any butts. There is bias in
Farscape
, to be sure, but it is bias that is presented transparently and across the board—and with humor. Humor, properly used, is one of the highest forms of courage.
Farscape
invites us to consider all forms of physical and cognitive embodiment without reverence and thus with the greatest of reverence: We are equals in our peculiarities. We must all travel on the same ship.

1.
The transcriber/s of Farscape screenplays at the now-defunct website Pure Pilot editorialize Noranti as a “weirdo,” “hag,” and a cow who “chews her cud,” and suggest that viewers “savor the moment” where the old woman is hit by D'Argo as getting what “she deserves.” All of this without any hint of maleficence on the part of the newly introduced Noranti—but apparently simply due to her age and appearance. (The transcripts from Pure Pilot are now archived at http://transcripts.terrafirmascapers.com.)

2.
In “What Was Lost,” Noranti attempts to kill Crichton, justifying her actions by explaining that it is better that he die than that millions die if the seductive Grayza convinces him to give her the powerful Darnaz probes, which Grayza would use as weapons.

3.
An exception to this trope is the “regular guy” one-eyed character of Mike Wazowski in the Disney movie
Monsters, Inc.,
an original screenplay which I argue merits attention specifically because such non-traditional characterizations invite an inclusive attitude toward atypical bodies (see Scherman).

4.
The symbolism and metaphoric value of the eye and of vision go back for centuries and cross the globe, including stories and folklore from the Mediterranean, Europe, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East (see Daw as well as Juan).

5.
The cruel Peacekeeper Captain Selto Durka is another character whose character is in part signified by his atypical vision—in his case, the iconic pirate-like patch over his right eye.

6.
Different folkloric traditions assign power to specific eyes, with the right eye frequently portrayed as the eye that is sacrificed for wisdom, such as in the Norse tale where the god Odin traded his eye for a drink from the well of knowledge, or in the Celtic or Cornish tales where a human is able to see the fairies with her right eye, and is consequently blinded in that eye by an angered fairy. According to the website tvtropes.org, “The eye possessing the power is almost always the character's left eye ... the sinister eye as ‘sinister' was once a word for ‘left.'” The characters of
Dark Crystal
's Aughra,
We're Back!
's Professor Screweyes, and “Mad-Eye Moody” from the Harry Potter series illustrate this concept. In the Hindu, Taoist and Shinto religions, the right eye is seen to correspond to the sun or the future, with the left eye corresponding to the moon or the past (O'Connell and Airy 155). But consider Durka.

7.
Whereas blind people must use their capacity of hearing to its fullest, there is no magical transformation in the physiology of the ear. One simply learns to “listen better.”

8.
Hall proposes that there are three positions that an audience can assume when reading a text, including a television show or a film: they may agree with the dominant/preferred or hegemonic societal view represented, a negotiated version, or an oppositional reading (138). The dominant view of our society is that physiological difference is undesirable. The spectator of this episode of
Farscape
, then, may be seen as participating in the preferred “reading” of his or her own society by concurring with the dominant view expressed by the inhabitants of Moya—that blindness is undesirable and abnormal, and that those who are blind are envious of the sighted.

9.
Crenshaw is writing here for an American audience, although I would argue that her observations are not limited to any certain people or country.

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