Roswell – Why You Should Care About Alien Teenagers
By Brian Ford Sullivan
Indeed why should you care about a television show that has aliens posing as teenagers?
The short answer is you should, but of course I wouldn’t need to write this if you did. The truth is that it’s very rare that something original is made on television. As much as I love the medium it’s bound to stay close to the status quo. New hits like “Judging Amy” and “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” while interesting in their own right are still nonetheless the status quo revisited. Cops and robbers; going home to reevaluate your life; we’ve been down these roads before. As nice as it is to revisit such things it is nonetheless a road travelled. It’s for these reasons “Roswell” is so special. It is a road not taken.
I don’t even want you to think of aliens or anything of that sort right now. I want you to think about your experiences growing up (or if you are still a teenager what’s going on in your life right now). Think about the loneliness you felt, the times when you just wanted to fit in for once, the heartache of unrequited love. We’ve all felt these things because they are universal to every one growing up. They are the moments in out lives we never can quite forget or outlive. They are memories that define who we are and what will become of us.
So what does this have to do with aliens? (I told you not to think about that yet.) Actually I was just getting to that. You see in the quest for originality on television, we’ve only begun to stumble on the power of metaphor. Generally confined to hard science fiction, metaphor was used to tell stories about ourselves involving groups of people vastly different from us. Shows like “Star Trek” and “Babylon 5” used these heavy-handedly to illustrate themes of everything from racsim to xenophobia to exploring dreams and fears. It was only recently that this storytelling method was brought out in a less overt form to the television landscape. In Joss Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” the themes of literally “high school is hell” and questions about identity, honour, and duty were dealt with in a show about a girl who hunts vampires and other undead creatures.
Sounds impossible doesn’t it?
As insurmountable as it sounds, it’s not. I mean think about it. What makes you pay more attention – a show that tells you what it’s about up front or a show that you have to read into? I’d take the latter anyday.
Now let’s jump back to when I was talking about your experiences growing up. Think about if someone told you about their experiences as a metaphor. I mean all the fables we listened to as kids were metaphors for experiences we would have. Why then does it not make sense to make the stories we listen to as adults metaphors as well?
Make no mistake this is no easy task. Shows that use fantasy or science fiction elements as a means to explore the human experience tow a fine line between alianating (no pun intended) the audience with something totally unfamiliar to them. That’s why it takes a special group of writers, actors and directors to pull it off.
Such a show is “Roswell”.
What’s so great about Roswell you ask?
Well here is an AMAZING article by Brian Ford Sullivan who answers that question much more eloquently that I can. 🙂 It was borrowed gratiously from Mr. Sullivan and no infringement is intended! 🙂
Found this on this page. It’s actually an old article, but it’s still valid. I still love Roswell. Sigh.
