I just happened to catch Number 12 Looks Just Like You last night, almost by accident, had seen it many times before and always found it decent enough but too typical of The Twilight Zone to be truly memorable. This time it played like one of the best of the entire series.
The story is simple: set in the not too distant future, a plain looking woman, Marilyn, is being urged by everyone she knows to undergo a medical procedure of some sort that will transform her into a beautiful person. Better still, she'll be happy all the time, or so she'd told; and she'll live longer and be healthier than if she doesn't undergo the procedure.
Alas, the young woman doesn't want to be changed or altered in any way. She may not be the happiest of campers but she values her identity, even if it means not being beautiful, more than her outward appearance. Marilyn is an individualist, and she names a few authors who influenced her decision and is criticized for not being with it. The great thinkers were yesterday, and it's a different world now.
It's a strange, topsy turvy world we see in this episode: everyone looks like everyone else but Marilyn, the plain jane. On the one hand, Marilyn is told she has the freedom of choice,--this is insisted upon--and yet people continually to badger her, urging her to get the happy life that lies ahead by changing the way she looks.
Marilyn, for her part, cares less about how she looks than who she is. The others don't understand this. It's an odd case of the "grownups",--just about everyone else--telling the "child", Marilyn, that she's not only wrong but that the wisdom she values is actually holding her back, inhibiting her "development". For all this, Marilyn comes across as the most mature person in the episode even as she's treated like a stubborn child by all the others.
When this episode was new, a little more than fifty years ago, it must have played as rather dull and preachy (all talk, plain sets, no aliens, no action sequences), and indeed it is a moral tale, not a fun one. However, this time around it chilled me to the bone. We're far closer to the dystopian world presented in the episode than one would ever have imagined a half-century ago.
Appearance is everything, television commercials tell us; and so many ads are youth and beauty oriented these days as to make one wonder if the average viewer thinks of anything else. Talk shows, when The Twilight Zone was first broadcast, often actually featured conversations, of intelligent people discussing ideas. Now they're mostly celebrity driven, with the talk, such as it can be called, consisting largely of one-liners.
Viewed from 21st century perspective, I find Number 12 Looks Just Like You disturbingly prescient. The future it presents isn't much like today outwardly, but inwardly,--psychologically, emotionally, spiritually--it's spot on as to predicting what will be preoccupying people's minds in the future.
No, the world hasn't gone to the dogs, nor to hell in a handbasket, not literally; but those values humans once held dear do seem to be slowly slipping away. We're a far more conformist society than we ever were in the past, and even throwaway, seemingly innocuous turns of phrase ("get with the system", "not on the same page") can have ominous implications when directed at a person's individuality and sense of self.
The story is simple: set in the not too distant future, a plain looking woman, Marilyn, is being urged by everyone she knows to undergo a medical procedure of some sort that will transform her into a beautiful person. Better still, she'll be happy all the time, or so she'd told; and she'll live longer and be healthier than if she doesn't undergo the procedure.
Alas, the young woman doesn't want to be changed or altered in any way. She may not be the happiest of campers but she values her identity, even if it means not being beautiful, more than her outward appearance. Marilyn is an individualist, and she names a few authors who influenced her decision and is criticized for not being with it. The great thinkers were yesterday, and it's a different world now.
It's a strange, topsy turvy world we see in this episode: everyone looks like everyone else but Marilyn, the plain jane. On the one hand, Marilyn is told she has the freedom of choice,--this is insisted upon--and yet people continually to badger her, urging her to get the happy life that lies ahead by changing the way she looks.
Marilyn, for her part, cares less about how she looks than who she is. The others don't understand this. It's an odd case of the "grownups",--just about everyone else--telling the "child", Marilyn, that she's not only wrong but that the wisdom she values is actually holding her back, inhibiting her "development". For all this, Marilyn comes across as the most mature person in the episode even as she's treated like a stubborn child by all the others.
When this episode was new, a little more than fifty years ago, it must have played as rather dull and preachy (all talk, plain sets, no aliens, no action sequences), and indeed it is a moral tale, not a fun one. However, this time around it chilled me to the bone. We're far closer to the dystopian world presented in the episode than one would ever have imagined a half-century ago.
Appearance is everything, television commercials tell us; and so many ads are youth and beauty oriented these days as to make one wonder if the average viewer thinks of anything else. Talk shows, when The Twilight Zone was first broadcast, often actually featured conversations, of intelligent people discussing ideas. Now they're mostly celebrity driven, with the talk, such as it can be called, consisting largely of one-liners.
Viewed from 21st century perspective, I find Number 12 Looks Just Like You disturbingly prescient. The future it presents isn't much like today outwardly, but inwardly,--psychologically, emotionally, spiritually--it's spot on as to predicting what will be preoccupying people's minds in the future.
No, the world hasn't gone to the dogs, nor to hell in a handbasket, not literally; but those values humans once held dear do seem to be slowly slipping away. We're a far more conformist society than we ever were in the past, and even throwaway, seemingly innocuous turns of phrase ("get with the system", "not on the same page") can have ominous implications when directed at a person's individuality and sense of self.