The Politician
I’m too old to be watching TV (or web) series. I think too much. My mind finds patterns in things which maybe aren’t there and I feel there’re many powerful undercurrents to “The Politician” on Netflix which makes me love it.
If you haven’t heard of it yet, it’s about this young man who’s tried to plot his course towards the US Presidency for as long as he can remember. He’s studied all the facets and requirements, he’s traced everything in common and he pursues his goal without qualms and seemingly without a conscience.
Of course there are scandals and affairs but that’s just details. But like I said, there’re undercurrents: His friends are his followers and supporters who believe in him. They’re moral relativists who act on utilitarian principles. They believe that he will change the world for the better and even he believes that, even though the path that they may take may be cobbled with brutal and indignant acts.
He prefers to not feel and act in accordance to his objective. His human side emerges once in a while and creates conflict. Of course there’s nothing new about that, but…
The Future
Between this and Daybreakers; a story of the post apocalyptic world where only teenagers have survived; a common theme of a lack of control over one’s destiny can be detected. We’re all scared for the future, especially those who’re younger. There’s a disconnect between the people who form the largest voter blocs, that is, the middle aged and elderly; and the younger ones, and the situation worsens everyday. It is evident not only with Greta Thunberg against climate change or students rising up against gun violence in the US, but even in seemingly unrelated tropes like the discord felt by the millions of unemployed or underpaid young people across the developing world (in my context: India). The future for them looks worse than it did for us, bad enough as it is. Their lives are being stolen right out of their pockets.
In that sense, both the series seek to speak to this discontent, with the children reclaiming their destiny in the fictional world, and trying to claim it in the physical one. In effect, their struggle for the future is the struggle of their generation.
The Heros that we Choose
When I was relatively young, I was fascinated by Lermontov’s “A Hero of Our Time”. It depicted a morally bankrupt individual on the outside, manipulating others just for fun. But there was evidence enough of his hollow and fearful interior in the book, and how his acts were a distraction not out of boredom but of true existential dread.
Lermontov wrote in the preface, that he bestowed the title not to exalt the protagonist, but to emphasize that it was such individuals we were choosing and worshiping. People who were good in looks, spoke well and could influence and manipulate other people. Those were the ones we looked up to and worshipped. That seems not to have changed in 170 years.
Payton’s friends cling to him because he’s their Hero. He’s photogenic/telegenic, he’s smart and well spoken, and he has ambition. They have chosen him just as well as countless others in the real world have chosen theirs, all in a similar vein, to control their destiny through him vicariously.
The Fear and the Sadness
However, what really catches me beneath all of this is how afraid they all are of not being meaningless. They could live ordinary lives with ordinary events and simple instances of happiness, yet they long for something more. They’re all dreadfully afraid of being meaningless in the vast ocean of time. What they really seek to do is leave a stamp on it somewhere, which exclaims that they were there.
When they don’t have that, they’re sad, even when they feel they should be happy. Even when things seem to be ok, there’s an appreciation that there’s something missing in their lives. I just can’t help sympathizing with that.
Or maybe I’m just projecting. Who knows!
