“Almost Human,” Race, Gender, Difference, and my 6-year-old Son

So, this morning I made the moderately irresponsible decision to watch this trailer for Almost Human while my 6yo and I sat eating breakfast:

Mojo’s description, and my interest in how sci-fi can help us explore racial tension, had me hopeful, but I ended up being sort of underwhelmed. It was awful gun-shooty, and I kinda have a policy about Violence, and it’s wonderful capacity to Solve All Our Problems.
Anyway, attracted by the gun shots and action, my boy leaned in to watch. When the trailer was over he went back to eating and reading, not saying anything. After a few beats it dawned on me that I really ought to ask what he thought of it; the trailer is pretty gun violent (which is a thing I’m not cool with), and the boy would know enough to know I felt that way. I doubted his silence signified a lack of opinion. So I asked him if he liked the trailer. He said yes. I asked why, and he said it was “interesting” (which, in and of itself, was interestingly noncommittal–you can always back-pedal from “interesting,” by insisting that you aren’t *endorsing,* just showing interest. I’m interested in the Holocaust–I’m downright *fascinated* by the Holocaust–but no one thinks I approve).
I asked what he found interesting. He said he didn’t know.
So we watched it again. “Is it the music?” I asked, “Do you like the music?” He said no, so we cut the sound. It was still interesting. In fact, it is the most interesting way to watch this trailer, it’s downright fascinating, because *every* thing you need to know about this show you can get just from the acting, the cutting, the framing, and the images themselves.

“So, what interests you about the pictures. Is it the action, the shooting?”
Yeah, that’s sort of interesting.
“What about the man. Is the man interesting?”
Yes.
“Why?”
Because he’s a boy and I’m a boy.
“So the show wouldn’t be as interesting if it was about a girl who was injured and then had trouble adjusting?” (aside: That show would *fascinate* me.)
No.
“Is the show interesting because he’s a police officer?”
He’s not a police officer. He’s a detective.
*smiles* “Yes, you’re right. That’s different, but daddy thinks of a detective as a kind of cop. But it’s different. Would the show be interesting if the man was a cook or worked in an office? Would you like that show?”
No.
“Would it be interesting if the man had a quieter cop job, if there was no shooting?”
No.
“What about his partner, the robot with the dark skin. Is he interesting?”
Yes.
“Would the show be as interesting if the robot was a girl?”
No.
“Would you be as interested in the show if the man had dark skin and the robot was white?” (aside: my boy is a pink colored human)
Yes.
“What if they were both white, or both dark?”
No.
“Why?”
It’s interesting because they’re different.
“What’s the man like? The white man?”
He’s . . . bad? Or mean.
“I think he’s angry, he’s upset that he was hurt and his life changed. It can be very hard to adjust, and he’s having trouble adjusting. What about the black man, the robot. What’s he like.”
He’s . . . nice? Or calm?
“Is he happy?”
No.
“Why not?”
I don’t know.
“He think that he’s unhappy because he doesn’t get treated fairly, because he’s a robot, and that’s different. Is *that* interesting?”
. . .
“Would the show be as interesting if they were reversed, if the white man was nice and the dark robot was angry?”
. . . maybe?
“What if they were both the same? If they were both nice or mean?”
It would be better if they were both nice. . . .
“Why?”
. . .
“Does the white man scare you, bud?”
Yeah.
“That’s OK; sometimes people are scary when they’re angry. But this show is still interesting, even though one of the men scares you?”
Yeah.
“Why’s the show interesting?”
Because they are different.

Anyway, so, that’s where we left off, with this weird little outline of how different is *too* different, and how little is not different enough. No huge revelation or realization here, but I needed a place to lay this all out because I’d tweeted about this conversation, and folks wanted details.


If there’s any takeaway here, it’s this: I remember seeing White Man’s Burden when I was a teen. It’s a clumsy, laughably earnest film–and I realized that even as I sat in the theater, alone, watching it–but even though I could see it’s ham hands clear as day, it still brought the visceral reality of race and racism home in a way that good classes and discussions and books and documentaries never had. It brought racism home to me in a way that *being a Jew for my entire life* never had. I left the film in sort of a daze, because it was all so stupid and obvious and cornball, and yet I was silently, invisibly enraged.
Let that sink in: A box office flop starring John Travolta somehow managed to activate my sense of Justice in a way that growing up among Holocaust survivors could not.
If I’d watched that trailer alone, I would have written off Almost Human entirely, just another ham-handed big-budget cringefest no different than that jankety-ass looking Sleepy Hollow business. But I watched it with my boy, and instead wonder about the weird–and often sinister–power that these things have in our lives.