WestWorld: Fantasy Amusement Park
WestWorld is not your normal Disney Land. It is built for the rich and wealthy to have a futuristic playground to live out all of their fantasies and dreams. The park is looked after robotics "hosts" who play in different story lines around the park. Different people in the show come to do things that they cannot do in real life. Different people in the show are driven by things such as sex, love, power and survival. Throughout the show some hosts begin to remember their previous story lines through their subconscious and become more human than the playmakers ever thought and gain abilities that humans have. Overall, this show is a great example of psychoanalytic analysis because of how this show plays with the pleasure vs reality model. The hosts in the show are both driven by their own pleasure as well as repressed by the playmakers controlling their conscious. The humans that come to the park want to express their power in freedom while by acknowledging there repression of the hosts.
Great use of several psychoanalytic terms in analyzing this text. I love this show and am still unraveling some of the overarching messages in the show. A psychoanalytic critic could have a field day with this text.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of WestWorld, but I'm really interested in watching at least one episode of this show. For some reason, I am intrigued by the fact that they use an amusement park to bring about this plot. When I think of an amusement park, I think of thrill and adventure. From your post, I imagine they take thrill to another level and on an adventure where people wish to live another reality?
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