The series began with lies and ended with the truth. The first episode was full of lies, people lied both to others and to themselves. I talked more about this in a previous post of mine focusing on the dramatic irony in the episode. It all comes full circle during the final hearing in the finale when Valery Legasov gives his speech. Over the course of the series, he uncovers many truths and is able to piece together the entire story. The series begins with the immediate aftermath of the story that Legasov tells of how the power plant blew up, so by ending with the beginning we come full circle with the plot. However, because of Legasov’s explanation, we are not left right where we began, there is a clear progression, not in plot, but in truth. We don’t start at A and end at B, we start with lies and end with truth. This is one of the reasons that makes the series so compelling, its primary goal isn’t to tell you how Chernobyl happened, but rather why: a network of lies. In his speech, Legasov states, “Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth.” The show concludes with the payment of its debt to the audience, not money, but the truth.
Author Archives: Elias Little
My Neighbor Nostalgia
Many are familiar with My Neighbor Totoro, a classic Japanese anime film and one of the most popular. Pretty much anyone who is a fan of the genre has seen it. There are so many reasons to love it, whether for its imaginative, whimsical characters, its stunning animation, or for the feelings of nostalgic adventure, discovery, freedom, or so many others. For me, it gives me a unique sense of abstract nostalgia. There’s no particular scene, or event, or character that reminds me of something from when I was younger, but rather the emotions associated with childhood. There are so many wonderful things that we take more and more for granted as we grow older, and some things that we lose as we grow older like our childhood imagination. On the surface, the film appears like a children’s movie with cute playful characters that don’t talk and just fly around making magical things happen, but the film goes so much deeper. While it does give me that wonderful feeling of being a child again, it also reminds me of how much bigger the world feels at that age, and how powerless you feel compared to adults. It also shows me how seeming well-intentioned actions can end up causing others to stress and even anguish as a result. All in all, it’s a movie for all ages that provides endless wisdom and insight while feeling both extremely familiar yet in a world of its own at the same time.
The State of Outdated Team Names
After watching More Than a Word, which dissects the history of the Washington Redskins football team, it has been interesting to see how things have changed since that documentary was released in 2017. The past year, the Washington football team has actually removed the R-word from their name, going simply as the Washington Football Team, in addition just days ago, the Cleveland Indians have announced they plan to change their name soon. While both of these are long past due and should have changed decades ago, the fact that they are now willing to change on their own accord and not due to legal matters gives me hope that while so much has gone wrong this year that this is indicative of more change to come in the future. Even now there are plenty of fans who are upset with the name changes, and my hope is that now that the teams themselves have decided to change their names this will shed some light upon those fans who have refused any change so far. If these people start to realize how many people, including those whom the name is meant to honor, have found the names offensive then that could possibly lead to further change in other domains outside of sports team names and we could become a more respectful society overall. But who knows if these recent changes will have any greater impact outside of their own teams.
One of the Greatest Crimes
In the episode of Our Planet titled Forests, the second to last segment is about the forests and associated wildlife on Madagascar. It talks about all of the extremely unique life that can only be found on the island and concludes with the fact that only 3% of the original dry forests on the island remain today. This I think is the biggest tragedy of all. I recently read a phrase that said “throughout the galaxy wood is rarer than diamond” which is absolutely true and not greatly appreciated here on Earth. We should be working tirelessly to preserve as many species as possible, for extinction is one of the greatest crimes of all. I also recognize that many people are dependent on the supply of lumber for building, or heating their houses, among other uses, but even if there weren’t alternative solutions, there are certainly ways of sustainably logging. In the long run, this is also beneficial to all parties involved as plants and the animals that depend on them are still able to survive, and we can come back and use newly grown trees as a renewable resource rather than simply destroying the ecosystem in one fell swoop. Many people worldwide are already up in arms regarding this, but not nearly enough are. We should all be working to protect as many species as possible, particularly those that are incredibly rare and unique such as those that only exist in a single location, like Madagascar.
The Full Reach of Gang Injunctions
The short film Decolonize Justice – Bad Hombres spends some time covering the use of gang injunctions in Los Angeles, a tool used to combat the prevalence of gangs. Before watching the film I had vaguely known about these probably only reading brief snippets in headlines or in a sound bite from the news here or there. I’d always thought the injunctions were something that was unofficial, but had a term assigned to it. I essentially thought these amounted to police patrolling specific neighborhoods more frequently and shifting their attention towards possible gang activity. What this film taught me was that this is not at all what the injunctions are like. They are completely formal, signed off by a judge, and once it is signed off on for a particular gang, the police officers then get to decide which specific people they wish to enforce this upon, restricting them from certain activities. The restricted activities can be as mundane as two people being seen in public together. This gives police the power to restrict people’s freedom and liberties even if they don’t participate in any illegal activities. To me, this appears to be a gross overreach of power from police departments.
Ivan the Terrible and His Son in Chernobyl
In the third episode of the Chernobyl series, there is a scene in the Kremlin, which ends with the camera holding on to a painting that’s hanging on the wall. That painting is Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 painted by Ilya Repin. The painting depicts the moment after Ivan the Terrible got into a fight with his son and fatally hit him on the head. Ivan appears to be experiencing great grief as he holds his dying son. This painting is indicative of the episode as many of the characters are discussing the loss of life that will need to happen in order to clean up the disaster, which you can clearly see fills them with grief and sorrow for having to condemn these people to almost certain death. This is just the same as how Ivan the Terrible feels grief for an action he caused. This is also representative of much of the disaster aftermath in general. Initially, many of the politicians didn’t think it was a big deal and severely underplayed the gravity of the situation. This later caused even more troubles and caused many people a lot of harm that could have been avoided if it were taken completely seriously at the start.
The camera held on to this painting for a recognizable moment in order to give time for it to sink in as this happened just after it was announced that many more men would be needed to essentially sacrifice their lives in order to help with the cleanup effort. It was a subtle decision, but even if the viewer doesn’t know what the painting is or the history behind it, the imagery of it alone is enough to convey to the viewer the emotions being felt and the graveness of what is transpiring.
“The picture portrays a grief-stricken Ivan the Terrible cradling his mortally wounded son, the Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich. The elder Ivan himself is believed to have dealt the fatal blow to his son.”
Reflection on Chernobyl
In episode two of Chernobyl, we saw how knowledgable scientists and foreign countries reacted to the event, while many of the institutional politicians in Russia had actively been opposing what the scientists were saying. One of the most impactful moments to me was when news came in that officials weren’t letting children play outside in Frankfurt, and then the camera pans to schoolboys walking across a courtyard with the Chernobyl fire in the background. I share this brief summary as I think it wonderfully illustrates something so many people, companies, and organizations struggle with all the time: self-reflection. In addition, the initial lack of self-reflection on what had happened by the Russian government led to a stubborn nature that caused more harm than was necessary. It’s much harder to recognize one’s own failures than to recognize someone else’s. This is why Germany reacted to the news so much sooner and to such a greater scale upon hearing the news. A little self-reflection and objective view of the situation early on could have saved many lives, resources, and time. This is much easier said than done, however, especially for large companies or organizations where this is no single self, but rather a collection.
Grad-School Applications
Although I still have several years until I am actually going to be applying to grad school, learning about the process was invaluable. When applying to college in high-school I only really figured things out as they came up. Luckily, my school had amazing college counselors that helped everyone through the process, but I didn’t ever have a good top-down understanding of the process until it was over. This made some things extremely stressful as I would find out about some requirements without too much lead time. Luckily, everything turned out just fine and I didn’t miss any deadlines, but I certainly believe it could have been less stressful had I fully understood the process earlier on. Since I think there’s a good chance that I might go to grad school, I wanted to make sure I got that top-down understanding early on, well before actually starting the process. Attending a simple, no-stress event that quickly and clearly provided all of the pertinent information was exactly what I was hoping for, and was exactly what was provided. I think small events like this early on are extremely beneficial both to college students thinking about grad school, and high schoolers considering college.
Irony in Chernobyl
Last Friday we watched the first episode of the Chernobyl Mini-Series. What I found most interesting about this episode was its excellent use of tragic irony. Normally, people associate irony with verbal irony, which is usually of a comedic nature. The tragic irony is quite different. In essence its when the audience knows a situation is worse than a character realizes. Being a dramatization of a well known historical event, we (the audience) fully understand what is about to play out and the full severity of the situation. However, many of the characters in the episode consistently downplayed the unfolding events, either because they legitimately thought that was the case, or because they were so afraid of what would happen if it weren’t the case. As the audience, we fully know just how bad the event was, which pains us when we see many innocent people, even children, and especially workers at the plant that are extremely close to the disaster, and knowing just how much danger they are truly in. Dramatic, let alone tragic irony is not often used, and this was certainly a perfect place for it, despite the sense of horror it gave me.