My Top 3 Most Autistic Episodes of The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone(1959) was definitely the reason why I decided to start writing. Before watching it (I believe my first episode was Maple Street in my senior psych class) I didn't know that there was a perspective within horror that could allow itself to be vehicled. A traveling experience that presses specifically on the literal mechanics and the inspiration behind the art; an inside-out-sweater, if you will. Nor did I think horror could exacerbate, or rather match the emotional states, of the consequential outcomes of having a plexiglass of ignorance be the lens for our sleep-walking participation and shut eyes in this society of numbness. Exploring our dissonance with this country's horrors, especially the ones as recent as the 20th century, was precisely the desire to create an anthropological, un-chronological string of chaotic stories. All tied together by the host's narrating claims, that what were experiencing is... the twilight zone.
~~~~~~(*Thunder, thunder*) (*Lightning, lighting.*)~~~~~~
the sociological implications are not just uncanny but very clearly specific: Rod Sterling, the original host of The Twilight Zone, originally, and successfully, implemented his vision for moral and radicalized messaging by vesseling horror/science fiction as a means to talking about the harrowing taboos, oppressively plaguing the global peoples. Topics of racism, prejudice, bigotry, capitalist paranoia, governmental greed, anti-semitist conspiracy theories, the Red Scare, the dangers of Western propaganda, and many more, challenged the censoring conditions of 1950s TV and found a way to tell the truth, in "unthreatening" metaphors. Jordon Peele, who was also the host of the reboot of The Twilight Zone (2019), has stated that speculative works, like The Twilight Zone, has been one of the inspiration behind his own socially conscious and honest storytelling. Other art forms that specifically reference our reaction to the horrors spilt on humanity are Star Trek, Black Mirror, and so many more.
Personally, I don't see why some episodes of The Twilight Zone can't hold two or more meanings at once; the beauty of the format, how delicately separate we feel from the universe on the screen, is to help bring forth the bile of criticism, lost in the pit of our stomachs, after spending most of our lives suppressing it. Being told that it is unpatriotic to hold the evils of your country by the throat of accountability and demanding the death to end. And I think it would be fascinating to introspect some of the ways we, as autistic people, can see ourselves and experiences expressed in this speculative function. Where disability, enters into the conversation between ghost and monkey. A town, paranoid of aliens. A monster, really a man.
Below I've listed my top 3 favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone and how some of the original messaging can be complemented with an added autistic interpretation! If you have more, please send me an email!
1. Mirror Image (Season 1, Episode 21)
The idea that you are the wrong "You". The notion that someone else could live your life better than you could is a diabolical and symbiotic marriage between Imposter Syndrome's harrowing grip on young people's growing (or regressing) levels of social self-esteem, along with the suffocating neurotypical standards that can plague both casual belonging as well as a more critical and delicate atmosphere of a 9-5 working culture - and what if you did it "so bad" that it could be taken away from you? Not just your financial security or your friends, but your literal foothold in life? That you, as a commodity, could be replaced with a new, more capitalistically attuned, and upgraded version of you? It's a frightening, paranoiac idea, that I think Mirror Image not only captures extremely well but could possibly show how this way of thinking is in fact not a nightmare but a real consequence that haunts every disabled person working in socially/physically/mentally demanding workspace. The pressure to feel like you have to "keep up" for fear of being replaced by a non-disabled coworker (or rather, just eliminating your position together) is terrifying. The image of "the next you" lingering over your head is almost as horrifying as having to justify your existence through work! *Shudder*.
2. Five Characters in Search for An Exit (Season 3, Episode 14)
This is just me and all my neurodivergent buddies just trying to figure out a problem; five people, sitting around a phone on the floor. All of decoding a cryptic message from a potential and future lover. Our shared and hyper-vigilant guesses fuse into one giant blob of opinion. Of belief, forming and rolling into an action. Our hands, feet, and mouths collectively dress and prep the chosen one for their date; limbs moving around them like the Once-ler's green arms from The Lorax. We wait anxiously, usually with snacks, to see if our collected efforts have brung forth success - and it does! We made it, team! Much like Five Characters in Search for An Exit having help from a group of self-proclaimed freaks is really the only way to get answers—the only way to really figure out what the hell is going on in this Twilight Zone.
3. The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street (Season 2, Episode 22)
When you're an undercover autistic, masking can feel a lot like the childhood games of Mafia or Frogger; such games I was always quite amazed at, if I could fix my face to look a little less "menacing". When I postured my body like the person next to me and pandered the same way they did with their innocence - couldn't be me, guys! And they would agree. Because I walked and talked like them. Because I brought seven outfits, tucked secretly in my sleep-away bag, just to make sure I could always, always be dressed for their eyes. Because I breathed at the rhythm they did. Because I sighed when they sighed, it couldn't be me. I couldn't be one because I was modeling the goodness they claimed to lay eggs deep in the nest of their hearts. But when it was gone. When I'd cough and the scotch tape on fake face would peel their grasp off my skin, only to reveal a neutral face, the line of my smile sloped down from boredom, I would find people's accusing fingers stretched onward in my direction. And when a night of games would roll over into the real moments of life, it would be the same, similar suspicion seen on Maple Street: A wariness to anyone posturing as neighbors. A familiar friendly face worn dubiously as a freshly new disguise; I find that neurotypical people obsessively look for themselves in others, not out of vain admiration, but for their stubborn and self-prophesied signals of safety. Thus, forcing anyone not of their likeness into a scratchy and strict costume. And we wear it! For we fear scaring away our loved ones like a small, little deer. Their head jerked up from hearing a snap deep in the woods.
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