Dimension

about these other cultures through their films, and
considered that enough.
And finally, the pop-cultural elements of the show are
all American. There’s no evidence of local or national
culture influencing how the non-American characters
view themselves or live their lives. The Kenyan sensate
idolizes Jean-Claude Van Damme (who is, granted, not
American, but known for his role in American action
films). The German sensate claims Conan the Barbarian
quotes as his personal philosophy. The Icelandic DJ
in London puts on 4 Non Blondes’ hideous anthem
“What’s Goin’ On?” and infects the entire cluster with
a dancing/singing jag. Where there’s no American
cultural lead — in Korea and Mexico, and even in
the Ganesh-worshipping Indian sensate’s life — the
characters’ life philosophies are a blank.
The Wachowskis take advantage of the apparent
international ascendancy of American pop culture to
unify disparate cultures, when the way American pop
works on non-western cultures is often counterintuitive
to Western minds. Sense8 also displays a profound
lack of recognition of local pop cultures even when
they would definitely have influenced such characters.
In the show, American pop is specific, non American
pop is generalized and clichéd, as in the Bollywood
dance, or entirely absent.
The universality being promoted here is a universality
of American ideas, American popular culture,
American world views. It’s like Stephen Colbert’s
idea of freedom of religion:
“I believe that everyone has the right to their own
religion, be you Hindu, Jew, or Muslim. I believe
there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as
your personal savior.”
If the entire show were an even spread of such thin
notions, I could dismiss the show, or even enjoy it as
as a guilty or problematic pleasure. But Sense8 has two
great counter virtues.
The first is in the depiction of the San Francisco
sensate, which is the best representation both of the
city and of that particular community that I’ve ever
seen on TV. Nomi, a trans woman, is first seen wandering
through a very locally-informed San Francisco
cityscape during Pride weekend. At every level, the
limning of Nomi’s character and the study of San
Francisco are intimate, layered, nuanced, and above
all, specific. Nomi doesn’t fall off a bike somewhere
in San Francisco, she falls off a motorcycle in the
Castro during the Dykes on Bikes parade, which she
rides in every year with her girlfriend, a gesture of
extreme importance to her identity. She doesn’t meetcute
her girlfriend in a random park; she remembers
The universality
being promoted here
is a universality
of American ideas,
American popular
culture, American
world views.
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