In the last episode of “V”, Anna is trying to root out V’s sympathetic to humans/Fifth Column members through the usage of “disturbing” video footage, footage of violence, war, and cruelty of various forms, crying children/babies and such, any Lizards that show near Human level emotional response Anna considers to be a threat
Personally, even though I’m Human, I feel I could easily handle Anna’s little psychological “test”, I’m antisocial and generally avoid interaction with other people, I just want to be left alone, if I want to interact with someone, I will choose to do so
Some of the footage Anna uses are clips of war, military battles, a couple vids of thermonuclear explosions, starving African children (distended bellies and the like) crying babies, and other scenes of “misery” designed to provoke sympathetic, negative emotions and sadness
I was completely unmoved by any of those images, in fact, I was a tad bored, except for the scenes of the mushroom clouds, those were pretty I had no emotional response, no resonance with any of those images, and more to the point, I actually find babies/kids annoying, so the images of crying brats actually irritated me
I think I’d be one of the rare Humans capable of passing Anna’s little “emotional response” test, what about you?
I didn’t see the footage, but I bet you’re not that rare. I feel the same way about crying kids, and war footage is usually generic enough not to provoke much of a reaction.
If I were to see truly graphic (real, not staged) scenes of, say, torture or dismemberment or people really suffering in some horrid way, it would probably disturb me, but if I had to I think I could easily stifle any overt reactions.
How much of it did they show onscreen? I wouldn’t expect something truly disturbing to be put on prime time broadcast television.
Even if they showed the whole thing, the Literary Agent Hypothesis says it could have just been made as bad as TV could handle, but that the “real” video was a lot worse.
On the other hand, if they instead used one of those awful commercials with the poor abused animals looking sadly at the camera, they’d out me in seconds.
That reminds me of a PSA about the internet. A teenage girl is mortified because although she diligently and endlessly grabs copies of a photo of her from her fellow students and off the school bulletin board, a seeming infinity remain. It was a warning how once an image finds its way to the net, you can never control it again.
Trouble is, the image itself is just her, fully clothed, in a vaguely cute-sexy pose that would, at most, slightly bump the tame-o-meter at the offices of Teen Vogue. I realize they can’t show anything even vaguely pornographic, but this image was at worst slightly embarrassing, completely undermining the power of the ad.
I figured it as being a generic stand-in for “disturbing footage” which would be too much to display in this show. But showing the footage as they did made it seem a lot tamer than it should have. Not sure if it would have been better to have it offscreen with just shots of those watching it (and maybe some horrible sound effects coming from it)…
Depends on what they were measuring for responses.
Could I watch all kinds of horrible things without an outward expression of emotion? I’m pretty sure I could. Could I watch those same things without triggering “morality” centers in my brain that indicate whether I think something is right/wrong/indifferent? Probably not.
But then I’m thinking if she’s so ruthless why doesn’t she just install a few cameras around the ship to capture all the V’s openly discussing their Fifth Column-ness. They have wonderfull cameras in the jackets they wear when interacting with humans but not a single camera looking at themselves?
This is what I was thinking when I read these posts. They aren’t watching the person to see if they “look upset”… they’ve got a complicated computer thing taking readings directly from the brain/body.
Additionally, I think people are misinterpreting “emotional” to mean “sad/distressed”…I think that probably being *irritated *by the crying babies would still qualify as an *emotional *reaction.
I know I’d be dead. All it takes for me is a cat food commercial and I’m over the edge and teary-eyed (not in a bad way, but still in a very emotional way.)
I had no emotional response, no resonance with any of those images, and more to the point, I actually find babies/kids annoying, so the images of crying brats actually irritated me