Futurama and Philosophy

by Young, Shaun P. , Lewis, Courtland

  In “I Second That Emotion,” episode writer Patric M. Verrone appears to be aware of this, as he employs many references to folk culture and folklore that underscore the folk group status of sewer mutants.

  The first reference is to the urban legend of alligators living in the sewers of a metropolis. As Jan Harold Brunvand’s The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings (1981) suggests, the idea of animals living where they don’t belong and becoming a danger to the “local” inhabitants is a common storyline in urban legends. The “alligator in the sewer” story that Fry mentions in this episode clearly alludes to the urban legend that can be traced back to the 1930s.

  As the legend goes, a pet baby alligator gets flushed down the toilet because the owners no longer want it. The alligator miraculously survives, matures, and terrorizes anyone unfortunate enough to venture down into the sewer system. This narrative is the basis for much of the episode. Frustrated and jealous over all of the attention Nibbler gets from everyone, Bender flushes Nibbler down the toilet and into the sewer system of New New York.

  Due to Bender’s cruelty, Professor Farnsworth installs an emotion chip in Bender and tunes it to Leela’s emotional frequency. Now desperate to try to rescue Nibbler from the sewer mutants, Bender ponders his next action. Fry chimes in, “Too bad he wasn’t an alligator. You know when you flush those things they stay alive in the sewers.” Bender questions this idea, and Fry responds, “Yup, my friend’s cousin’s coworker saw one once. It’s a widely believed fact.” This emphasizes the urban legend and folklore influence at work in the episode.

  As the crew (Fry, Bender, and Leela) attempts to rescue Nibbler, they encounter the “hideous” sewer mutants. In explaining their problem, the crew is introduced to the sewer mutant culture. The mutants try to explain who they are and how they live. Realizing how little they understand the sewer mutant folk culture, the threesome begins to question the mutants. In particular, Fry asks about the legitimacy of the “alligator in the sewer” narrative:

  FRY: So, is it true that alligators flushed down the toilet survive down here?

  VYOLET: [a reptilian mutant with gills and a pig nose] No. That’s just an urban legend.

  BENDER: Then what are those?

  VYOLET: Crocodiles.

  RAOUL: [a three-armed mutant] We keep them as pets. Then, when they grow too large, we flush them down into the sub-sewer.

  DWAYNE: [big-headed mutant with two noses] Some say there’s a freakish race of sub-mutants down there.

  VYOLET: Please, that’s just a sub-urban legend.

  Not only do we have references to the famous urban legend mentioned above, but we can actually see an intentional awareness of the folklore form. As with much of Futurama’s humor, Vyolet’s response is clever and multi-layered (both in meaning and in literal levels of the surface).

  What follows this conversation is another form of folk expression: the ballad. Dwayne takes advantage of the opportunity to entertain the new visitors with a time-honored tradition of musical storytelling, and launches into “The Legend of El Chupanibre,” as he shines a flashlight under his chin in an attempt to create a mood similar to what children do when they scare each other with ghost stories. Strumming his guitar in true balladeer form, Dwayne begins to sing:

  Gather round, children, for the legend of El Chupanibre.

  He creeps and crawls in the midnight hush,

  Silent as a low-flow toilet flush.

  Watch your step, ’cause sooner or later,

  He’ll eat you whole and half your alligator.

  Forms of communication and entertainment among the sewer mutants aren’t the only parallels to the folklore discipline. The very lifestyle of these mutants is conducive to folklore study. We even have a real-life version of the recycling lifestyle of the sewer mutants in modern-day “freegans”—communities of people who live off of the waste of others. Like the sewer mutants (without the mutations), freegans have their own moral code (never take more than you need), specialized techniques of survival (leave things cleaner than you found them), webs of communication (first come, first served, but always share), and a value system (free is good). As detailed in documentaries like Dive!, freegans are often misunderstood, chastised, and prosecuted for their way of life. The dominant culture often sees freegans as disgusting, similar to their “hippie” counter-culture forefathers. As stated in Dive!, freeganism is a “totally different, outside-the-system way of living.”

  The notion of a culture created from a philosophical foundation of re-use is precisely what the sewer mutants subcribe to as well. As Raoul explains, “All that is ours was once flushed down your toilet.” We see this also in “Leela’s Homeworld,” when she discovers her parents kept everything that she flushed down the toilet, as well as anything pertaining to her that other people flushed. Morris and Munda’s mailbox is literally a discarded tin can with the lid still attached. Futurama nicely illustrates what it means to be a folk culture by showing how the sewer mutants have their own unique lifestyle filled with a variety of meaningful and significant components.

  Toxic Waste, Radioactive Sludge, and Good Old American Feces

  The concept of the Other is widely applied. The dominant culture tends to perceive minorities (whether race-, gender-, or even lifestyle-based—as is the case with folk culture) as something different. We all tend to gravitate towards the familiar and tend to feel threatened by difference. Often the populations that make up these differences are seen as somehow “less” than “us,” which is how most people view folk groups.

  While we (and by “we” I mean the dominant culture) may be interested in these folk groups for a variety of reasons, we usually do not view them as equals. We mostly see them (read Others) as less intelligent, less sophisticated, less advanced, and even less civilized. This is exactly how the sewer mutants are portrayed in Futurama. As a folk culture, their values and priorities are different than those of the dominant culture. However, they have a rightful place in that universe.

  Maybe Dwayne was onto something when he suggested that, perhaps, “we” are the mutants. In the final analysis, it all depends on how we’re perceived by others, and how we perceive others—and possibly how long we’re exposed to waste, sludge, and poop.

  21

  Fry, Windmills Don’t Work That Way!!

  TRAVIS TAFT

  The Show that Watches Back.

  —“The Lesser of Two Evils”

  Philip J. Fry may be the most self-aware character on the world’s most self-aware TV show. He’s a character so familiar with fictional media that he almost seems to realize that he’s a fictional character himself. Nobody else on the show quite has the same awareness, so they all dismiss him as a madman and a buffoon. But who’s crazier, the fool living in a fantasy world, or the “sane” person who thinks their fantasy is reality? Is the line between fact and fiction always so clear cut? Or is the idea of mixing fantasy with reality the talk of a madman?

  The Man from La Mancha

  At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Miguel de Cervantes introduced the world to just a madman such as Fry in his classic book, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (Don Quixote for short). Don Quixote is a man enamored with the stories he finds in books, particularly tales of chivalry and heroic knights errant. His family and neighbors tell him that the stories are just silly fiction. Quixote, however, is so obsessed that he insists the stories are true, and so sets out to prove it by becoming a knight himself and bringing the chivalry in his stories into his reality.

  Don Quixote has been called “the first modern novel,” and is regarded as the second most influential book on Western thought (right after the Bible). With this kind of legacy, it’s no surprise that Don Quixote has directly or indirectly had a huge influence on leading-role characters ever since. So whether the homage is intentional or simply a result of Don Quixote’s influence, it’s no surprise that Quixote and Fry have a lot in common. They both start out
as ordinary men who have moments that transform their lives early in their stories, transformations that drive them from their bland average existence into worlds of madness and wonder. Like all great heroes, they both have their loyal (and drunken) companions by their side, whether it be the simple-minded Sancho or the lewd, robotic Bender. And both men are driven by a particular love interest that their stories constantly hold out of reach—Fry’s cyclopean love Leela, and Quixote’s imaginary Dulcinea.

  These are themes that existed in stories long before Don Quixote (and obviously before Futurama, unless we consider taking our forward-only time machine around past the end of the universe and forward into a new one to a point identical to our past, but I digress), but there’s one thing particularly noteworthy about Quixote and Fry: they’re both fictional characters who get called crazy for living their lives as if they’re in a fictional world. With the help of this tongue-in-cheek self-awareness, the writers behind both stories manage to transcend their individual stories to a place where they satirize current reality. They criticize everything from religion and politics to virtue and the arts without claiming to be anything more than fanciful tales of a delivery boy slacker and a silly old man. But both stories ask one question above all others: Where is the line between reality and fantasy?

  The Mystery of the Fourth Wall

  Though both Fry and Quixote never explicitly state the fact that they’re both fictional characters, they both implicitly acknowledge it on a regular basis. When a fictional character directly or indirectly acknowledges the reality of the audience, it’s referred to as “Breaking the Fourth Wall.” “Breaking The Fourth Wall” is an old theatre term, but it applies perfectly well to books, movies, and TV.

  On a stage, two walls of any room are the left and the right stage exits, and the third is the back of the stage. The fourth wall then is the imaginary veil between the stage and the audience. Characters on stage generally act as if the fourth wall is just as solid as the wall at the back of the stage, and thus remain within the universe of the show, as if no one were watching them. But on occasion, the characters will do something to acknowledge the existence of an audience, such as turning and addressing them directly—thus “breaking” the fourth wall.

  With Cervantes and the Futurama team, tricks involving the fourth wall are often designed to reinforce the illusion that Fry and Quixote are just regular consumers of media like their audience, and not products of media like the characters Fry and Quixote are obsessed with. Some specific examples include opening episodes of Futurama with advertisements that Fry might see on TV in the year 3000, or having Don Quixote read a copy of the book he’s actually in. Through such creative uses of the medium, Cervantes and the makers of Futurama work to close the gap between the fiction of their stories and the reality of their fans.

  Breaking the fourth wall can make it difficult for fans to tell where the line is between joke and commentary, and that’s its genius. You might not always be sure which parts to take as mere entertainment and which parts to look to for serious life lessons. As the main characters of their respective stories, Quixote and Fry are at the crux of that riddle. Should we embrace or avoid the temptation to get swept up in their madness like the authors tempt us to? Are these characters heroes for standing up for what they believe in, regardless of what the rest of the world tells them, or are they idealistic madmen living in fantasy worlds?

  A Universe About Ten Feet Off from Ours

  Well, of course they’re living in fantasy worlds—they’re fantasy characters! They live in universes built entirely around them! Consider Season One’s “When Aliens Attack.” Invaders from Omicron Persei 8 invade Earth and hold the planet ransom, until they get to see the final episode of “Single Female Lawyer,” which Fry accidentally interrupted from being broadcast back in the twentieth century. Luckily, Fry’s master understanding of TV saves the day. With his guidance, the Planet Express crew satisfies the invaders’ need for closure by creating their own ending to “Single Female Lawyer.”

  In the episode, Fry teaches us many lessons about how TV stories are supposed to work, but just before Futurama’s credits start, he leaves us with one last token of insight. He says, “It was just a matter of knowing the secret of all TV shows. At the end of the episode, everything’s always right back to normal.” As he shares this particularly lucid moment we’re left with a view of New New York in flaming ruin, with zero explanation of how the city will be rebuilt and running smoothly in time for next week’s adventure.

  It’s classic entertainment escapism. We enjoy watching Fry’s adventures because he’s not only a guy we can relate to, he’s also someone who’ll never have to worry about serious consequences like we do. It’s easy to want to model your life after somebody who never has to actually deal with real problems. Even when things blow up in his face (often times literally), Fry goes unharmed—unless his injuries work into the plot. Like the time in Season Two’s episode “Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?”, when Zoidberg cuts off his arm in battle over the “lovely” Edna. Such injuries, however, are always guaranteed to be healed by the next episode. So, unless we have the same regenerative abilities as Fry, it certainly doesn’t look like a very sensible idea to model your reality after your fiction.

  As different as his reality is from ours, though, Fry isn’t a totally alien—uhhh, unfamiliar character either. There are plenty of moments in Fry’s life that fans can relate to, like working for a living, watching TV, meeting the crew of the Enterprise; he just gets to do them in a world that’s a bit cooler than ours. Our job title may not be as glamorous as “Delivery Boy,” but regardless, his job lets him travel through space to distance planets and make snoo snoo with Amazonians. Fry lounges around and watches TV like we do, but his TV happens to have higher resolution than the world around him. Some of us real-world Star Trek fans may be lucky enough to meet the living cast members at a convention. But in Season Four’s “Where No Fan Has Gone Before,” he literally lives out every major trope from the show, with the actual characters, as if it were real.

  Just as fans of literature find Quixote’s personality equally familiar and foreign, fans of Futurama can simultaneously relate to Fry and have no idea what it’s like to be him. If there are any valuable insights we can take from Fry, clearly they won’t be rules for proper behavior when time traveling or tips on dealing with evil robot Santas; just as we wouldn’t look to Quixote for serious guidance on etiquette around princesses or tactics for battling giants. So, if there are any real life lessons to be learned from these fantasy characters, just what kind of lessons might they be?

  The Dangers of Fantasy

  Many characters in Don Quixote certainly don’t believe that fiction has any place guiding reality, and they spend a good amount of time in the book trying to convince Don Quixote to see their perspective. A highly intelligent man known as the Canon has a conversation with one of Don Quixote’s friends (who so happens to be a Priest) near the end of Book One. After hearing about Don Quixote’s obsession with books, the Canon confesses that on occasion, “moved by a false and idle taste,” he has read the beginning of almost every book ever published. “In my opinion, this kind of writing and composition . . . are foolish stories meant only to delight and not to teach.”

  Characters in Futurama regularly show similar sentiment toward Fry and the reverence he has for TV and movies. They’re baffled by his love of Star Trek in “Where No Fan Has Gone Before,” and Leela mocks him for his seeming inability to distinguish TV from reality in “When Aliens Attack.” They’re particularly disgusted in Season Three’s “I Dated a Robot,” when Fry begins dating Lucy Liu-bot, a robot programmed with a personality based on the real Lucy Liu’s movie roles. She acts more like a character than a real person, and the Planet Express crew worries that if Fry gets sucked into the fantasy the Lucy Liu-bot provides, then he’ll have no reason to strive for real-world love and success.

  And who can blame them? Even after he’s been
transported to the thirty-first century, Fry’s lifestyle has him in a dead-end job, living in a closet, and covered (well, maybe not covered) in bedsores. Similarly, Quixote’s adventures result in him getting trampled, ridiculed, and pursued by authorities. It’s hard to imagine any sane person looking up to either of them as a role model, who advocates a life of fantasy over one of reality.

  There’s one instance, though, when Fry’s love of stories pays off, when he proves he isn’t crazy for living a life of fantasy. In Season Three’s “Parasites Lost,” Fry is infested with worms that make him stronger, faster, and more intelligent. These improvements all impress Leela, but the moment that really catches her heart is when Fry plays a piece he wrote for her on the “holophoner.” This oboe-like device has the power not only to make music, but also to make holographic images that correspond to the song, resulting in some of the most beautiful sequences of the entire series. It is, in essence, a tool of raw creative outlet. When words are too complicated and actions are too impractical, Fry uses the holophoner’s music and imagery to adequately express his love for Leela in a way she can understand.

  But Fry’s fantasy with Leela is dashed when he discovers the worms, and decides he would rather have Leela love him for who he really is, instead of loving him for the skills he has as a result of his worms. So, in the end, he rids himself of the worms, thereby, ruining his current chances with Leela.

  Fry is now at a critical junction in regard to his relationship to Leela. He can give up on Leela, or he can work even harder to win her love. When he tells Bender that he’s accepted Leela as a lost cause, it seems as though Fry chooses the reasonable action of giving up. However, as Bender hits the sack early so he can go parasailing with movie stars the next morning, we see Fry close the door, pull out his copy of “My First Holophoner,” and carefully sculpt a simple but recognizable approximation of Leela’s face. Rather than take this latest setback as a sign to quit, Fry takes it as one more obstacle to overcome as a way to prove his love. The lessons of persistence, overcoming obstacles, and seeking love are lessons we all should learn; even if it is from a “silly” TV show.