Ecology in Jeremiah
Aug. 6th, 2010 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiI have now finished watching Jeremiah and will probably make a series of meta posts. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ewans_gal_4ever, I have also watched three episodes of Jericho.) I heartily wish I had gotten into Jeremiah fandom in its heyday. It looks to have been a very special fandom with a high degree of communication and collaboration between the producers and fans and also a lot of high quality fic (a lot that is high quality, not a lot of fic per se. I wish I could find more.)
I have really enjoyed this show. I want to state that clearly as I begin my meta foray with a certain degree of complaining about...
Ecological Discourse in Jeremiah
I have argued elsewhere that in Babylon 5 JMS does not show a great deal of interest in/awareness of ecological relationality. The ecological substrate on which the various populations of the B5 universe subsist is seldom at issue. For example, when G'Kar returns to Narn after it has been bombed by the Centauri, he remarks on the damage to the cities, the difficulty of breathing the dust. There is no mention of the virtually inevitable consequence of most of the planet's agriculture being wiped out and the massive hunger that would follow.
Jeremiah is a story that requires deeper enmeshment in ecological relations. It is about a post-apocalyptic world in which modern agricultural and natural resource infrastructure has been mostly destroyed. The series is certainly not oblivious to this fact. Throughout its two seasons, there are many references to farming, gathering, fishing, hoarding, stealing, conserving, bartering, begging, sharing, and rediscovering crafts and technologies. These realities are simply not embedded enough to create the effect they might have (should have) had. For example, one sees several instances of bartering, but there's little sense of the reality of people having to walk daily through life acquiring a constant stream of resources to barter, like squirrels searching daily for nuts.
Much of this is doubtless the nature of TV production. It moves fast and furious, and there's not much time for tacking down details. I appreciate this fact, all the more so since making my own indie film, which has more than its share of sloppy world building due solely to time and money constraints. It's easier to go to the Army surplus store than to systematically weather and patch and recreate a lot of Army gear.
One flub, however, I'm inclined to lay at JMS's feet because he did the same thing in B5: he does not seem very aware that gas is a non-renewable resource (in B5 he has monks centuries in the future remarking on how they got a gas engine going in the Earth's new dark ages. Really? Gas?) Granted, if 99.9% of traffic disappeared overnight, gas and oil would last a lot longer. But if essentially all oil and gas production ceased at the same time, would whatever stockpiles the US had really last for 15 years' worth of rather liberal driving Army trucks around the country? And even if it did, surely the watchword of every expedition would be conservation? Wouldn't people take horses when they could (ex. to nearby towns)? And with all the development Thunder Mountain is invested in, why isn't there at least talk developing electric engines, solar power, wind power, etc.? They may not have the wherewithal to have done it yet, but surely they must be aware of the looming necessity? And would there really be gas floating around freely in barter, outside of stockpiled resources like Thunder Mountain's?
Jeremiah, as it stands, presents a fascinating post-apocalyptic world. How much more fascinating it would have been if it had had the time and means to present that world with a Lord-of-the-Rings-like attention to details in the setting. Clothes should not look factory fresh, or by this point, factory made at all, with rare exceptions of hardwearing items like coats. Jeremiah's leather pants are awesome: they look like a garment from his world, cobbled together with big stitches and worn day-in and day-out for years. They must have taken a lot of hours to put together, from slaughtering the animal(s) to getting everything stitched and fitting properly. He probably paid a lot for them (I'm assuming he wouldn't steal them and I don't see him having the patience to make them). No wonder he wears them every damn day and will keep on wearing them until they fall apart at the seams.
The Thunder Mountain line of fashion, on the other hand, I don't buy, at least not without better explanation. Have they really stockpiled enough clothes to keep everyone in factory-fresh looking items for 15 years? I guess it's possible; I don't know what kinds of stockpiles major military bunkers have. But even if they have them, again, conversation: wouldn't the rule of the day be to wear things until they really are too worn to be workable before unpacking the next in an irreplaceable line of factory-produced, synthetic fiber garments? Wouldn't the good stuff be kept for special occasions, like when you do need to send out your army and want them best attired?
And jeans. Where is everybody getting jeans? That's an industrial garment if ever there was one.
The underlying principle is that things don't come from nowhere, and when an industrial society whose economy is based on factories, fossil-fuel-powered machines, and global exports and imports loses all of that, the shift in lifestyle will be radical and lasting. As in the nineteenth century, a large part of daily life will be comprised of cooking, sewing, washing, farming, etc. And with so much old knowledge lost, I would expect weaving/sewing to be relatively primitive. Most cloth would show a very large weave. The streets would be full of chickens and horses, the fields full of sheep. Everything would be patched and re-patched, mended and re-mended. Yay, for the patch on Smith's coat--all it takes is enough of this for it to look pervasive.
Jeremiah was well placed to make an important statement about ecological infrastructure. It didn't. But it is still a powerful universe for exploring post-industrial lifestyles, and I hope the fandom persists in a lasting, if quiet, way so that these rich veins can continue to be mined.
ewans_gal_4ever, I have also watched three episodes of Jericho.) I heartily wish I had gotten into Jeremiah fandom in its heyday. It looks to have been a very special fandom with a high degree of communication and collaboration between the producers and fans and also a lot of high quality fic (a lot that is high quality, not a lot of fic per se. I wish I could find more.)I have really enjoyed this show. I want to state that clearly as I begin my meta foray with a certain degree of complaining about...
Ecological Discourse in Jeremiah
I have argued elsewhere that in Babylon 5 JMS does not show a great deal of interest in/awareness of ecological relationality. The ecological substrate on which the various populations of the B5 universe subsist is seldom at issue. For example, when G'Kar returns to Narn after it has been bombed by the Centauri, he remarks on the damage to the cities, the difficulty of breathing the dust. There is no mention of the virtually inevitable consequence of most of the planet's agriculture being wiped out and the massive hunger that would follow.
Jeremiah is a story that requires deeper enmeshment in ecological relations. It is about a post-apocalyptic world in which modern agricultural and natural resource infrastructure has been mostly destroyed. The series is certainly not oblivious to this fact. Throughout its two seasons, there are many references to farming, gathering, fishing, hoarding, stealing, conserving, bartering, begging, sharing, and rediscovering crafts and technologies. These realities are simply not embedded enough to create the effect they might have (should have) had. For example, one sees several instances of bartering, but there's little sense of the reality of people having to walk daily through life acquiring a constant stream of resources to barter, like squirrels searching daily for nuts.
Much of this is doubtless the nature of TV production. It moves fast and furious, and there's not much time for tacking down details. I appreciate this fact, all the more so since making my own indie film, which has more than its share of sloppy world building due solely to time and money constraints. It's easier to go to the Army surplus store than to systematically weather and patch and recreate a lot of Army gear.
One flub, however, I'm inclined to lay at JMS's feet because he did the same thing in B5: he does not seem very aware that gas is a non-renewable resource (in B5 he has monks centuries in the future remarking on how they got a gas engine going in the Earth's new dark ages. Really? Gas?) Granted, if 99.9% of traffic disappeared overnight, gas and oil would last a lot longer. But if essentially all oil and gas production ceased at the same time, would whatever stockpiles the US had really last for 15 years' worth of rather liberal driving Army trucks around the country? And even if it did, surely the watchword of every expedition would be conservation? Wouldn't people take horses when they could (ex. to nearby towns)? And with all the development Thunder Mountain is invested in, why isn't there at least talk developing electric engines, solar power, wind power, etc.? They may not have the wherewithal to have done it yet, but surely they must be aware of the looming necessity? And would there really be gas floating around freely in barter, outside of stockpiled resources like Thunder Mountain's?
Jeremiah, as it stands, presents a fascinating post-apocalyptic world. How much more fascinating it would have been if it had had the time and means to present that world with a Lord-of-the-Rings-like attention to details in the setting. Clothes should not look factory fresh, or by this point, factory made at all, with rare exceptions of hardwearing items like coats. Jeremiah's leather pants are awesome: they look like a garment from his world, cobbled together with big stitches and worn day-in and day-out for years. They must have taken a lot of hours to put together, from slaughtering the animal(s) to getting everything stitched and fitting properly. He probably paid a lot for them (I'm assuming he wouldn't steal them and I don't see him having the patience to make them). No wonder he wears them every damn day and will keep on wearing them until they fall apart at the seams.
The Thunder Mountain line of fashion, on the other hand, I don't buy, at least not without better explanation. Have they really stockpiled enough clothes to keep everyone in factory-fresh looking items for 15 years? I guess it's possible; I don't know what kinds of stockpiles major military bunkers have. But even if they have them, again, conversation: wouldn't the rule of the day be to wear things until they really are too worn to be workable before unpacking the next in an irreplaceable line of factory-produced, synthetic fiber garments? Wouldn't the good stuff be kept for special occasions, like when you do need to send out your army and want them best attired?
And jeans. Where is everybody getting jeans? That's an industrial garment if ever there was one.
The underlying principle is that things don't come from nowhere, and when an industrial society whose economy is based on factories, fossil-fuel-powered machines, and global exports and imports loses all of that, the shift in lifestyle will be radical and lasting. As in the nineteenth century, a large part of daily life will be comprised of cooking, sewing, washing, farming, etc. And with so much old knowledge lost, I would expect weaving/sewing to be relatively primitive. Most cloth would show a very large weave. The streets would be full of chickens and horses, the fields full of sheep. Everything would be patched and re-patched, mended and re-mended. Yay, for the patch on Smith's coat--all it takes is enough of this for it to look pervasive.
Jeremiah was well placed to make an important statement about ecological infrastructure. It didn't. But it is still a powerful universe for exploring post-industrial lifestyles, and I hope the fandom persists in a lasting, if quiet, way so that these rich veins can continue to be mined.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-02 12:40 pm (UTC)Another thing I don't recall the show ever addressing was the terrible layout of most American towns (especially in the midwest), which are not meant to be lived in without some vehicular method of transportation. Apocalypse narratives are a golden opportunity to discuss varied issues of sustainability, and to the extent Jeremiah leaned into that, I am grateful. It's a shame they didn't do more.
I always headcanoned that (in addition to concocting a super-virus) there was a scientific breakthrough leading to some type of fuel preservative, because gasoline does not have a long shelf life. I never could come up with one for the costuming, and I'll have to pay closer attention to the topic on my next rewatch.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-02 02:48 pm (UTC)I'd love to see a shift toward shows paying more attention to the details of "reproductive labor," as in the nuts-and-bolts of activities needed to keep society functioning (food, clothing, shelter, raising kids), you know, "women's work." :-)
I was watching House of the Dragon the other day and contemplating Alicent's dress and how many hours it would take an embroiderer with medieval technology to produce that cloth. Astounding! Yet I can't think of a scene in the GoT universe where we see someone sewing.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-03 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-03 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-04 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-10 06:07 pm (UTC)To be honest, I don't remember much of those details from The Hobbit, a bit more from The Lord of the Rings, but I'm not surprised Tolkien did that well. He had a lot of military marching experience to draw on, in addition to just coming from an age that relied less on machines and stores to do things.