RE: True Detective And The Psychosphere Of Aluminum And Ash
That aluminum and ash point is quite a good catch!
When I saw the toys here again, I remembered the daughter would go on to have threesomes. Did she have a thing for group sex?! It's quite interesting in the sense that the men who killed Marie Fontenot were having their own kind of group sex, let's say. It's almost as if they were saying "this is what you women are like anyway, this is your true nature". And there's the daughter, fantasizing about the same thing (and acting on it years later), but consensually. I always say, after Noam Chomsky, that "consent is manufactured": the smart rapist will brainwash the woman to want it (Scientology, anyone?). Essentially, tho, the act is the same.
About the show, I liked it, but I wasn't blown away by it. I actually prefer Breaking Bad! I think there's more nuanced messages there. And the characters in Breaking Bad seem more realistic to me - for one thing, they change! The characters in True Detective seemed very 2D to me, caricatures, excuses to unload a bunch of philosophy on the viewer, which isn't original anyhow. I think Story comes first, and in this show I saw the classic rookie mistake of story coming second, after the Message. Especially in the first few episodes, the murder and victims were the farthest thing from my mind. As the show progressed, they started giving the people what they wanted: drama with the wife, cheating, sex - and generally just going into the lives of the characters. That's what people want to see: melodrama, i.e. character studies. That's the driver of all story. The thing is, how to do that while keeping the message intact, and visible. The Matrix is still the only really successful attempt in my mind to bring philosophy to the screen. I'm hoping someone will be able to do it better than True Detective.
Btw, your material is probably a good fit for @SteemDeepThink. I'm one of the founders. You can check out the details here: https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemdeepthink/welcome-to-steemdeepthink-grand-opening and drop by on our discord channel if you want.
In my mind, Rust's philosophy is just a red herring (although the writer might not agree with me), a coping mechanism of a grief-stricken, lost man. Rust's line about time being a flat circle was a quote from the guy Marty shot in the head. What happens underneath the talk is what gets me, and in that regard TD is brilliant, and consistent to the end. On them being 2D, I really can't agree. I thought their characterizations and the actors' portrayals were spot on.
I thought this was done really well, easing into Marty's family life and its breakdown, as a way of showing what his exposure to the psychosphere was doing to his life.
I'll definitely check out @SteemDeepThink, but I still haven't created a Discord account - have to do that ASAP!
I appreciate your comment very much! :)