Episode 93: Transcript
Episode: 93: Lucifer Is Our Therapist Now
Transcription by Keffy
Charlie Jane: [00:00:00] Welcome to Our Opinions Are Correct, a podcast about the meaning of science fiction and science and kittens and mushrooms but mostly kittens, I think. You know, kittens. I'm Charlie Jane Anders, I'm the author of a few books recently, a space fantasy book Victories Greater Than Death, a writing advice book called Never Say You Can't Survive, and an upcoming short story collection called Even Greater Mistakes.
Annalee: [00:00:26] And I'm Annalee Newitz. I'm a science journalist, and I'm the author of Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age.
Charlie Jane: [00:00:34] So today, we're going to be talking about Lucifer, both the show of that name and the mythological figure of that name. So Lucifer just finally came to an end on Netflix, but our love for Satan goes on—
Annalee: [00:00:47] Hail Satan!
Charlie Jane: [00:00:48] –forever. Hail Satan!
[00:00:50] So we just watched the final season of Lucifer and it confirmed our sense that this devilish procedural is all about the power of therapy. So we're going to be talking to showrunners Ildy Modrovich and Joe Henderson about the devil and the detective. And later in the show, we're going to talk about three important works about the Lord of Hell, two old movies, and one recent TV show.
[00:01:12] aAnd for those of you who are supporting us on Patreon, next week, we're going to have an audio extra talking about a couple of works of science fiction that deal with the afterlife in really interesting ways by Iain M. Banks and Philip K. Dick. And this is a good place to mention that if you support us on Patreon you can get just lots and lots of extra stuff including these audio extras every other week, which are basically like little bonus episodes.
Annalee: [00:01:36] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:01:36] Bonus episodes, you know.
Annalee: [00:01:37] You can talk to us on Discord.
Charlie Jane: [00:01:39] You can talk to us on Discord, we have a discord channel that's actually super active. All our patrons are in there. We're talking about you behind your back so you better be in there, so that you can see what we’re saying about you.
Annalee: [00:01:48] You can offer us suggestions for episodes.
Charlie Jane: [00:01:49] Right. So if you've supported us at a certain level, we solicit ideas for episodes, we solicit questions that we're going to answer in an upcoming episode. And you know, we also post discussion prompts once a week for all of our patrons and those can be reviews. Those can be things that we're obsessed with. Just you know, we're constantly in contact with you on our Patreon and this show is 100% supported by our Patreon supporters. It's a listener supported show we don't get… The devil doesn't bring us a briefcase of money no matter how many times we’ve asked him to.
Annalee: [00:02:19] It sucks. I know.
Charlie Jane: [00:02:21] I know. Even though we're doing a whole episode about the devil, he still isn't bringing in wheelbarrows full of cash, so.
Annalee: [00:02:26] No gold doubloons and little—
Charlie Jane: [00:02:28] No…
Annalee: [00:02:29] —horns on them.
Charlie Jane: [00:02:31] No evil lucre whatsoever. So we're entirely supported by you, our good listeners. And we're just so grateful to all of you who've stepped up and supported us on Patreon.
[00:02:41] So, with that out of the way, let's talk about our Lord and Master, Satan.
Together, hissing: [00:02:45] Satan!
[00:02:49] OOAC theme music plays: Drums with a bass drop and more science fictional bells and percussion.
Charlie Jane: [00:03:15] So we're so lucky now to be joined by Lucifer showrunners Ildy Modrovich and Joe Henderson.
[00:03:25] We love Lucifer. It's such a fun show. It's just so like endlessly delightful. And we're going to go ahead and spoil the ending in which basically Lucifer kind of becomes a therapist in hell. And that feels very fitting because I've been saying all along that I feel like this is a show about therapy. You know, you have Linda and also the thing where angels self actualize so their subconscious image of themselves determines how they, what their powers are, and how they look. And then your personal guilt is what dooms you to Hell, or lack of Hell, depending on how much guilt you have. Did you all talk about this? Did you think of this as a show that's about therapy?
Ildy: [00:03:58] It's kind of a larger theme, I guess. It's, we like to say it's about redemption. And that kind of, you know, we can, that sort of umbrellas the notion of therapy right? Or at least working on yourself.
Charlie Jane: [00:04:14] Right.
Ildy: [00:04:15] You know, it's also a show about forgiveness and, but not just forgiving others, like Lucifer forgiving his dad but forgiving yourself because he's the one who,
Charlie Jane: [00:04:27] Like in “Save Lucifer,” where he actually starts turning into his devil form, but he was saved when he says, I want to forgive myself.
Ildy: [00:04:34] Yes, exactly.
Joe: [00:04:35] It's so funny, because in the early goings, in season one, it was like, how much do we want to really use this therapy? Like, how does this, you're sort of exploring, like, how is this the device in the show? And as we move forward, we realized how invaluable it was to understand Lucifer. But then like, and I think to the point of the question, I think we started to realize how fundamental it was to the show to the point where it's almost like terrifying to think that we wouldn't have leaned into it in this way because it really is about self growth and introspection. And all of the things like that. That is so fundamental to the show, and therapy in general, but Lucifer’s relationship with Dr. Linda, is such a crux of so much of the storytelling and the thematics.
Charlie Jane: [00:05:23] Yeah, and I love that element, and I think that's just so fun. And I think it is the ingredient that redemption arcs need. Like if Kylo Ren got therapy that would be just, I would love that. That'd be so great.
[00:05:35] So follow up question. You know, one of the other ways that this kind of show feels really therapeutic to me is that Lucifer’s power unlocked people's desires. And we see over and over again, how he kind of sets people free to be their truer selves. He kind of gets them past some repression. Like that guy, we were watching the episode last night with the guy who wants to be a dancer, and then later we see him dancing in Lux, and like—
Annalee: [00:05:56] It makes me so happy.
Charlie Jane: [00:05:58] Yeah. So again, is part of the message of the show that repression is kind of unhealthy or that—
Annalee: [00:06:05] Evil?
Charlie Jane: [00:06:05] Or that embracing desire is actually part of the path to forgiving yourself and loving yourself.
Ildy: [00:06:11] Yeah, and I think it's also embracing being as honest as you can with yourself. I think that's, that's what I always took from Lucifer’s skill is, he's so honest, himself. Like with others, he's just not honest with himself.
Charlie Jane: [00:06:28] Right.
Ildy: [00:06:28] And I think that's, that that was the interesting, sort of complex little nugget about Lucifer. But what he does for others is kind of forces them to be honest. And not just about their desires, I feel like, but just about everything.
Joe: [00:06:46] Yeah, I think we live in a world where so many people are fighting their desires, and in doing so making themselves unhappy. And there is so much that, the truth will set you free. And the idea that like, sometimes some desires, should be embraced. And in doing so, all of a sudden, a weight is lifted off of you. And that idea that there's a freedom to that of— I mean, I think we all knew people and I'll speak personally. When I was in my teens to 20s, like, I was holding back a lot of desires when it came to hanging out with my friends. I didn't drink till I was 22. I was trying to be good, trying to be on the right path. And then I realized I should actually have fun, and let loose a little bit and let go. And you watch these people bottle all of those desires up, and then grow resentments and negativities when it was like, oh, just be your true self. It's okay. You'll be loved.
Annalee: [00:07:45] Yeah, that's so interesting. I wanted to ask, again, kind of following up on this question of repression about, I mean, really about the question of evil. Because we are talking about Lucifer, and I wonder if you guys do think about the idea of repression being connected with evil. Is that part of what's going on here? Or is that kind of orthogonal?
Ildy: [00:08:08] It's funny, because while we were talking about letting loose our desires, and you know, being loved, you certainly could unleash something dark and sinister as well.
Annalee: [00:08:18] Right.
Charlie Jane: [00:08:18] Oh, yeah.
Joe: [00:08:18] Mm-hmm.
Charlie Jane: [00:08:19] I mean, you know, somebody’s main desire is to murder.
Ildy: [00:08:23] Right.
Annalee: [00:08:23] Yeah, that's true.
Charlie Jane: [00:08:24] Children or whatever. That’s obviously, don't embrace that desire.
[00:08:27] [Laughter]
Ildy: [00:08:30] But yeah, I think that that’s something also we talked about a lot, especially with turning hell into a rehab center.
Lucifer Clip: [00:08:37] Reese: I don't understand. Every time I go through my Hell loop, I keep making the same mistakes.
Lucifer: Well, that's because you're avoiding your guilt, Reese. You need to confront it. You all do.
Reese: I don't know. I'm telling you, no matter how hard I try, it feels like I'm destined to make the wrong choice.
Lucifer: Ah. The old fate versus free will debate, my favorite. But you see, fate is just a result of the choices that you make.
Reese: Do you really think it's possible to change?
Lucifer: Of course, I mean, look at me. For millennia, I was down here stuck in my own Hell loop of sorts, thinking I deserve to be in charge of people's punishment. And then even when I left, I found myself in a cycle of selfishness and violence, debauchery, sex. Yeah, I, mean, clearly, it wasn't all bad. But the point is, that with the right guidance, and the right help, I was able to change, to grow, to find true meaning in life.
Ildy: [00:09:37] We kind of told ourselves, you know, not everybody is going to be worthy of redemption. Let's just, I mean, we—
Annalee: [00:09:41] Yeah.
Ildy: [00:09:44] We say that. We say if the devil can be redeemed, then so can you and the possibility is always there. But you have to, that person, as we've said over and over again in the show. They have to want to, right? They have to want to be better and honestly, truly, inside. Way, way deep down. So that's it's kind of all up to up to the person,
Charlie Jane: [00:10:07] our show always felt like it was kind of in conversation with The Good Place a little bit. And the ending of your show feels like it complements the ending of The Good Place really beautifully. Like they're they don't feel like they're the same ending but they feel like they're complementing each other.
[00:10:20] So I'm wondering like when you saw the, assuming you did see the final episode of The Good Place where they kind of have a thing where they turn Hell into, or the Bad Place into a therapeutic venture. Did you sort of think feel like that you were on the right track? Or did you feel like that was something that spoke to what you were trying to do?
Joe: [00:10:38] You know, it's funny, because I've watched all The Good Place, and Ildy correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve only watched a little bit, right?
Ildy: [00:10:44] That’s right. I watched a little bit of the first season and kind of fell off. But no, I have not watched it. And I have not watched the end.
Joe: [00:10:54] But I have and I think one of things that was helpful is I knew what they'd done and Ildy didn't. And so what's kind of nice is that, like, I was aware of steps they taken so that we didn't mirror too much. Because this was a path we’d decided on before I'd seen where they ended. But also Ildy didn't know and so we had the mixture of the raw storytelling we wanted to do, but also sort of me making sure that we weren't overlapping too much with them.
Annalee: [00:11:21] So I wonder if, was there ever a version of your show where God was a lot more monstrous, sort of kind of a His Dark Materials version of God? I just wondered, were you thinking of like a New Testament God or an Old Testament God? Were you kind of thinking about can we make him a little bit more of a dick? Or not.
Ildy: [00:11:44] I think he, like everybody, every other sort of celestial character, we wanted to make as human as possible. So we wanted to make sure he was his own person and with his own flaws, even though he's God. But it was funny, because it was it was a big part of our conversation, when we were writing him, to also keep him a little bit better. Like a little bit aspirational, I think. For the rest of us, a little… To maintain a little bit of that mystery, despite his human frailties that we also gave him.
Charlie Jane: [00:12:26] Yeah, so one thing that Annalee and I were talking about is this notion of, we're told in the show that Hitler’s in Hell. We're told that Trump is definitely going to Hell. And you know, various other horrible people throughout history are definitely in Hell. But what if Hitler didn't feel guilty for the things he did? Why is he in Hell if he didn't feel guilt? If he thought—
Annalee: [00:12:44] Yeah, what if he was like, dude, this is what I always wanted to do.
Joe: [00:12:49] We, it's funny, we had a long debate over that. And in our canon, the thinking is that even those people who are sociopaths, with no sense of guilt upon going down to Hell, that guilt does get drawn out of them. So sociopaths do not go directly to Heaven. The demons will find a way to make them feel the pain and guilt, even if they, on earth, were able to avoid it.
Ildy: [00:13:15] Remember, when Lucifer whispers into Lamech’s ear? That was what we kind of decided he said to him.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:24] Oh, right?
Ildy: [00:13:25] It isn't in so many words, he lifted, whatever barriers or sociopathy he had, so that he would finally feel all the guilt.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:38] Right. Because later, he's like, I can't make it stop. I can't shut out the voices.
Joe: [00:13:41] So hopefully, that's what's happening to Hitler, too.
Ildy: [00:13:43] Yes. And Donald and all of them.
Annalee: [00:13:48] Yeah, totally.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:47] Oh my God, yeah.
Annalee: [00:13:49] No, I love that idea that they go through a moment where they kind of get their guilt reinstalled, and then they have to go through their punishment. Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:59] And maybe it is a form of repression. Maybe they've been repressing the guilt the whole time. Maybe that comes back to that idea.
[00:14:04] So I mean, one of the tropes in the early seasons of the show is that Lucifer keeps saying that doing police work is an extension of what he used to do in Hell. That he is punishing people and that that’s what he does. And obviously, as the show goes on, he starts to question that. And, you know, meanwhile, obviously, in the final season, you're pushing towards, like more of a Black Lives Matter approach to policing, particularly in that one episode with Amenadiel.
[00:14:29] And I'm wondering, with Lucifer turning Hell into a rec center or rehab center. Is that kind of a comment on our carceral state on how we maybe should be thinking about crime differently or because it does kind of come back to that in away?
Joe: [00:14:42] I mean, yeah, I think we shifted from police work to social work. I think that's something that we really embrace. It's something that we had to face in the room and I don't know how much we'd.. It's funny. It's not funny, but it's interesting because we we were always headed in this direction before Black Lives Matter. But when the summer of George Floyd’s murder happened, it really forced us to reevaluate things. And I think the concepts that we've been playing with dovetailed with what was happening, but I think we sharpened them. I think it forced us to refocus it and look at the path we’d already got been going on, and make a lot of the sort of more subtler themes more overt, and really dig into it. Because we were headed this direction. But being able to speak to, for one thing, the copaganda that exists in TV, the copaganda that we were a part of, and try to take a look inward, and speak to it and dramatize it was really important to us.
Ildy: [00:15:43] Yeah, if I could add, I feel like it sort of fits into our earlier conversation about Lucifer’s skill set of bringing out people's desires. And that you can almost say that he started off thinking, Well, I'm the punisher. That's how he saw himself. But then by the end, you can say, no, he was finding the truth. He was a truth seeker.
Charlie Jane: [00:16:06] Right.
Ildy: [00:16:08] And, you know, that's, he’s the Light Bringer. That’s what Morningstar, right? So I feel like that should be what is always behind law, and law enforcement, is finding the truth. And I think that's what we were saying, hopefully, by the end. Hopefully, that came across.
Annalee: [00:16:27] Definitely. So as sort of bigger question about the context of the show, which is just why do you think we have so much pop cultural obsession about Satan? Like, Charlie and I kept talking about this the whole time we were watching the show is like, is Lucifer a rebel, a liberator? Is he part of our alienation from religion? Like, what? Why is Satan so popular?
Joe: [00:16:54] I think there is just something fascinating about taking the concept of evil and evaluating it from every angle. And I think, for one, it's just, it's a good thing to be pushing up against. But I think for us, what was nice is taking a cliché and turning it on its head. Taking something that is so representative of one side and shifting it and that subtle shift from evil to desire, from darkness to light. There’s just, there's all those thematics to play.
[00:17:23] And I think, listen, you want to go for representations of evil, you either take the half steps or you take the big swing, and I think in taking the big swing and going for the devil himself, you get that chance to go, okay, what if you don't understand the worst. If you don't understand the very worst thing out there, what does that say about everything else? And to me, that's what was, as the person who came on to Lucifer after the pilot, that’s what was so fascinating. Is, what if the devil is as misunderstood as everyone else? And all of a sudden that just unravels everything?
Ildy: [00:17:58] Yeah. It's funny, though. There's a lot of people who were not pleased with—
Charlie Jane: [00:18:04] I know.
Ildy: [00:18:03] Like, the Million Moms. Uh, by the way, not a million.
Charlie Jane: [00:18:10] Slight misnomer.
Annalee: [00:18:10] A few hundred moms.
Joe: [00:18:13] Yeah.
Ildy: [00:18:14] No, but we, there were people who actually wouldn't work on the show at first, especially because they're like, oh, this glorifies the devil. That's not you know, that’s not. That ain't good. You’re glorifying evil, or you're making it romantic. Or, he's sexy. And it's like, no, that really wasn't our intention, obviously. We wanted to, yeah, it's to take the least celebrated person, although you're right, there is, I get, you know, a fascination and obviously people who worship and get tattoos that are the devil. And, you know, there’s, it's the mascot of little soccer teams.
Charlie Jane: [00:18:52] Right.
Annalee: [00:18:52] Mm-hmm.
Ildy: [00:18:53] [Crosstalk] But our intention was to take the biggest villain and find what was good in him, redeem him.
Charlie Jane: [00:19:07] I mean, he ruins eggs. That's all you need to know about him. Sorry. Sorry, that was terrible.
Joe: [00:19:12] By the way, hard to disagree. This conversation’s over.
Charlie Jane: [00:19:19] I’m team thousand year old eggs, thank you very much.
[00:19:22] Yeah, so final question, because I know we got to let you both go. But final question is just about the queerness of the show, because we talked about repression. And we talked about like the kind of how a lot of our problems and a lot of our alienation stem from repression. But one of things I love about the show is how explicitly queer it is and how Lucifer always finds these little ways to remind us that he's pansexual and that he… Just, you know, that one episode where he talks about how he's the skillet who flips straight guys, which I just love that line, and you know, Oscar Wilde was straight until he met me. And it's just it's delightful and you've got obviously Maze and Eve in the final season, or in the final couple seasons.
[00:19:59] Was it important to you to kind have that element and did you have queer voices in the room? And did you feel like you had queer fans who were excited about this?
Ildy: [00:20:06] Definitely. I mean, it’s, not only did we have queer voices in the room, but my daughter is pansexual. Joe's brother. I mean, we, I think that is such a lovely part of what's happening right now, not just with Black Lives Matter, but with just seeing more representation in general on TV. Being able to watch TV and see yourself and go oh, there I am, finally. And we just wanted that and if Lucifer is about desire, if he's about honesty, we decided really early on, wasn’t it Joe?
Joe: [00:20:43] Very early, yeah.
Ildy: [00:20:44] Very early, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe: [00:20:46] And we thought we get more pushback. And fortunately, we didn't. And listen, we didn't dramatize it as much as I think looking back, I wish we had. I think, but also I was surprised when we were able to have Lucifer in bed with I think, a man and a woman in episode three of season one, like we were shocked when we got away with it.
[00:21:08] And obviously, we implied more than we showed. And I think as shows move forward, hopefully we continually get away from that or move towards being able to dramatize moments like that. That's something that I think is important moving forward. But yeah, it was very important to us and fun. It was nice to be able to depict that and show that and normalize it.
Charlie Jane: [00:21:31] Yay.
Annalee: [00:21:31] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:21:32] Well, cool. Thank you so much for taking so much time to talk with us. I know you're both very busy. Thank you so much. And—
Annalee: [00:21:37] Yeah, thanks.
Joe: [00:21:38] Thank you guys.
Ildy: [00:21:38] [Crosstalk]
Annalee: [00:21:38] Thanks for the show. We love it.
Ildy: [00:21:41] Oh, thank you.
Joe: [00:21:41] Thank you.
[00:21:42] OOAC theme music plays: Drums with a bass drop and more science fictional bells and percussion.
Charlie Jane: [00:21:44] Coming up next, we're going to talk about three very important works of science fiction and fantasy that deal with Satan.
Annalee: [00:21:57] If you're enjoying Our Opinions Are Correct, there's another podcast I think you'll want to check out.
Charlie Jane: [00:22:02] News and culture shows aren't made with trans folks like us in mind and trans voices are routinely left out of the conversation even though stories about us are everywhere.
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Charlie Jane: [00:22:18] Imara Jones is a Peabody and Emmy Award winning writer. She's also a Black trans woman and a journalist. And Imara understands that telling our own stories and having a voice in the conversations that affect us will save trans lives.
Annalee: [00:22:34] So if you're trans and want to show made for you, or you're an ally who wants to learn more, you should definitely tune in to The TransLash Podcast. You can hear a new episode every other Thursday
Charlie Jane: [00:22:44] Subscribe to the TransLash Podcast, wherever you're listening to this right now.
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[00:23:34] OOAC theme music plays: Drums with a bass drop and more science fictional bells and percussion.
Charlie Jane: [00:23:40] As we just kind of discussed with Ildy and Joe, Satan is such a huge pop culture obsession and you know, I did a little deep dive. According to IMDb, there have been 369, there should have been 666, really, but 369 movies and TV shows about Satan in the past decade, which is up from like 147 in the 1990s and we all know that IMDb is infallible. So this is just a fact.
Annalee: [00:24:03] Mm-mm, yes.
Charlie Jane: [00:24:03] We’ve had double Satan in the last decade.
Annalee: [00:24:04] There's no problem with data gathering and IMDb. But—
Charlie Jane: [00:24:09] Yeah, so—
Annalee: [00:24:09] I do think we are living in a more satanic time—
Charlie Jane: [00:24:10] We are living in a—
Annalee: [00:24:12] It rings true.
Charlie Jane: [00:24:13] —golden age of Satan. And obviously there's a lot of reasons for that which we're going to get into. But Lucifer started airing at the same time as a show called Damian. And there's been just so much pop culture in the past decade or so that deals with Satan or demons or Hell. Supernatural ended up being all about that The Good Place, which we already talked about. The book Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. Obviously Good Omens, which we're going to talk about. Legion, Drive Angry. And there's a novel called The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune, where the Antichrist is a character.
[00:24:43] So basically, we are at peak Devil right now. And you know—
Annalee: [00:24:47] Mm, it feels good. It’s nice and warm.
Charlie Jane: [00:24:48] It’s nice and toasty. And so we're going to talk about three major works that deal with Satan. And the first one, I'm going to ask you about, Annalee, which is basically the movie Quatermass and the Pit from 1967, and I know that you have a history with that movie. So tell us about that.
Annalee: [00:25:05] Sure. Yeah. So I was first exposed to that movie as a kid. There was a British TV show in the ‘50s called Quatermass. And there was a miniseries that was Quatermass and the Pit. And that got squished. That six hour miniseries got squished down into like a hour and a half movie called Five Million Years to Earth, which is very cheesy. And saw it when I was a kid, my dad told me it was the scariest movie he'd seen when he was a kid. So it was kind of legendary in our family.
[00:25:34] But let me tell you a little bit about the movie. The 1967 version is just an updated version of the TV show from the ‘50s. And Quatermass and the Pit is about an excavation in London. They're trying to dig a new tunnel for the Underground and they discover a buried spaceship there. And there's—
Charlie Jane: [00:25:54] Like you do.
Annalee: [00:25:54] Like you do. And you know, the military is arguing about it. And there's an archaeologist there who wants to study it. And they bring in Quatermass, our hero, to figure out what's happening. And he's kind of a doctor figure from Doctor Who. And he figures out it's this kind of psychic spaceship that has been influencing humans for millions of years, and maybe tinkering with our DNA at the dawn of humanity. And once the ship is unburied, we discover that it has this ability to awaken humans’ latent ability to be telekinetic and move objects around with our minds.
[00:26:38] And then it begins filling people's heads with images of an ancient war on Mars. And people on earth start making war on each other and trying to kill people who are different from them. And that's what Quatermass has to figure out how to stop.
Charlie Jane: [00:26:54] How does Satan come into this?
Annalee: [00:26:55] Right. Here's where Satan comes from. So the aliens in the ship are insectoid, and they have little antenna on their heads that look kind of like horns, they look, once they pull them out of the ship. And these are, of course, ancient alien bodies that are kind of desiccated, but they look like, it’s actually pretty good effects, even though they're also kind of Doctor Who-like effects. But they look like locusts. And they realize, the scientists, Quatermass, the archaeologist, realize that humans have this kind of species memory of these creatures with these horns, kind of forcing them to do things and punishing them.
[00:27:35] And so they surmise that our ideas of Satan and demons come from these ancient aliens. So it kind of fits into the like Chariot of the Gods, ancient aliens set of stories. And as the humans gain more powers from the spaceship, their combined mental energy causes this massive flame to rise up over the Underground station, and it takes the shape of Satan's head. And it's like, it's one of these aliens, with the horns. But when it's kind of outlined, it looks like Satan.
Quatermass Clip: [00:28:10] It’s the devil! The horned devil! Don’t look at it! Over there!
Charlie Jane: [00:28:23] And in fact, the resolution of the film depends on Quatermass and this archaeologist character, kind of studying the lore about Satan and what Satan's weaknesses are and using that to theorize about what they can use to defeat the aliens.
[00:28:37] So it really comes full circle and I have to say this is part of a whole tradition in science fiction of aliens who are mistaken for Satan, aliens who came to earth a long time ago and are the inspiration for all of our legends about Satan.
[00:28:52] You know, Doctor Who has a whole story about this. Star Trek, I think in the animated Star Trek they meet Satan and he's an alien. Star Wars has a species who are all look like Satan, and they're called the Devaronians. Never change, Star Wars, never change.
Annalee: [00:29:07] Never change.
Charlie Jane: [00:29:08] And you know, Arthur C. Clarke, obviously, in Childhood’s End, there's aliens who look like Satan.
Annalee: [00:29:11] It's in Stargate too, Stargate is another kind of ancient alien, demons from beyond space and time kind of a narrative.
Charlie Jane: [00:29:18] So bringing it home, you mentioned that there's all this fascist imagery with, basically, we see these aliens marching in this very Nazi-like way and rounding up people who don't belong and basically sending them to camps or exterminating them. And we now see this being reenacted with humans. Why does a satanic figure feed so well into this fascist idea?
Annalee: [00:29:43] It's a great question. And I think that this story in particular, you know, coming in the wake of World War II, is trying to ask the question of “Why are people evil?”
[00:29:54] And it was something that many scientists were trying to puzzle out after World War II. Why do otherwise friendly, nice people become fascists and allow themselves to be swept up in the hatred of people who they don't even know. Just because they seem a little bit different, or neighbors turning on each other. And, the film basically wants to give us a scientific explanation, which is that there's just this thing buried in our memories, put in there by aliens. It's not our fault the aliens brought it.
[00:30:27] And it's almost like it's a cycle of historical trauma that stretches all the way back to this million year old civilization on Mars, or I should say, five million year old civilization on Mars, where they had their own fascist regime that was causing them to kill each other. And in fact, did wipe them out. So we know that in this lore, Mars has been destroyed by fascism. And we've inherited that and it's something that's built into us. And there's no, it's so interesting, the end, spoilers for a very old film. At the very end of Quatermass and the Pit, they've defeated the alien force and people are no longer telekinetic, and they're all kind of wandering around going, whoa, what just happened.
[00:31:13] But we see Quatermass and one of the scientists, a woman who's been working with the archaeologist standing outside the Underground entrance, and they're just staring into space, like, just with these looks of trauma on their face, like nothing—
Charlie Jane: [00:31:31] That’s the whole credit sequence is just them looking like, “What the fuck?”
Annalee: [00:31:35] Yeah, and it's like, I think that the implication is strongly that this isn't over, this isn't solved. This is one battle in a much longer struggle, and that they're just kind of reeling from the trauma. And it's gonna be back, the spaceship isn't gone. The part of our minds that makes us want to do evil to each other isn't gone. And there's no solution other than just try to smash it down when it comes up.
Charlie Jane: [00:32:03] So in this version, basically, Satan is harnessing our worst impulses and using them to turn us into monsters, turning us into killers.
Annalee: [00:32:12] It's interesting because Satan isn't a fascist dictator. And you'd think that that would be the metaphor that they'd be going for, that they'd be like, oh, well, the reason why Satan is here, is because Satan is Hitler. But actually, Satan is the spirit within all of us that turns us into the foot soldiers in someone else's war. And it's very literally someone else's war, it’s the frickin’ Martians back on Mars, it’s their war.
[00:32:41] And so I think that's part of why it ends in this really ambiguous way. Because you can't kill that. You can kill Hitler, but you can't kill the thing in all of us that makes us want to love Hitler. And that makes us want to be part of the ingroup at the expense of the outgroup. So yeah, I think that that's, Satan is the thing in all of us.
Charlie Jane: [00:33:06] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:33:09] And so another great work of SF and fantasy that I wanted to talk about is also from the late ‘60s it's the movie—
Annalee: [00:33:14] Also a British film.
Charlie Jane: [00:33:16] Also a British film from from right around the same time, in fact. The movie Bedazzled, starring Peter Cook, and Dudley Moore, and we shall not speak of the remake with Brendan Fraser, that’s just—
Annalee: [00:33:24] Yeah, no.
Charlie Jane: [00:33:26] We’ll just pretend that doesn’t exist.
Annalee: [00:33:27] Even if you're a completist, you don't need to see it.
Charlie Jane: [00:33:30] No, it's, yeah.
Annalee: [00:33:30] So tell us about Bedazzled. So Bedazzled is a little bit more contiguous with Lucifer in terms of how it portrays the devil, Peter Cook makes Satan into a very sympathetic figure who has been punished by God. He's clearly a tool of God's kind of domination.
[00:33:49] There's this great moment early in the film, where Satan explains to the human character Stanley, played by Dudley Moore, why he rebelled against God. And he's basically like, he gets up on top of a mailbox and says, “Okay, I'll be God. You be me. Dance around praising me. And that's all you ever do in heaven.”
Bedazzled Clip: [00:34:06] Lucifer: This is my throne, see? All around me are the cherubim, seraphim, continually crying “Holy, holy, holy.” The angels, archangels, that sort of thing. Now you be me, Lucifer, the loveliest angel of them all.
Stanley: What do I do?
Lucifer: Well sort of dance around praising me, mainly.
Stanley: What sort of things do I say?
Lucifer: Anything that comes into your head that's nice. How beautiful I am. How wise I am. How handsome, that sort of thing. Come on. Start dancing.
[Music plays]
Stanley: You're wise. You're beautiful. You're handsome.
Lucifer: Thank you very much.
Stanley: The universe, what a wonderful idea. Take my hat off to you.
Lucifer: Thank you.
Stanley: Trees, terrific. Water, another good one.
Lucifer: That was a good one.
Stanley: Yes, sex, top marks.
Lucifer: Now make it more personal, a bit more fulsome, please, come on.
Stanley: Immortal, invisible, you’re handsome, you’re, you’re glorious.
Lucifer: Thank you.
Stanley: You're the most beautiful person in the world!
Lucifer: More, more.
Stanley: Yeah, I'm getting a bit bored with this. Can’t we change places?
Lucifer: That's exactly how I felt.
Charlie Jane: [00:35:06] You know what's so great about that is that, you know, you can kind of get it. It would get really old really fast to have to praise God all the time.
Annalee: [00:35:14] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:35:13] And, you know, it feels like the relationship between God and Satan is a very stark one of, it's the kind of thing that in the TV show Lucifer, they kind of play around with. But then in the end, when you finally meet God, you realize that, oh, actually, God didn't really want to punish Lucifer, he was just trying to help Lucifer, become a better version of himself or whatever, by putting him through all this literal Hell. But in Bedazzled, it's like, nope, God is just shitting on Lucifer, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Annalee: [00:35:43] Yeah, I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about that. Because I feel like, I mean, we talked to the folks from Lucifer about how they'd sort of made a conscious decision not to make God be a dick. In fact, he's kind of like, God in Lucifer is kind of like Mr. Rogers.
Charlie Jane: [00:35:56] He's very Mr. Rogers-y yes.
Annalee: [00:35:58] So how did, how do you compare that to the God in Bedazzled? Like, why do you think there's that difference? Is it because one is in the ‘60s and one is in the modern world, or what?
Charlie Jane: [00:36:08] I think that, you know, Bedazzled is, I mean, obviously, it's from a different era, but it is very much it's from that moment, in the late ‘60s, where we were, there was a lot of rebellion against 1950s style conformity and against kind of The Man. And it was the era of like, Portnoy's Complaint and all this very subversive comedy.
Annalee: [00:36:29] Portnoy’s Complaint being a famous novel by Philip Roth about a kid who's rebelling against his parents and jacking off a lot into the Saturday night dinner.
Charlie Jane: [00:36:40] You know, like you do. And it was just this era where there's so many movies and TV shows, it was the era of The Prisoner. It was the era of like, so many weird, Monty Python. And you know, when you meet God in Bedazzled, he's just a voice. He's this booming kind of echoey voice who just like says, “On thy belly shalt thou crawl!” And then poor Satan has to get on his belly and crawl around to show that he respects God. And it’s just like God is this pure authoritarian, who, is actually in the end, I'm just gonna spoil the ending of like a 50-something year old movie.
Annalee: [00:37:14] I think we, that ship has sailed.
Charlie Jane: [00:37:17] Yeah. In the end, basically, God gets mad at Satan for cutting the Dudley Moore character, Stanley, a break. Like Satan needs to collect a certain number of souls to be released from his punishment of having to rule Hell and tempt humans into bad deeds. And so he shows up at the end and is like, “Look, I got all the souls and I even did a good deed, I let this one human go, I let him have his soul back.”
[00:37:43] And God is so pissed that Satan showed mercy to one human, and that Satan basically deviated from his role, that he sends Satan back to Hell to do it all over again. And it's just this, God's whole plan for Satan is just that he should be an instrument of punishment and destruction.
[00:38:05] God comes across looking like a total dick in that movie. And basically, that that's the reveal at the end of the movie is that as much as we don't like the underhanded things that we've seen the devil doing throughout the movie, by the end, we understand that, oh, actually, it's all thanks to God. God is the reason why Satan is bad.
Annalee: [00:38:22] That's so interesting, because it is a big contrast with what we see in Quatermass and the Pit where, essentially, the people who are obedient are the ones who are Satan. And this is the authority figure, who it, I mean, God is kind of Satan, kind of like a fascist Satan.
Charlie Jane: [00:38:43] And you know, a lot of what we see Satan doing in his day to day life is just these weird little pranks, like, convincing a pigeon to shit on someone's head, and like ripping the last page out of an Agatha Christie novel, so people get to the end, and they're like, oh, I don’t get to find out who the killer was! I'm gonna go commit some sins now.
[00:39:02] It's just like these weird little petty misdeeds that he does that he's like, haha. Versus God who's just like, a straight up asshole who is just like, he's gonna crush you.
Annalee: [00:39:10] He’s into the carceral spiritual state, or whatever.
Charlie Jane: [00:39:15] Yeah, and the other interesting thing about Bedazzled is that it has this monkey's paw kind of tropes. That in the movie, the devil offers Stanley Moon seven wishes in exchange for his soul and so Stanley Moon can wish for anything he wants. And whereas in Lucifer, you see his main power is getting people to like, admit with startling clarity exactly what they desire. In Bedazzled, the whole point of the devil is that he takes advantage of the fact that you can't speak clearly about what you desire.
[00:39:44] Like that Stanley in that movie, has very simple wants, he wants this woman that he has a crush on to like him back and he wants to not be a nobody anymore, but Lucifer finds ways to twist that around. So he gives these imprecise wishes that always backfire. There's always some horrible twist to it that's not what he wanted. And it's basically because Stanley's incapable of saying, this is what I want. And so it's like, it's kind of a reversal of that, in a way.
Annalee: [00:40:13] Yeah. And in that way, it really does sound like it's a kind of prototype for Lucifer, for that character of Lucifer.
Charlie Jane: [00:40:19] It's sort of a reverse Lucifer. But it also is like the idea of like, I mean, this is one year before the Rolling Stones recorded “Sympathy for the Devil.” And clearly this is a sympathetic portrayal of the devil—
Annalee: [00:40:29] And might have even been a inspiration for that song.
Charlie Jane: [00:40:33] Might have, actually. It's making us kind of feel sorry for the devil, but also show us that the devil’s main power is our own lack of self knowledge.
Annalee: [00:40:42] That's why I said it is very much dealing with the same questions as the show Lucifer but without—
Charlie Jane: [00:40:47] Very much so.
Annalee: [00:40:47] Without it being therapeutic. Instead, the devil in Bedazzled is a trickster.
Charlie Jane: [00:40:54] He’s 100% trick, he’s like Loki.
Annalee: [00:40:55] Yeah, and he's not necessarily trying to torture people. In fact, he doesn't really want to torture people, it’s really God who's into that.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:04] It's all God. And God is just a sadistic monster who just wants us to suffer for some reason. It's never made clear. All God wants is worship and he just wants people to say how wonderful he is all the time. And if you are doing anything else but saying how wonderful God is, then you get a smack on the nose.
Annalee: [00:41:22] It's very Old Testament God.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:24] Very.
Annalee: [00:41:23] Like that's, that's a very Old Testament God energy. It's like, all right, worship me. Sometimes I'm going to do really horrible things to you, like make you almost kill your son or make you have sores for 20 years and beg in the street.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:37] I know, but—Job
Annalee: [00:41:37] But, you know, whatever. Abraham and Isaac, Job. God was Old Testament God was kind of a jerk.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:45] Tough love.
Annalee: [00:41:45] Tough love, yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:47] A lot of tough love. So let's get to our final satanic story that we’re going to talk about today.
Annalee: [00:41:52] Yes. I'm excited about this one. So we're going to talk about the TV series Good Omens, which of course, is based on a novel. So tell us about how Good Omens portrays Satan.
Charlie Jane: [00:42:03] So Satan only shows up at the very end of Good Omens. And he's basically, he's a big giant red Benedict Cumberbatch who’s just like, shouting, and he’s jus like, and the whole thing is that he screams with with outrage when his son, the Antichrist, rejects him. And the Antichrist turns out to be just a regular kid who, because he, through a series of shenanigans, missed out on his satanic indoctrination, is just a sweet guy. And you know, there's this moment where he's like Satan’s not really my dad.
Good Omens Clip: [00:42:39] Your father is coming to destroy you, probably to destroy all of us.
My dad, he wouldn't hurt anybody.
Not your earthly father. Satan, your father, who is no longer in Heaven, He is coming and he is angry.
So what do you want me to do about it?
Annalee: [00:42:53] So how do you see Good Omens fitting in with other recent stories about Satan, like, say Supernatural or Lucifer?
Charlie Jane: [00:43:00] The thing that Good Omens has in common with Supernatural, which since the novel came out a long time before Supernatural, it probably was an influence on Supernatural rather than the other way around. It's this notion that angels and demons are basically the same. They're dicks. And angels and demons are both these powerful, but kind of amoral, shitty people, who just want humanity to suffer for their own ends.
[00:43:26] And like, the common thread with this series and Supernatural and I think a bunch of other portrayals recently is that angels and demons, very much wants to fight the final battle of Armageddon. They want to kill each other and if every human has to die as collateral damage for them to get to have their glorious final battle, they're totally fine with that. And they don't really give a shit either way. They don't care who gets hurt, as long as they get what they want.
[00:43:54] And there's not really a meaningful distinction between good and evil in that scenario, it's just, there's humans, and then there's everybody else, kind of.
Annalee: [00:44:01] Yeah, I feel like in Good Omens, the role that the angels and demons are playing kind of reminds me of like the salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross, where it's a predatory competitive kind of role.
Charlie Jane: [00:44:18] Heaven is for closers.
Annalee: [00:44:18] Heaven is for closers. But actually, what really is the case is closers are the people who get the most souls, right? You're trying to you're trying to get the most. They’re in this competition for souls. And so yeah, it's like, it isn't even Heaven for closers. It's just like, closers are the ones who rack it up. And Hell is for closers, too.
Charlie Jane: [00:44:40] It’s true.
Annalee: [00:44:40] There's like and I love in Good Omens, how we ultimately realize that it's a bureaucracy and it's all one big giant bureaucracy. Hell and Heaven are all kind of in the same building and it's just like, do you take the escalator up or down. And so I love that we, like in Bedazzled and in Lucifer, we start to see this angel and devil character in Good Omens, Crowley and Aziraphale, we see them becoming more engaging as people, the more they love humans. And also, the more that they kind of question their roles.
[00:45:19] And so it's, again, it's in this tradition of like, well, let's think really about what is Satan? And what is evil? And what is good? And who decides that? I wonder if you could just talk about that delightful relationship between the angel and the devil or the angel and the demon in Good Omens?
Charlie Jane: [00:45:36] I mean, you know, homoeroticism, obviously, we like it, we enjoy it. Thank you. Yes, please. But also I think that this is—
Annalee: [00:45:47] It’s like the greatest bromance.
Charlie Jane: [00:45:48] And it really is. And the notion that, like I said, there's no good and evil, there's just us and everybody else. And this notion that there's something kind of intrinsically lovable about humanity, once you can get past all of this nonsense about like a mass, a huge destiny, and like, a higher cause and all this other stuff.
[00:46:10] I think that that's the kind of subversive story that we really need right now because the world is full of people who believe that they have a higher cause, or a higher calling that may require most of us to suffer a lot, in order for them to achieve some kind of greatness.
[00:46:25] Like there's a lot of like, our greatness is going to come at the expense of like huge amounts of suffering and certain people who we don't consider human are going to be just consigned to just misery.
[00:46:35] This trope which you, again, see in Supernatural, with the angel Castiel, you see it over and over again, in stories about angels and demons that once you kind of quote unquote, I don't know, “Go native,” once you interact with humanity enough and start to kind of take on, understand humanity and take on our values. You see the value in humanity and in things like nice wine, and whiskey, and music, and opera, and all these things that—
Annalee: [00:46:58] Fast cars.
Charlie Jane: [00:46:59] Fast cars, all these things that Crowley and Aziraphale, and Lucifer, and Castiel, all these things that people kind of get drawn into loving, that are more meaningful, in a way, than some divine purpose. That it's the small things and the little human moments and human bits of connection that are actually what's important, rather than some kind of great quest for goodness, or salvation, or whatever. I think that that's actually a really good message, especially right now.
Annalee: [00:47:30] It's about people who are supposed to be enemies, who've been told their whole lives, that they're enemies, realizing that they have a lot more in common than they thought they did. And it's about forming alliances and alliances that aren't supposed to happen.
Charlie Jane: [00:47:46] Right.
Annalee: [00:47:46] And we're living through a time in history now, where people are forming divisions that really seem absurd and shouldn't happen. We're kind of fencing ourselves off from each other.
Charlie Jane: [00:48:00] Yeah. And so, you know, I just want to close by saying that, I think it's interesting to think about the dichotomy of Satan, like we talked about, like Satan as an archetype of fascism. But also Satan as someone who liberates you to be kind of an individual and to live your fullest self. And I think that part of why Satan is so fascinating is that he can embody these extreme opposites. Satan's this sort of enforcer who enforces the law, he's a punisher, like Ildy and Joe were saying. But he's also a rule breaker. He's also someone who tempts us to kind of follow our own desires, rather than doing what we're told. He's an anti-authority figure, but he's also an authority figure. He’s a rebel against God, but he's also the King of Hell. And so, you can kind of project what you want onto Satan.
[00:48:50] And this is a thing that as we were talking about, before we record the episode, fascist leaders often do kind of play both sides. They'll say, well, I'm against the real elites, I'm against the people who are really trying to control you. I'm trying to free you from subjugation by getting you to all band together in a faceless mob and crush everybody who doesn't look like us.
Annalee: [00:49:09] Yes.
Charlie Jane: [00:49:09] And so fascist leaders often will kind of play the dichotomy of rebel and authority figure. And they'll try to be both at the same time.
Annalee: [00:49:17] They try to be the outsider and the ultimate insider, yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:49:21] Yeah. And so part of why Satan is so seductive, which we do have to kind of think about and watch out for is that he plays into that desire to be both at once.
Annalee: [00:49:30] Yeah. And I think that what's interesting in these stories is a lot of the writing in them is about working out how you can do that in a healthy way. How can you be a rebel against authority, but not end up becoming that authority yourself? And that's the question, is, can that be done? And I think in Lucifer, there's one answer to that question. And in Quatermass and the Pit, there's a different answer to that question. Maybe you can never get away from that, so.
[00:50:01] OOAC theme music plays: Drums with a bass drop and more science fictional bells and percussion.
Charlie Jane: [00:50:01] You know, it’s just choose your devil.
[00:50:04] So thank you so much for listening. This has been Our Opinions Are Correct. As we mentioned at the top of the show, we have a Patreon and we love our Patreon supporters—
Annalee: [00:50:13] We love you!
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Annalee: [00:50:37] Uh huh.
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[00:51:00] We'll be back in two weeks with another episode. But we'll have an extra next week on Patreon.
[00:51:05] Bye!
Annalee: [00:51:05] Bye!