Futurama and Philosophy

by Young, Shaun P. , Lewis, Courtland

  Bender’s change in attitude is cultural because he only comes to accept robosexuality as a legitimate kind of relationship when he experiences it first-hand. Cultural attitudes and assumptions are often based on generalities that reduce people to ideas. If we don’t know anyone who is a member of a community that falls outside of our standards of normalcy, then we tend to treat those communities as ideas rather than as actual people.

  A simple example of this is when we talk about “the poor.” When we say “the poor,” we most often mean a vague group of people that have no concrete reality for us. Regardless of whether we’re trying to come up with ways to help “the poor” or if we’re talking about how much of a burden “the poor” are on society, we’re describing an idea rather than actual people. The “disabled” or homosexual communities are often treated in much the same way. It’s only when we come to know members of those communities that they become actual people rather than ideas. When we’re engaging with actual people it becomes easier to accept them as “normal” because we interact with them directly and concretely.

  Philosophers from Aristotle to David Hume to Michel Foucault have described this in terms of habit. For them, our daily, habitual behavior plays an important role in forming our cultural standards of normalcy. Aristotle argued that we must habituate our youth to act in a way that will lead to individual and city-wide flourishing (or happiness), which is the highest good. For Hume, habit allows us to explain common assumptions about the relations of cause and effect. And according to Foucault, habit is a result of disciplinary practices aimed at producing subjects within a given culture or context. So, in the case of robosexuality, habitually interacting with robosexuals provides the opportunity to create a new standard of normalcy that includes robosexuality, even potentially aiding in extending legal consideration to them as a community.

  Because normalcy isn’t something that’ll ever go away, thinking about communities as ideas won’t go away either. In fact, extending legal consideration to new communities requires that we think about them as ideas (objects of legal consideration). It’s only when we engage individuals that our habits change. When habits change, attitudes towards communities as ideas change. Visually, it may go something like this: idea → actual people → idea. It’s the change in attitude toward individuals that potentially changes our attitudes toward ideas which are intimately linked with standards of normalcy.

  She Left Me for a Robot

  The problem of robosexuality is treated in a more political way in the Season Six episode “Proposition Infinity.” After Amy breaks up with Kif, she begins a relationship with Bender, resulting in a proposal of marriage. Professor Farnsworth is quick to remind the two that robosexual marriage is deviant. This episode mirrors the contemporary debate over the morality and legality of homosexual marriage, even borrowing the title of the episode from a 2008 California ballot proposition to ban homosexual marriage: Proposition 8. The fact that the episode takes a real life proposition and turns it on its “side” shows how Futurama treats the issue of robosexuality. It’s not as if the episode writers are trying to be subtle here, but by making slight changes and setting the issue within a satirical context, the whole issue gets presented from a new perspective.

  I don’t think that Futurama is necessarily attempting to make an argument for extending marriage (to robots or otherwise). In fact, it’s not clear that Futurama is making an argument at all. It’s easy to assume that the episode is attacking the “traditional” view of marriage, often associated with Christianity. However, if we look closely we can see that the episode is attacking all forms of “normal” marriage. This is most broadly illustrated when Bender leaves Amy because she desires a “legal, monogamous marriage.” The same point is made in Season Four’s episode “A Taste of Freedom,” when Old Man Waterfall is used to illustrate our inconsistent beliefs about freedom and marriage. Even though no argument is being made, Futurama still works to motivate a change of attitude toward who or what is allowed to participate in marriage.

  A common argument for excluding same-sex couples from getting married (and one that Futurama mocks) is that such a relationship falls outside of the “traditional” or “normal,” meaning of marriage. The argument posits that it’s so far beyond normal for two people of the same sex to be attracted to each other that a new category is required in order to describe a formal, life-long commitment. Often this argument attempts to describe marriage as something that has been consistently the same forever. But if we look at the laws in America regarding marriage, inter-racial marriage has been fully legal only since 1967. That fact helps to illustrate that the question about who is allowed to marry whom (or what) is based more on cultural understandings of normalcy than absolute law. “Proposition Infinity” parodies this fact by depicting almost all types of relationships other than robot-human couplings as being allowed to result in marriage, including same-sex relationships, interplanetary relationships, even relationships between a ghost and a horse.

  Along with revealing how strange some of our assumptions are, the humor in Futurama also allows us to imaginatively step into someone else’s shoes. The fact that the prospect of a robot marrying a human is extremely strange and almost silly, makes rooting for the legalization of robosexual marriage much easier. Humor in a fictional setting makes it safe to hold opinions that we may not feel comfortable holding under other circumstances. The way we relate to fictional characters can actually influence the way that we relate to real people. So, when we sympathize with Bender and Amy or when we cheer for Professor Farnsworth to change his mind about Proposition Infinity, especially after revealing that he had a forty-three-year relationship with a robot, it (hopefully) becomes much harder to hold firm opinions about similar social and political issues occurring in our own lives.

  Many of our thoughts about physical handicaps and sexual orientation result from socially constituted standards of normalcy. Futurama uses humorous perspectives to reveal just how culturally determined these issues are. By making us laugh at absurd situations that so closely resemble our own standards of normalcy, the foreign and scary aspects of those issues are rendered rather benign.

  Once we’re able to laugh at something that’s typically thought of as scary or uncomfortable, it’s much easier to extend our standards of normalcy to include them. So, if you’re like me, we can together hope that by the time we die our ghosts will be allowed to marry any horse we happen to fall in love with.

  20

  Mutate! Mutate! Mutate!

  JAMES REITTER

  There’s good news, everyone! The future universe inhabited by the likes of Philip J. Fry, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, Amy Wong, Dr. John Zoidberg, Hermes Conrad, and Bender Bending Rodriguez, is a tolerant place where humans (Fry, Farnsworth, Amy, and Hermes) co-exist equally with aliens (Zoidberg) and robots (Bender).

  It’s a different story if you’re a sewer mutant. After all, you’re living in a sewer, surviving off of the garbage of others. Although she “passes” as a human and lives on the surface, it’s a different story for our favorite Cyclops, Turanga Leela. Despite all efforts to hide her true heritage, Leela’s a second-class citizen in the universe of Futurama. Luckily, her mutation is barely noticeable amongst humans and aliens. Her Cyclops eye and purple hair are her only distinctions. Otherwise, she appears to be perfectly human in the physical sense. Her parents (Morris and Munda) are afflicted with much more obvious mutations. Morris has a sideways mouth and Munda has tentacles for arms as well as a tail. Kermit the frog once sang about how difficult it was to be green. Imagine having a third arm instead of a right ear!

  The Backstory

  After giving birth, Munda and Morris noticed that Leela appeared to be more human than mutant and decided to giver her up for adoption under the pretense that she’s an actual alien, in order to give her more opportunity and a better life. Leela was identified and raised as an alien in the Cookieville Minimum-Security Orphanarium. It was only after she became
an adult that she found out her true heritage, as seen in “Leela’s Homeworld” from Season Four.

  We discover in “I Second that Emotion” (Season Two) that there’s an entire population of such mutants dwelling in the sewer system of New New York. These mutants, restricted to live underground due to their hideous appearance, are the “monsters” of the Futurama universe. Up against a murderous robot Santa Claus, that’s really saying something.

  In a philosophical sense, the sewer mutants are the ultimate “Other”—a group of “different” individuals that the dominant culture devalues and demonizes. Think about what’s accepted in the Futurama universe: crustacean-like species (Decapodians), gelatinous globs (Venusians), floating brains (Brain Spawn), water forms (Trisolians), humanoid lizards (Omicronians), green bulbous-headed figures (Morboians), three-eyed fuzzy animals that existed before time (Nibblonians), and hypnotizing toads (among many other alien species).

  Out of all these different life-forms, mutants are seen as the bottom-feeders of the universe, so much so that they’re forbidden to see the light of day. Yet, there’s a full-blown counterculture at work here. Because the mutants are prohibited from participating in the dominant culture above ground, they’re free to live according to their laws and decisions about what’s right and wrong. Sewer mutants don’t live by anyone else’s rules but their own. They’ve developed a unique lifestyle that’s shaped by their environment.

  The Philosophical Mutant

  Philosophy is often concerned with definitions. How we define ourselves is very important; it goes a long way in establishing meaning. The big questions that run through our heads late at night—Why am I here? What is my purpose?—are directly related to how we see the world around us. A character like Fry commonly wrestles with these philosophical questions—granted, he does suffer from a time paradox where he’s living with his senile “nephew” thirty times removed (Professor Farnsworth), and has had sex with his own grandmother Mildred, thereby becoming his own grandfather (“Roswell that Ends Well”). However, Fry’s worldview is much more accepting than, say, that of the President of Earth, Richard Nixon’s Head, or Mayor of New New York City, C. Randall Poopenmeyer. Their “universe-view” says that some citizens (“us”) are superior to others (“them”). The “them” is the philosophical “Other.”

  The concept of the Other is familiar in philosophy. We can trace it back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where prisoners are immobilized and exposed only to shadows cast by firelight. These shadows become reality for the prisoners who don’t know anything more than what they see. When the prisoners gain exposure to the actual objects, not the shadows of the objects, they believe the shadows are more real than the physical objects themselves. The prisoners define their reality by what they see and nothing else. They fear everything beyond their initial perception because it challenges their concept of reality.

  The prisoners are like the surface dwellers (the dominant culture) in Futurama, insofar as they’re only comfortable with what they see and know. The sewer mutants, restricted to the underground tunnels of New New York, are never to be seen. Just as the prisoners feeling threatened by the objects themselves, due to the limits of what they know, surface dwellers are threatened and disgusted by the existence of sewer mutants. For instance, when Fry, Bender, and Leela (prior to her realization that she’s a mutant) first encounter mutants, their initial reaction is fright. Fry actually thought that mutants fed off the brains of surface dwellers. From this and other episodes, we see that a majority of this fear and disgust is simply because they don’t look like “us.”

  Feeling afraid or disgusted by something different is nothing new. As Plato’s cave and Futurama show, it all depends on your perspective. We might think that spiders are ugly, but that’s because they’re so unfamiliar to us (having eight eyes and eight legs sounds more like an alien species from Futurama!). But do other spiders see themselves as ugly? Although spiders certainly evaluate each other for mating purposes, there’s no evidence to suggest they judge each other in any way similar to the way we judge each other.

  We can also argue that “ugly” isn’t just a physical description, that it’s something internal to the person, but such a position still depends on one’s perspective. Just think of our human history. It’s no secret that throughout history most of civilization has been ruled by men, and men have traditionally devalued women. When Feminism (think Leela) emerged, then and all of a sudden, people began seriously considering the plight of women, how they felt about things, and how they were oppressed. Feminism enlightened us about male dominance, and women’s second-class status as a version of the Other. This conceptual position was the basis for Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex.

  We can also think about the Other in terms of race and culture. Edward Said’s Orientalism argues that Western culture views Eastern culture as being weaker and threatening because it is different. We all tend to feel threatened by people, ideas, and ways of life that we’ve not previously been exposed to or have experience with. Every minority has a history of being seen as the Other and being oppressed by the dominant culture. “The Mutants Are Revolting” (Season Six) uses the “us” and “them” (the Other) perspective as a backdrop for the sewer mutants’ revolt and subsequent realization of their freedom.

  Those Pitiable Creatures

  In “The Mutants Are Revolting,” Brown University’s United Mutant Scholarship Fund is boosted by an endowment from the dignified, extravagant, and arrogant Mrs. Astor. At the endowment ceremony, she introduces a short film designed to get money from other rich donors. As the movie begins, we’re greeted by a voice-over narration:

  Far beneath the everyday rumble of limousines and poodle feet, there toil a downtrodden people even less well-off than the upper middle class: The noble sewer mutants. For you see, generations of exposure to toxic sewage mutated them into “horrific monsters”! These industrious, uh, people, I guess, maintain the various pipes and poop-chutes that keep decent, above-ground society functioning. And where do these proud toileteers learn their menial skills? At Brown University, the nation’s premier institution of lower learning. So please, give generously, knowing some poor helpless mutant will thank you. Not in person, thank God!

  First, we see the distinction made by the fund itself. These types of funds, such as the United Negro College Fund, are traditionally designated for minority populations (whether race- or gender-based). In the first sentence of the narration there’s reference to a historically mistreated population, reminiscent of how Native American’s are referred to. For many, “Noble” instantly conjures images of Native Americans made familiar to us through influential photographs, movies, books, commercials, and even cartoons. Some of you may be old enough to remember the famous ad-campaign for “Keep America Clean,” in which a Native American (actually, the actor was Italian) dressed in full regalia sheds a tear over the careless littering in America. The message here is clear: both the sewer mutants and Native Americans are proud and “noble,” but they’re also “different”—in other words, inferior.

  The next example of the perceived inferiority of sewer mutants is in the definition of sewer mutants as “uh, people, I guess.” According to the movie, sewer mutants barely qualify as “people.” If they’re different, they are something other than what we are. If we are people, they must not be—at least not in the same sense.

  On the other hand (or perhaps tentacle), we have Turanga Leela. Her unique situation can be summarized by the following exchange with Fry in “The Mutants Are Revolting”:

  FRY: Mutants? That’s the kind of thing you are.

  LEELA: Shh. You know mutants aren’t allowed on the surface. If anyone asks, say I’m an alien, remember?

  Leela “passes” as an alien and isn’t viewed as the Other in the same way that the sewer mutants are. However, Leela’s fate changes rather quickly when Fry accidentally reveals her true heritage:

  MRS. ASTOR: [Brown University and the United Muta
nt Scholarship Fund is] also about keeping those filthy things busy. There are thousands of them down there, breeding like rats.

  DEBUTANTE: My great uncle once saw a rat.

  MRS. ASTOR: If we don’t keep them busy, they’ll start jabbering on about equal rights in their ill-bred manner.

  LEELA: Let’s go. If I say one more thing, I might say it with my evening boot.

  MRS. ASTOR: Well! Rarely, have I never!

  FRY: Please, don’t blame Leela. She’s just a little ill-bred. You know how mutants are.

  MRS. ASTOR: Your companion is a mutant?

  FRY: But if anyone asks, say she’s an alien.

  MRS. ASTOR: Help! Police!

  When Leela passed as an alien (an accepted part of the dominant culture), she was (generally) treated as an equal. As soon as her true heritage is revealed, she’s automatically cast as the Other. She gets arrested and sentenced to immediate deportation—without any form of trial (after all, she’s a sewer mutant and doesn’t deserve any type of legal representation)—to spend the rest of her life with her fellow mutants underground.

  “The Mutants Are Revolting” is Futurama’s most obvious and disturbing engagement with the issue of discrimination. In a universe made up of different races of beings, it’s the sewer mutants of Earth that are treated as the Other—different from the dominant culture.

  The Folk Mutant

  Directly related to sewer mutants being perceived as the Other, we can easily see them as a folk group as well. Folklorists such as Dan Ben-Amos and Elliot Oring have worked to define and identify folk groups. While there’s no universally accepted definition, “folk groups” are generally identified as a group of people who have something unique in common that provides a sense of community and belonging amongst its members. Folklorists typically refer to “unofficial” memberships and lifestyles—things that are not learned by attending schools, but rather taught in homes or communities over time. The motivation for this lifestyle choice is typically not monetary gain, but continued membership in a community bonded together through pastimes and traditions. Sewer mutants certainly seem to fit this classification.