Westworld and the Struggle Towards Self-Conscious Criticism

“You know why this beats the real world?” asks the Man in Black. “The real world is just chaos. It’s an accident. But in here, every detail adds up to something.” – The Man in Black

          

          Watching HBO’s newest show Westworld feels like watching two shows in one. And I don’t just mean this because of the anachronistic juxtaposition between the faux Wild West landscape and the science fiction laboratory facilities. Not exactly. Rather, the show is divided between and against as both an object and a subject of its own narrative. Like the robots it depicts agonizing their way into sentience, Westworld is itself struggling from an entertaining spectacle towards a self-conscious criticism of its own exploitative techniques. It is appropriate then that the title refers both to the HBO show itself as well as the park it depicts (henceforth I will be using Westworld for the show and Westworld for the park). The source material of the show is derived from late novelist and filmmaker Michael Crichton’s movie of the same name. His film depicted a futuristic Wild West theme park populated by robots revolting against the humans they were designed to entertain. But the transition from film to television has entailed redirecting audience sympathies towards the robots themselves, rather than the humans they were designed to serve. The new incarnation of the story also has a decidedly more post-modern approach to the narrative as the aforementioned meta-commentary shows.

          Westworld presents itself as a science-fiction mystery about robots struggling towards self-consciousness against the oppression of futuristic nostalgia. But the subtext revealed to be underneath this exterior narrative is a self-reflective focus upon the anxieties and conflicts of world-building and audience immersion in fiction. Westworld is perfectly designed for our contemporary era of television pop-culture revolving around critical theory-inspired analyses and fan-theorization debates. There is plenty room for such fan speculation regarding the chronology of events, motivations of characters and whether characters are human or machine. It is an adult science fiction show about the idea of adult science fiction shows and the drama behind making them both profound and appealing. The show incorporates post-modern concerns of simulation, spectatorship, pastiche, and performance as existence. Like the best of science fiction, the show occupies an existential position between the fixations of our present reality and the extrapolated possibilities of our future. This duality is exacerbated by the indeterminate amount of time that distinguishes the future of Westworld from our present.

          The world-building of Westworld is equally intricate and impressive, with the mechanics of the park and the robots which populate it being subtly laid out in portions appropriate to each episode. Rest assured, info-dump science fiction this is not. Each episode gives enough information to reassure audiences that there is a logic behind the chaos, but not too much rationale is divulged at once which would extinguish any appeal of its mystery. The show effectively balances between the world-building of an authentic Wild West simulacrum and the park’s science fiction base of operations. True to genre form, the Wild West park provides the action-oriented sensationalism, both for its attending guests and the television audiences watching, while the science fiction setting is a space for more thoughtful commentary and self-reflection. The science fiction setting isn’t just an example of world-building, but is a demonstration of it as well: revealing how narrative and aesthetic designs come together to create an immersive entertainment experience. The world-building of Westworld is the world-building of Westworld as the creators of the park reflect the creators behind the show.

          Much like the minds behind the show of Westworld, the employees of the Westworld park have investors to answer to and an audience to entertain in order to for it to be sustainable. As Emily Nussbaum wrote in his essay on the Meta-Politics of Westworld in the New Yorker recently: “Westworld” is about what it means to take those generic plots and mold them into something modern: a prestige product that satisfies the taboo desires of a niche consumer base. Like HBO showrunners, Westworld’s designers “pitch” plot arcs. They “massage” story lines. They plant backstories to deepen characterizations. When glitches appear, they panic over the need to halt production, much as “Westworld” itself did, when it shut down during shooting for a rewrite.” The financial cost and creative pressure upon the respective teams behind Westworld and Westworld must be immense given the degree of realism devoted to the park’s robotic simulacra and the cinematography and acting of the show. The anxieties of the latter team enter into the narrative and dialogue of the former; audiences are given intimate exposure to the drama of world-building experienced by writers and directors working behind the scenes in the entertainment industry. Such artists must balance not only between the realism of their vision with the desires of their audience, but also with the demands of those capitalizing off of their art. 

          Westworld depicts the drama of  escapism, between providing an escape from reality and a convincing alterative to reality. As one of the Westworld “storyline” writers poses the dilemma: "Ford and Bernard keep making those things more lifelike. But does anyone truly want that? Do you want to think that your husband is really fucking that beautiful girl or that you really just shot someone? This place works because the guests know the hosts aren't real." This is one of those rare moments in fiction where the words of a character speak not only within the context of the material but reflect the material as a whole as well as their revealing the authorial concerns behind it. It isn’t difficult to imagine similar conversations occurring between the creators of Westworld itself as they discuss what audiences want out of their show and how realistic and revealing the sex and violence needs to be. Is Westworld (and by extension Westworld) a careless escape from reality or a brutal confrontation with it? Posing the question from within the narrative itself not only provokes the audiences into considering the question for themselves, but it also offers them the reassurance that the show is also aware of and concerned with this issue.

          Unlike the park after which the show derives its name, Westworld isn’t designed only to offer escapism to its audience, but presents itself a self-aware interrogation of such indulgence. The inclusion of the science fiction setting acting behind the Western one effectively breaks the wall four audiences, but in a very subtle way. The audience is not explicitly addressed by any character in the show. Rather the characters who make the park function act as surrogates for the audience by being the writers and spectators to the events of Westworld. It is a show within a show, where the more one is immersed in the material, the more one is aware of it as a constructed fiction.  Audiences are invited to reflect upon the perilous pursuit of meaning through illusion while still appreciating the beauty involved in the production of such illusions. Westworld is too complex and conflicted a show to entirely approve of or condemn escapism. It instead presents an opportunity to reflect upon the motivations and consequences of being possessed by such a desire, not only for the consumers of such fantasy, but also for the creators behind it.  Such self-conscious exploration of the entertainment industry is rare for television. It is all the more rare and valuable in its apparent willingness to turn its gaze back upon the extravagant and exploitative (sexual) violence HBO can be (in)famous for.

          True to form with the HBO television dramas, such as The Sopranos or Game of Thrones, Westworld is abundant in both sexuality and violence. But in a show concerned so thoroughly with the simulation of violence, is such representation exploitation or condemnation? After only four episodes, it is far too early to provide a definite answer but it remains an intriguing and necessary question to ask with each passing episode. The violence is directed at robotic non-people (albeit played by real people, i.e. actors), but the sexual assault and brutal dismemberment they suffer appear wholly authentic and traumatic. Just as guests enter the park to freely indulge in violence, we immerse ourselves in this drama with every episode, albeit from a more distanced perspective as audience rather than guest. We may excuse our perverse interests as merely being a fantasy, but is that not the very same excuse guests use for their sadistic escapism: that their victims are mere simulations of people and therefore inconsequential. If the art of Westworld is the imitation of life, then don’t the actions taken upon that art reflect back upon life? Escapism, no matter how exotic the experience it offers its audience, is produced in the real world and always requires us to return to reality after it concludes. Westworld forces its audience to question the innocence of being the spectator and participant in simulated violence.

          A more problematic aspect of the show is the sinister significance it apparently attaches to suffering for personal narratives. Not only do most of the storylines designed for park guests appear to revolve around (sexual) violence, but the means by which the robots appear to be coming into self-consciousness is through the traumatic recollection of their repetitive rapes and murders. The Man in Black has offered more than a few comments regarding the importance of suffering to defining what it means to be a person. The danger with all of this commentary is that Westworld is explicitly endorsing a subtext that critics frequently accuse adult entertainment of: the use of rape and murder as catalysts for character development. Most shows try to evade this criticism by arguing that depiction is not equivalent to exploitation, but with Westworld no such excuse could be entirely acceptable given how self-aware it is of the art of storytelling. The writers are not only aware of this misogynistic trope, but have made it an explicit element of the narrative. Rape and murder not only make you a better person, without them you wouldn’t even be a person. 

          The show needs to go beyond merely being self-aware of this trend in adult entertainment, and needs to explicitly condemn it through the robots who have suffered uncountable times. If the robots are only made human by their inheritance of rape and murder and come to define themselves by it, then the show will be entirely guilty of perpetuating and reinforcing a sexist myth. But if the robots refuse to be constrained by such pain and pursue something more noble and beautiful, then the show too will have achieved something greater for the art of television. Westworld will not only have made audiences consciously aware of the ways we rationalize away sexual violence in our escapist fantasies; it will have also condemned such rationalization as a limitation, rather than a foundation, of character development and fulfillment. It isn’t sufficient for Westworld to make connections between audience and actor, violence and art, without offering its audience a narrative that transcends such mutual suffering.

          The initial fun of Westworld (and perhaps Westworld too) is trying to uncover who is human and who is mere machine. But that game is complicated by the robots struggling towards self-awareness: through an apparent corruption or subversion of their programming, the accumulation of memories and gestures appropriated from their past lives and deaths (called “reveries”) is giving the robots a sense of self. While the robots are developing into more complex and sympathetic characters, the humans are for the most part heterosexual white men programmed by base desires of sex and violence. The female hosts are either archetypically whores are virgins, and female guests are either wifely companions to male guests or lesbians coded with the same base desires as men.

          This contrasted simplicity of characterization between machine and man could very well be subtle commentary alluding to the existential poverty of humanity outside of Westworld. The robots are fascinating to Westworld’s guests and Westworld’s audience alike because they were intentionally designed to appeal to individuals seeking escapism from the boredom from their outside lives: amusement parks and television shows wouldnt be successful if they didn't offer something more stimulating than what is available in the "real" world. The lack of diversity among guests could be intentionally commentary about the kind of individuals attracted to the park, after-all, one would hardly expect minorities such as women or African Americans to wax nostalgic about a time period defined by their oppression. But then again, for a show that revels in self-reflection and making explicit the subtext of its narrative, it is surprising that this stereotyping trend hasn’t been called out within the show itself already. If it continues without internal commentary it is safe to assume that it is a glitch in the writing of Westworld rather than an aspect of the world-building intentionally designed as social commentary.

          Paradoxically, the appeal of Westworld is also its most problematic aspect: because the structure of the park is a parallel for the structure of the show itself, our condemnation of the park invariably reflects back upon our own participation as audience. If Westworld doesn’t aspire towards any message beyond the contradictory exploitation and condemnation of sexual violence, it will lose the more reflective members of its audience. There is only so much appeal in indulging in the hypocrisy of watching simulated violence that is critical of simulated violence. For a show so self-aware, with its central theme being the emergence of self-awareness itself, these contradictions appear intentional rather than accidental to its overall design. We anticipate that there is a conspiracy behind the apparent glitch which is leading the robots towards self-awareness and we can only hope that there is similarly a thoughtful purpose behind the self-reflective nature of the show.

          My persistent concern with Westworld is that its moments of apparent meta criticism are less opportunities of sincere self-reflection than they are of anxious self-assurance. The show needs to eventually reflect upon something of deeper significance beyond its own self-reflection; it needs to provide opinionated commentary regarding the complexity of narrative and self-awareness and the concerns of escapism. If is it unwilling to engage with itself any further, it will appear that it was all mere pretension to mislead audiences into expecting something of deeper significance which was never there to begin with. Westworld wants us to question the humanity of its robot characters, but in order for audiences to invest in that inquiry it has to convince them that it is not pretending to be something it is not. As the Man in Black character says, the real world is chaos but inside Westworld everything has significance. That’s the appeal of Westworld too, but it may well be mere illusion. We may be deluded into thinking that this show has something deeper to offer but in the end its self-awareness is just a glitch in its system and what audiences actually receive is nothing more than the robotic gratification of sexual and violent spectacle.

          For all its commentary on the importance of “narrative” and “backstory” to good characterization of the robots and the “storylines” guests immerse themselves in when visiting the park, Westworld makes it apparent to any scrutinizing view that it is very much a story about storytelling. How substantial and entertaining such meta-commentary will be is uncertain, but it is a promising opportunity to approach the escapism offered by television from a post-modern perspective. Westworld continues to entertain me for its intricacy of world-building and instability of intention. It is a show that problematizes my expectations of what adult entertainment can be and what my disposition towards it should be. It forces me to question with each episode whether the show is merely selling the same misogynistic escapism of the Westworld park or whether it will achieve something more profound. Will Westworld eventually escape the confines of escapism offered by Westworld?