Futurama and Philosophy

by Young, Shaun P. , Lewis, Courtland

  As the Planet Express crew regress into their premature ages, they revert through their teens, childhoods, and infancies, and they foresee that they will ultimately be sucked into pre-life. Pre-life uniquely stretches before the crew as pre-death, but it isn’t just their lives that will soon be taken from them. In the regression they relinquish bit by bit their precious identities, and this can be a fate worse than death. Bender’s suicide attempt, Fry’s willingness to risk death to escape being a delivery guy (both in Season One’s “Space Pilot 3000”), the Professor’s insistence he likes his old age, and Leela’s dissatisfaction with attempting to relive her childhood in a “normal” way (both in “Teenage Mutant Leela’s Hurdles”) all demonstrate ways in which the characters’ precious senses of identity trump youth, health, closeness with one’s family, and even life itself.

  The “Badness” of Death

  This third possibility, that there can be a fate worse than death, relies on the preliminary argument that death is bad. Those who want to defend the view that death is genuinely bad in itself have a more difficult task ahead of them than what might be imagined. After all, Epicurus pointed out that death is nothing, and that there’s no person present to experience any badness. So the puzzle is: even if we feel it must be bad, how can it be bad? We might begin by saying: life is all we have, and life is necessary for the enjoyment of any goods. That indicates that life is good in itself, but it still doesn’t show that death is bad in itself, and the asymmetry between the two is obvious. Life is experienced by a person; death is experienced by no one!

  In his 1970 essay “Death,” Thomas Nagel argues for a philosophically sophisticated view of the badness of death. He maintains that it isn’t the state of being dead that’s bad, which is what Epicurus succeeded in showing is impossible, but rather, death is bad for the living while they’re living, in the sense that it deprives them of longer lives of positive value. Nagel’s view relies on the idea that we experience the badness of death, not as the experience of the negative state of death, but as the deprivation of a longer life. Nagel’s argument is a serious contender against the Epicurean view. It opens the possibility that death might be intrinsically bad—a necessary step towards considering Professor Farnsworth’s statement that there’s a fate worse than death.

  Bender’s Dilemma

  Death might be bad, but can there be anything worse? We know that Futurama takes it for granted that there are fates worse than death. The characters act on this very assumption all the way through the series.

  In “Space Pilot 3000,” Fry, a disgruntled pizza delivery boy, is accidentally cryogenically frozen in the year 1999 and unfrozen in 2999. He first meets Bender, the obnoxious yet loveable robot, standing in a line that Fry takes to be for a phone booth, but is actually a futuristic “suicide booth.” Trapped in the booth together, they end up only narrowly escaping the “slow and painful” death of being punctured by automatic screwdrivers and a variety of knives. Later, Bender tells Fry his story of why he wanted to commit suicide. Bender was created to be a “bender” of bars and girders. However, for most of his life he was unaware of how these bars and girders were being used. When he discovers that he has been bending bars his whole life to create suicide booths, he decides he would rather commit suicide than continue in that task. It’s humorous and ironic that he chooses to die in one of the same suicide booths that he helped to create. And though Bender is well known throughout the series for being childish and rash at times, he’s in a genuinely difficult situation that reveals some compelling reasons for why people might opt to commit suicide.

  It’s easy to get depressed about life when work is your sole focus. Bender mentions that he doesn’t have any friends, and the discovery that his whole life has been devoted to creating suicide booths, which, by their very essence extinguish life, makes his own life seem pretty meaningless. Friends provide support, validation, and a sounding board for which to discuss options. Without trusted friends and family, it’s tough getting through challenging work issues and personal dilemmas, especially ones that cut so deeply to the heart of a person’s existence and purpose in life. Though depression is a common motivation for committing suicide, some may secretly think that they’d be better off dead, but either lack the will to follow through with it or are morally opposed to it.

  However, depression alone doesn’t constitute a legitimate reason for why death may be better than life in some instances. It only signals a preference. Those of us on the outside may ask Bender and others in similar situations to get outside of themselves. Life isn’t all bad, and people often have a great deal of power to fight against depression and make dramatic improvements in their lives. In the short term, we might suggest antidepressant medications, counseling, and engagement in hobbies that are enjoyable and facilitate the development of social relationships; all of which Bender can do. In the long term, we might suggest Bender discover a more rewarding career and endeavor to structure his life around his core values, so as to affirm his life’s meaning.

  Changing careers is no easy task for Bender, however. As a robot he was created and programmed with a specific purpose in mind: to bend bars for the suicide booths. In the futuristic society of Futurama, as with many dystopian novels, people (and robots) are forced to engage in careers that someone powerful has given them for the supposed “good of society.” In Futurama, Fate Assignment Officers implant a career chip in each person. Likewise, most of us in the real world don’t consider our careers to be easily jettisoned. If Bender’s unable to change his job and take up a career that is compatible with his values and self-directed purpose in life, it’s hard to see what options he has to escape depression.

  Depression in this case could signal that there’s something deeply wrong in the person’s life. If unfixable, it may even demonstrate a legitimate reason to value death more highly than life: life is just too painful, and death, a cessation of existence (eliminating future pain), would seem to be a naturally better option. People dealing with unending suffering and no reasonable or likely method of escape might be better off dead. Relatedly, people contributing to the pain, death, or destruction of others via activities or careers might also be better off dead, if the overall impact of their lives is negative and they are unlikely to change their ways. Although some beings could benefit from using suicide booths, it’s likely that many who attempt suicide are experiencing only short-term losses that seem overwhelming or uncontrollable.

  Even more deeply than those two justifications for why death can be better than life, a third reason emerges that sets the foundation of Bender’s dilemma in the first place. If your identity, values, and sense of self are consistently or irreparably sabotaged, then your view of yourself becomes fractured and your reason for living is undermined. In some sense, if you have no volition in your life’s direction, you don’t exist. Even though you’re still a physical being, you either become so unreflective that you’re a shell of a person, or you’re torn apart by the conflict between your responsibilities and values.

  It’s probable that there are many individuals in Futurama who are dissatisfied with being career-chipped and live their lives as if on automatic. In fact, Fry and Leela vividly express their dissatisfaction with the way that their careers are assigned. Bender, Fry, and Leela eventually escape their assignments, and all become a part of the Futurama crew under Professor Farnsworth’s tutelage, for this very reason.

  Fleeing Fry

  Fry, like Bender, would rather face death than take on a career that he finds stifling. After his initial excitement at being unfrozen in a foreign futuristic society, and the opportunity to engage in a new life where he would no longer be the unimportant and disregarded pizza delivery boy, his hopes are dashed. He flees instantly when Leela, a Fate Assignment Officer, informs him that his career will be that of a delivery boy. Fry would rather risk his life running from the law than be pigeonholed into a career that he sees as suffocating his sense of purpose in life. Fry seeks out his
one living relative—Professor Farnsworth, Fry’s great (x30) nephew—hoping he might be willing to hide him. Though Leela finally tracks down Fry, she, like Fry and Bender, is dissatisfied with her career.

  Fry, Bender, and Leela all end up skirting the careers that society has forced upon them, and instead they begin serving as the crew for the Professor’s dangerous intergalactic delivery service. When Fry (once again, this time by the Professor) is informed he will be a space delivery boy, he surprisingly shouts “Alright! I’m a delivery boy!” He rejoices and endorses this career now as his freely chosen endeavor, most likely because it sounds cool and adventurous, qualities that Fry personally wishes to strive towards in his life.

  Bender and Fry willingly risk their freedom and their lives, rather than participate in careers that offend their identities, values, and self-directed purpose in life. Philosophically, there are good reasons to believe both that death is bad and that there can be something worse than death.

  The cases of Bender and Fry illustrate that it might be better to die than to be forced to give up your freedom, convictions, and values. In “Teenage Mutant Leela’s Hurdles,” the crew experiences a regression of age hurling them towards pre-life (and ultimately death). How do our reflections on suicide and death apply to reversing the clock and getting younger?

  Age Makes the Professor

  Professor Farnsworth doesn’t just lack the desire to go to a youth spa, but he demonstrates outright disdain. Though the crew cites flying slowly, going to early bird specials, and the Professor’s general forgetfulness as reasons why he should try anti-aging techniques, he enjoys the easy life of a person aged 161. Just before they capture him against his will and take him to the Bubbling Geezer Hot Spring Spa, he protests, “But I like being old. I don’t have to talk to my parents, no one asks me to help move their stuff, I don’t need to understand today’s edgy TV sitcoms.”

  Even the young can understand some of the benefits of aging, such as being more comfortable in one’s own skin, values, and preferences. Jenny Joseph’s famous poem looks forward to advancing age, rejoicing that “as an old woman I shall wear purple.” The professor is generally happy with his age and has no desire to turn back the clock. After the tar bath, the Professor’s age regresses to 53 and he’s terribly upset.

  Could growing younger actually change his identity to the point that he finds it so repulsive as to conclude that death would be preferable? Even if his mind remained relatively unchanged in terms of his intellect and memories and he stayed the same person in that regard, becoming younger would no doubt leave its impact on his body and mind, changing him and his desires dramatically. There are practical relations that hold between the body and the mind that can’t be ignored. The professor at age 53, unlike at age 161, would be filled with hormones like testosterone, giving him the energy and the yearnings of a man of that age. He might find himself doing foolish things to get dates with women or to make his mark on the world, all the while knowing that he is pursing things that are no longer mentally fulfilling for him as a person.

  Dad, I’m Underage!

  These ruminations lend themselves to this question: once we have gone forward, is it ever really good to go back? Age-old wisdom reminds us that we’re linked to our experiences in life, good or bad, and they’ve made us who we are. If we like who we are, it makes sense to not want to turn back the clock, especially if it means sacrificing something important to our identities. However, what if we dislike who we are? What if our lives are riddled with regrets? Could regressing into a younger version of yourself be a way to change those things that you regret?

  In “Teenage Mutant Leela’s Hurdles,” Leela explains that she grew up as an orphan and she’s always yearned to have an ordinary childhood with her parents she discovered as an adult. After the tar bath, she regresses into a teenager and sees it as her opportunity to go back and experience what it’d be like if she had her wish fulfilled. Once in the sewer with her parents, she says: “It’s gonna be totally awesome, Mom. You and me can bake, and argue about my hairstyle hiding my pretty face, and if some kid picks on me, my dad can beat up his dad!” She declares: “I want the real teen experience—chores, curfew, the works.” But her parents don’t understand how to give her what she wants.

  Although her parents are nice, they see her as an authority figure, not as a teenager, so her wish to relive her childhood in the way she imagined is frustrated. But this just reveals that it’s difficult (not impossible) to find satisfaction if our deepest longings depend on people and circumstances beyond our control. We’ll all be more likely to achieve our goals if they depend upon features that we have power over. Growing inwardly and refining our characters are things we can accomplish even in the worst circumstances. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankel was interned in Nazi concentration camps for three years, witnessed the deaths of most of his friends and family, and even worked as a slave laborer. His famous book Man’s Search for Meaning explains how we can develop ourselves and our character to give us the deepest sense of meaning in our lives even in the midst of the greatest turmoil.

  Leela and the Professor discover the fountain of aging as a way to escape the crew’s regression into pre-life (and ultimately death). Unlike the rest of the crew, Leela hadn’t entered the microbe chamber that accelerated the anti-aging process of the tar bath. She decides not to join the Planet Express crew in restoring her previous older age, but when she witnesses that the current in the fountain of aging is so strong that the crew is about to drown in the whirlpool, she jumps in to try to save them and sacrifices her own youth. Leela doesn’t have any regrets, though. She says: “I guess every adult wants to be a kid again sometimes, but I worked hard to be the person I am . . . With friends like you guys . . . And I’m really happy I have that life back.”

  The opportunity to revert to her teenage self taught Leela a lesson that her life and relationships with her friends are more important to her sense of self than attempting to remake an unfortunate past. It helped her to discover an even deeper sense of meaning in her life that was already a part of her identity. It didn’t rely on the successful completion of a goal (in Leela’s case, reliving her childhood) that gave her life meaning, but rather on developing her inner person and discovering more about herself and what fulfils her. She therefore became a better version of herself. If we reflect inwardly, discover our deepest sense of self, and live in integrity, accepting ourselves and acting consistently with our values, then we, too, can learn the lessons that give our lives deep satisfaction and meaning, all without having to erase our pasts.

  The Two Deaths

  We’ve advanced to a stage at which we can now attempt to evaluate the truth of the Professor’s full statement: “We’ll all keep getting younger and younger until we suffer a fate worse than death: pre-life! Then death.”

  Whether pre-life is worse than death depends on what pre-life is. The Professor explains it as “the agony of unbirth.” However, because pre-life, whether a fetal stage, an embryo, or a sperm and egg, lacks the values that are significant to even our childhood version of our present self, it’s difficult to ascertain who the subject is, who’s experiencing the loss or the badness.

  Thomas Nagel suggests that a longer life before our births is similar to death in that it’s still a deprivation of a longer post-birth life of positive value. However, if pre-life is qualitatively identical to death, if there’s no organism that can experience it, then it can’t be worse than death itself. If we, having lives generally better than death, were bathed in anti-aging tar and covered in microbes that reversed our ages until we became our fetal, embryonic, or separated sperm and egg selves, it would indeed be bad, but it’s doubtful whether pre-life can be “a fate worse than death.”

  9

  Fry’s Brain Thing

  CHARLENE ELSBY

  FRY: What’s so wonderful about Leela being normal? The rest of us aren’t normal, and that’s what makes us great. Like Dr. Zoidberg: He’s a weird mons
ter who smells like he eats garbage and does. And the professor’s a senile, amoral crackpot. Hermes is a Rastafarian accountant. Amy’s a klutz from Mars.

  PROFESSOR FARNSWORTH: And Fry, you’ve got that brain thing.

  FRY: I already did!

  —“The Cyber House Rules”

  Philip J. Fry has a lot to tell us about the human ability to adapt to misconceptions and continue to act in a comprehensible (rather than rational) manner. Fry’s “brain thing” often leads to him having misconceptions about the nature of the world he lives in; while most of us would reject these misconceptions as nonsensical, Fry is so easily adaptable that he accepts them as truth, and, indeed, as a basis from which new knowledge may be inferred.

  In “Time Keeps on Slippin’” (Season Three), for instance, Fry confidently states, “So, Leela, how about a romantic ride in one of those swan boats? They’re kinda dangerous, but I finally mastered them.” To which Leela responds, “Those aren’t swan boats, they’re swans.” But Fry has already adapted to his conception of the swans as boats, and has logically deduced the consequence of this assumption: “Oh,” he says, “That explains these boat eggs.”

  Fry superbly illustrates the human tendency to adapt to ludicrous situations, to the point where adaptation is more likely to be the chosen response rather than the questioning of our fundamental presumptions. That is, when we have an accepted viewpoint to which we’re in some way attached, and new information contradicts it, we try to ram that new information into our preconceived reality as best we can. The reason we find Fry hilarious is because of the way he acts in response to absurd situations. His behavior deviates from the “normal” because he’s working with an alternative premise about the nature of reality. Once the premise is accepted, on the other hand, Fry’s actions are logically consistent with what someone would do holding that worldview.