A reality TV show with three unflappable hosts – Zainab Johnson, Sammy Obeid, Alie Ward – ‘100 Humans’ deploys a group of conscripts in scenarios designed to prove or disprove the truth of a range of notions. For example: are women better than men at multitasking? Or: are attractive people treated better than plain people? And: for most people does the toilet paper go over the top of the roll or underneath it?
The answer to such questions might seem obvious to you, but wouldn’t it be great to run tests to get conclusive evidence? The makers of this Netflix original show will set up a scenario in which all the participants are involved together or in groups or separately. A scenario might see the participants – each of whom wears a dark blue shirt that has a number on it – watching a comedy routine one of them performs and rating, on a piece of paper attached to a clipboard, how funny he or she is. Often the participants are unaware of the nature of the test for which they are being used. Some footage is selectively edited into the final cut, along with the results of each scenario plus interviews with experts.
Each of the eight episodes deals with several questions and uses several scenarios, and each is less than an hour long. That’s not an exceptional amount of time to cover a lot of ground. I was convinced by the findings produced at the end of each scenario but I’m no expert in test design or in statistical collection and analysis. If while watching an ep you worry about the relevance of any of the findings, consider how the experts brought onto the show accept them as valid.
The status of the specialist – a person with in-depth knowledge in a narrow field of study – has both come under attack in recent years and at the same time been bolstered. Your view on this will likely depend on what argument you’re dealing with and who you are. Donald Trump might say he wants to “drain the swamp”, and then put his cronies into positions of power, but on social media left-wing culture warriors laud experts of different stripes as they battle the forces of evil at home and abroad. The contest between the two teams is embodied in an exchange I saw on Twitter early on the morning of 9 April (Australian Eastern Standard Time). The first tweet, From Lawrence Glickman, and historian at Cornell University, came just after midnight and said:
So the idea of the expert is a contested one, but everyone has wanted to have recourse to one at some point in their lives. There’s even a scene in the 1977 movie ‘Annie Hall’ that uses this theme. As in that movie, the laughter in ‘100 Humans’ derives from gentle humour where, to bolster a sense of intrigue, between footage of the participants our hosts use subtlety and wit. The test at the beginning of ep 8, designed to gauge humans’ tendency to fall into a herd mentality, was particularly funny in the context of today’s public sphere, a place where everybody has a voice, and where they use it with enthusiasm. But the show doesn’t crash into your living room like a SWAT trooper. It knocks at the door then greets you on the threshold with a smile and a friendly jibe.
From time to time the filmmakers use stock photos set over narration in order to explain a point being made via the scenarios. At the end of each day the participants are gathered altogether in a room with a dais at the front. The room is filled with chairs. With recourse to a large wall-mounted TV screen, the hosts on the dais explain the results of the tests. Who knew that a mime could make dark chocolate taste sweeter?
Which is not all that surprises in this nerdy series. Running through it like a rainbow are the personalities of the participants, each of whom is different from the others even though they are all as imperfect and wonderful as any other person you might pick out walking on a crowded footpath. Saint or sinner, the viewer sees what a scenario reveals about each person. The show’s title and the numbered shirts – somewhat like those of a sports team – help to underscore commonalities and even though they look different and speak differently all participants, to some degree, have biases. It’s a paradox: the thing that unites us is how we make mistakes and how we use what we have learned in life to make decisions about the world around us. We are all unique but at the same time we all have flaws.
The show doesn’t really make good bingeing material; it warrants snacking but human no. 28 forms a recurring motif: his zany pluck has to grab your attention. It was no surprise to see him in the happy music room in ep 7, and in ep 8 nabbing the award for “most gentle”. I loved how the most unlikely people were able to surprise, as human no. 70 does in ep 4. I watched one episode daily and took special note of human no. 54 (“best all-round lab rat”), who regularly enlivened the screen with his provocative sideburns and cheeky grin.
The answer to such questions might seem obvious to you, but wouldn’t it be great to run tests to get conclusive evidence? The makers of this Netflix original show will set up a scenario in which all the participants are involved together or in groups or separately. A scenario might see the participants – each of whom wears a dark blue shirt that has a number on it – watching a comedy routine one of them performs and rating, on a piece of paper attached to a clipboard, how funny he or she is. Often the participants are unaware of the nature of the test for which they are being used. Some footage is selectively edited into the final cut, along with the results of each scenario plus interviews with experts.
Each of the eight episodes deals with several questions and uses several scenarios, and each is less than an hour long. That’s not an exceptional amount of time to cover a lot of ground. I was convinced by the findings produced at the end of each scenario but I’m no expert in test design or in statistical collection and analysis. If while watching an ep you worry about the relevance of any of the findings, consider how the experts brought onto the show accept them as valid.
The status of the specialist – a person with in-depth knowledge in a narrow field of study – has both come under attack in recent years and at the same time been bolstered. Your view on this will likely depend on what argument you’re dealing with and who you are. Donald Trump might say he wants to “drain the swamp”, and then put his cronies into positions of power, but on social media left-wing culture warriors laud experts of different stripes as they battle the forces of evil at home and abroad. The contest between the two teams is embodied in an exchange I saw on Twitter early on the morning of 9 April (Australian Eastern Standard Time). The first tweet, From Lawrence Glickman, and historian at Cornell University, came just after midnight and said:
The practice of repeating Trump's lies as news is so widespread that we barely notice it anymore. Like the live television coverage of his briefings, or the "Trump says (insert bs), experts disagree" framing, it's yet another way the media allows Trump to dominate the news cycle.This was retweeted by David Folkenflik, a National Public Radio reporter, who added a comment of his own: “There’s some truth to this. Unfortunately.” Both tweets were put in my feed at around 2am AEST by media academic Jay Rosen, whom I follow.
So the idea of the expert is a contested one, but everyone has wanted to have recourse to one at some point in their lives. There’s even a scene in the 1977 movie ‘Annie Hall’ that uses this theme. As in that movie, the laughter in ‘100 Humans’ derives from gentle humour where, to bolster a sense of intrigue, between footage of the participants our hosts use subtlety and wit. The test at the beginning of ep 8, designed to gauge humans’ tendency to fall into a herd mentality, was particularly funny in the context of today’s public sphere, a place where everybody has a voice, and where they use it with enthusiasm. But the show doesn’t crash into your living room like a SWAT trooper. It knocks at the door then greets you on the threshold with a smile and a friendly jibe.
From time to time the filmmakers use stock photos set over narration in order to explain a point being made via the scenarios. At the end of each day the participants are gathered altogether in a room with a dais at the front. The room is filled with chairs. With recourse to a large wall-mounted TV screen, the hosts on the dais explain the results of the tests. Who knew that a mime could make dark chocolate taste sweeter?
Which is not all that surprises in this nerdy series. Running through it like a rainbow are the personalities of the participants, each of whom is different from the others even though they are all as imperfect and wonderful as any other person you might pick out walking on a crowded footpath. Saint or sinner, the viewer sees what a scenario reveals about each person. The show’s title and the numbered shirts – somewhat like those of a sports team – help to underscore commonalities and even though they look different and speak differently all participants, to some degree, have biases. It’s a paradox: the thing that unites us is how we make mistakes and how we use what we have learned in life to make decisions about the world around us. We are all unique but at the same time we all have flaws.
The show doesn’t really make good bingeing material; it warrants snacking but human no. 28 forms a recurring motif: his zany pluck has to grab your attention. It was no surprise to see him in the happy music room in ep 7, and in ep 8 nabbing the award for “most gentle”. I loved how the most unlikely people were able to surprise, as human no. 70 does in ep 4. I watched one episode daily and took special note of human no. 54 (“best all-round lab rat”), who regularly enlivened the screen with his provocative sideburns and cheeky grin.
No comments:
Post a Comment