Why I Still Watch Lost

At the same time, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.  There is still a shortage of other characters of color in the show, and while I applaud the relatively large number of Asian actors, I’d be great if they were joined by actors from other communities of color.  The newer actors introduced in recent years, such as Michelle Rodriguez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Said Taghmaoui, and the ill-fated Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro, have for some reason or other have had bad “luck”, shall we say, with the show and its fans.

And aspects of the Asian characters as well as other characters of color sometime toe the line towards stereotype.  Season 3’s episode Stranger in A Strange Land, guest starring Bai Ling, manages to portray every ugly stereotype of a Southeast Asian country as seen through a white male tourist – and not in a way that was remotely critical or even interesting.

Some aspects of the character Sayid remain troubling.  “Sayid’s career as a torturer reinforces the idea that violence comes naturally to him, and thus much of his character is to redeem himself as a ‘good Arab’ – one that works for the good  of all people,” observes University of Minnesota grad student and Lost fan Charlotte Karem Albrecht.  “Clearly, the show tries to complicate this stereotype, but because Sayid’s violent past still keeps popping up in ways that signal he has to control violent impulses, it seems to be linked to the notion of an inherently violent culture or an inherently violent essence, which because he is Muslim and Arab are presented as one in the same.”

And it doesn’t escape me that bad-boy white heartthrob to middle America, Sawyer, reserves his racial quips for the Asians (sure, he makes fun of everybody, but he doesn’t make fun of everybody racially).

But my loyalty and hope for Lost, as well as greater change, can be compared to one of my favorite scenes in the entire series, the last episode of season 1.  By that episode, Losties had seen 24 hour-long episodes of back-story, drama, and lots and lots of characters with daddy issues.  There was a smoke monster that liked to munch on tourists, a mysterious band of enemies known enigmatically as the others, the deaths of several castaways, and a long and well-earned reunifying kiss (yay!).  But then, seemingly out of nowhere, there is a simple montage scene set to music, of all the characters getting onto the plane before it takes off and flies them their fate.  There’s Charlie trying to stuff his guitar into a closet, there’s Hurley with a Spanish-language comic book, there’s Sayid trying to stay cool as a white dude looks at him wordlessly and assumes he’s a terrorist.  This simple, effective scene seems to urge us to pause and examine a moment, getting onto a plane, that many of us take for granted, that could change our lives forever.  It’s a bittersweet moment illuminating that many of our lives are connected in ways we don’t even understand, that our lives can be connected in ways both beautiful and tragic.  So even if a blog about a show like Lost at this moment seems trivial, superficial, and unnecessary, it’s my hope that it has its own place in this mundane moment and may one day lead to something quite fantastic.

Or at least, a bunker full of Dharma ranch dip and some Apollo bars.

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