Friday, 30 October 2009

The Twilight Zone 1959 -1964

The Twilight Zone is an American television series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained fantasy, science fiction, or horror, often concluding with a maczbre or unexpected twist.
Twilights Zone's writers frequently used science fiction as a vehicle for social comment; networsk and sponsors who had infamously censored all potentially "inflammatory" material from the predominant live dramas were ingnorant of the methods developed by writers such as Ray Bradury for dealing with important issues through seeming innocouous fantasy.(William, 2008/2009)


Twilight Zone, Eye of the beholder; Season 2, Episode 6, 1906

Screen shot: The twilight zone, season 2, episode 6 1960


At this moment in the story the woman lying in the hospital bed is waiting to know the outcome of a surgical procedure to make her look normal.

A young woman is lying in a hospital bed waiting to find out if this last ditch attempt surgical procedure performed by the state to make her face look "normal" is a success. If the surgery is not a success then she must be sent away to live with her own kind out of society. The doctors and nurses strive to help this woman who is distraught by her own grotesque's appearance so she can live a "normal" life among them.

The woman, as she is revealed at the end of the story, is what we would consider a "beautiful person", yet in the twilight zone she is regarded as the ugly freak that must be either fixed or tucked away from society.

The young patient is well lit, but the doctors and nurses are either concealed by the shadows or their faces are obscured by objects, I believe there is more emphasis on this when certain remarks are being made, as if subtly pointing out societies views on appearance. Everything else appears as we would believe to be, the body shapes and behaviour appear to be as a humans would. Using the light and shadows creates this feeling of fear of being locked away and controlled, fear of a society strong enough to have the power to discard you if you do not fit with their criteria. There's also the feeling of the unknown, we the viewers do not know why the young woman is ugly, we know only that she is. The woman herself does not know if she will look "normal" and go on to live a happy life with in the society she wishes live in or if she will relocated to "sanctuary" for her kind.

Screen shot: The twilight zone, season 2, episode 6 1960


* Images from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMev5QQxs00&NR=1

William,2008/2009, home page, Twilight zoned. [Internet]
http://www.twilightzoned.co.uk/

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