"To exist is to survive unfair choices": "Tribal Ontology" in the Netflix Originals Series The OA
Sweeney, David (2020) "To exist is to survive unfair choices": "Tribal Ontology" in the Netflix Originals Series The OA. The Comparatist, 44. pp. 115-134. ISSN 0195-7678
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Creators/Authors: | Sweeney, David |
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Abstract: | In 2017, Vox journalist David Robert used the term 'tribal epistemology' – borrowed from anthropology – to describe a tendency for certain groups, in our current 'post-truth' environment, to trust information which is 'evaluated based not on conformity to common standards of evidence or correspondence to a common understanding of the world, but on whether it supports the tribe’s values and goals and is vouchsafed by tribal leaders'. In the Netflix Original series The OA (2016 -), Prairie Johnson – played by series co-creator and writer Brit Marling - is such a leader, however the knowledge she gives her tribe, that the universe is in fact a multiverse and that inter-dimensional travel is possible, emancipates them, even from her own leadership. Convinced of Prairie's claims, the tribe becomes focused on what Brian McHale calls 'problems of modes of being' (10) as does the series: Prairie may be an unreliable narrator. McHale identifies this preoccupation as a characteristic of postmodernist fiction which is distinguished from its modernist predecessor by a shift from 'an epistemological dominant to an ontological one' (10). Where tribal epistemology of the type Roberts identifies resolves problems of being and knowing by uniting them in a subjectivity guaranteed by what Max Weber termed 'charismatic authority', Prairie's tribe, each of whom has been disenfranchised from normative society, are given agency by the knowledge they acquire which empowers them to become more than mere followers, particularly when they start to doubt her. In Nietzsche's terms, they become who they are; as the series is set in a multiverse, this becoming involves engaging with multiple modes of being: a tribal ontology rather than epistemology. McHale, Brian, Postmodernist Fiction. London: Methuen, 1987. Roberts, David, 'Donald Trump and the rise of Tribal Epistemology', Vox [online], May 19th, 2017. |
Official URL: | https://doi.org/10.1353/com.2020.0007 |
Output Type: | Article |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | The OA; Brit Marling; Zal Batmanglij; tribal epistemology; ontology; Brian McHale; postmodern fiction |
Schools and Departments: | School of Design > Design History and Theory |
Dates: | Date Date Type 20 April 2019 Submitted 3 November 2020 Published Online 22 July 2020 Accepted |
Status: | Published |
Identification Number: | 10.1353/com.2020.0007 |
Output ID: | 6872 |
Deposited By: | David Sweeney |
Deposited On: | 29 Apr 2019 15:09 |
Last Modified: | 22 Mar 2024 08:07 |