(RNS) — My favorite way of celebrating the new year every year is to tune into the annual “Twilight Zone” marathon on Syfy. Because they center on unchanging human fears, foibles and vices, these shows never get old. At their best, they convey scriptural truth about human nature and the fallen world in ways one never forgets.
One of my favorites is Episode 42, “Eye of the Beholder,” which first aired in 1960. The episode considers, as the title suggests, the aphorism “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
When I teach aesthetics, I always begin with a discussion of this statement, which many take to be a mere statement of uncontestable fact. It is not. On the surface level, this episode of “The Twilight Zone” seems to affirm the idea that beauty is entirely subjective. But beneath the surface, the show asks more complicated questions. (Spoilers ahead.)
The show centers on a character named Janet Tyler who is introduced as she recovers in a hospital bed, her head entirely wrapped in bandages. Because of the bandages, we can’t see her face. Nor can we see the faces of the medical staff attending her as they are filmed with their backs to the camera or their faces in shadow. We learn Janet’s surgery is an attempt to repair her face, which she and the staff believe is shockingly ugly. Janet has undergone many procedures to try to make her look “normal,” but they have all failed. Upon the slow, dramatic removal of the bandages, Janet, the medical team and the viewers see her face for the first time. The face we viewers see is a face that conforms to Hollywood standards of beauty in every way. Janet is gorgeous.
Yet, upon seeing her own face in the mirror held up to her, Janet screams in horror and runs from the room.
Then the faces of the doctor and nurses turn toward the camera so the viewer can see them for the first time: Their faces are distorted, distended, animal-like and grotesque. Yet to them — and to Janet herself — Janet is the deformed one.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” indeed.
Or is it?
“The Twilight Zone” demands we ask ourselves that very question. Whose view of beauty is right? That of those who see Janet’s beauty as grotesque and themselves as “normal”? Or ours? How do we know which is right? Is there a right answer?
Whether or not beauty has objective qualities or is entirely subjective is as important a question to ask as the parallel one we would ask about truth and goodness. Is truth merely a matter of opinion? What about goodness? The Christian would firmly say no. Truth, goodness and beauty — although not always recognized or fully known — have objective qualities because they all originate in God. God is the source and definition of truth, goodness and beauty.
There’s a second aspect of this show that points us in this direction. The first hint of this other theme comes when the doctor tells Janet that because this is her 11th surgery, it is her last chance. Eleven is the maximum number of experiments permitted. The doctor explains, “You realize, of course, Miss Tyler, why these rules are in effect? Each of us is afforded as much opportunity as possible to fit in with society. In your case, think of the time and money and effort expended to make you look [normal].” Then the doctor explains that if the experiment is not successful, Janet will have to go live in a separate community with others of her “own kind.”
“A ghetto,” Janet clarifies. “A ghetto designed for freaks.”
The allusion to the ghettos — where Jews were consigned to live in the years surrounding the Holocaust — is intentional. Airing in the aftermath of World War II and in the early years of the Cold War, “The Twilight Zone” often confronted the threats of totalitarianism that loomed in a world undergoing rapid change. In such a world, fear and unrest lead many to desire an authority who will take charge, bring order, make the trains run on time, close borders, demonize those who are “other” and, in so doing, affirm our own sense of importance and security.
Rod Serling, producer of “The Twilight Zone,” was a decorated combat veteran, Jewish and known for his outspoken political views. He was anti-war, anti-fascist, anti-racist and anti-censorship. These themes emerge again and again in “The Twilight Zone” series, but almost always in ways that urge the viewer to ask important questions for themselves.
As Janet’s story unfolds, televisions in the hospital broadcast an address by a government leader. The leader’s words are those of a totalitarian dictator. They happen also to be words that are eerily similar to those circulating on social media today by advocates of Christian nationalism:
“Twilight Zone” episode “Eye of the Beholder,” written by Rod Serling. George Keymas portrays the he government’s unnamed leader. (Image by CBS Photo Archive)
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight I shall talk to you about glorious conformity … about the delight and the ultimate pleasure of our unified society. You recall, of course, that directionless, unproductive, oversentimentalized era of man’s history when it was assumed that dissent was some kind of natural and healthy adjunct to society. We also recall that during this period of time there was a strange oversentimentalized concept that it mattered not that people were different, that ideas were at variance with one another, that a world could exist in some kind of crazy, patchwork kind of makeup, with foreign elements glued together in a crazy quilt. We realize, of course, now, that … ”
The camera cuts away and the words fade. However, the new realization the leader begins to speak about is fleshed out in Janet’s story. In this world, it matters terribly that she is “different.” It matters so much so that she will be removed from society and forced to live with her “own kind.”
As Janet runs through the hospital hallway in a vain attempt to escape her fate as a permanent outcast, the leader on the television is heard continuing:
“ … I say to you now that there is no such thing as a permissive society, because such a society cannot exist! They will scream at you and rant and rave and conjure up some dead and decadent picture of an ancient time when they said that all men are created equal! … They permitted a polyglot, accidentbred, mongrellike mass of diversification to blanket the earth, to infiltrate and weaken! (Now he shrieks) Well, we know now that there must be a single purpose! A single norm! A single approach! A single entity of peoples! A single virtue! A single morality! A single frame of reference! A single philosophy of government! … It is essential in this society that we not only have a norm, but that we conform to that norm. Differences weaken us. … Conformity we must worship and hold sacred. Conformity is the key to survival.”
The viewer first recoils at this dystopian society’s upside-down standard of beauty. “Eye of the Beholder” asks us to think about where we get our standards of beauty in the first place. But more importantly, the show invites us to recoil even more at what they do with those who fail to achieve their standard.
The Christian knows that God offers sure and true answers. But what is the Christian to do in response to those who have different answers? Who don’t know the truth? That question was settled by the founders of this country when they wrote the U.S. Constitution and its First Amendment, but that foundation is being undermined by Christian nationalists who seek to “merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy.”
The original audience Serling sought to challenge were communist sympathizers and Cold War-era dictators and all who would fall for the false comforts offered by such. That challenge is recurring.
Janet offers timeless wisdom when she cries out to her physician:
“Who are you people, anyway? What is this state? Who makes up all the rules and the statutes and the traditions? The people who are different have to stay away from other people who are normal. The state isn’t God, Doctor.”
Today, those advocating Christian nationalism might heed Janet’s words.
