Saturday, January 19, 2019

Twilight Zone Episode and Liza

I was watching "The Twilight Zone" on Netflix, and I came across an episode that I could connect to Liza's situation in Notes from the Underground. In this episode, there is a woman in a hospital who is having a reoccurring experience at night. She wakes up, reaches for her water, the cup breaks on the floor, then she walks down the hall to room 22, the morgue, and is told by a nurse there is room for one more down there. The doctor insists it is just a nightmare, but she says it is more than that; she believes it is real in some sense. This woman worked as a stripper, and the doctor made inappropriate remarks to her because of this. He liked to mess with her a bit and kind of tease her about her state, and then objectify her. In the end, her reoccurring experience saved her life; it kept her off a flight which exploded in midair. This reminded me of the underground man and Liza's interaction a bit; just as the underground man has a narcissistic view of himself above other people and insisted only his family beliefs, which he has gathered from books, are correct, the doctor felt superior over the woman in the hospital, not only because of the medical knowledge he trusted in, but also out of narcissism. The way the woman was sexualized reminded me of Liza and how the underground man said people would treat her if she continued down this path. The end of the episode shows that not everything is black and white; contrary to what the underground man tells Liza, family isn't only either perfect or awful, there are in-betweens, and situations are complex and have many causes.

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