Rise of ‘Westworld’ hosts echoes Me Too
LOS ANGELES – Westworld’s first season was filmed long before the Me Too movement came to national prominence, but star Evan Rachel Wood sees parallels between activist victims of sexual misconduct and the abused android hosts rising up against authority in the HBO sci-fi drama.
“I think the hosts have always been a metaphor for any group that’s been oppressed, (including) minorities, women,” she tells USA TODAY ahead of the Season 2 premiere (April 22, 9 ET/ PT). “It’s hard not to draw comparisons now, just because it’s mirroring what’s going on in the world.”
In Season 1, the hosts at the high-tech Westworld theme park were the playthings of wealthy visitors, who could sexually assault, beat and even kill the lifelike beings with impunity. Erasure of memory protected the hosts, by rendering them unaware of countless acts of abuse. It also made them less inclined to fight back.
That began to change late in the season as Wood’s Dolores, the oldest park host with the longest history of suffering, and Thandie Newton’s brothel madam Maeve began to remember, feeling pain but also gaining the fortitude to fight back. Sweet Dolores, through her vengeful alter ego, Wyatt, triggers the host revolt by shooting park co-creator Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) in the Season 1 finale.
Me Too, a rallying cry and unifying hashtag for those subjected to sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace, isn’t fictional, of course, and the real women and men who were abused have had to carry those memories for years, often in silence.
Their decision to speak out against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and others, figuratively finding their voices, has toppled powerful men and led to change, at least temporarily, in a Hollywood culture that permitted such abuse.
“We are a little creeped out by (comparisons) actually, because I don’t think that was on purpose. We must just kind of be in tune with what’s going on,” says Wood, who has spoken out in different ways against abusers.
Last month, she told Congress about being raped in testimony supporting a bill of rights for sexual assault survivors. She also appeared with Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s Kelly Marie Tran in a musical Funny or Die number, Guess Who: #MeToo Edition, whose lighthearted tone identifying famous abusers leads to a serious message of support for Rise, which is pushing for the survivors’ bill of rights.
Jeffrey Wright, whose theme-park programming chief Bernard was revealed to be an android, finds the robot hosts “a clever metaphor” with many applications.
“Humans are like hosts in that … we struggle to be free of constraints. We ask questions about whether or not we’re in control, or whether external forces are in control,” he says.
“More specifically to the Me Too movement, the hosts are a group that has been oppressed, abused and harmed, so they’re responding to that and finding a voice in opposition, and also trying to free themselves, to take charge of their own security.”
Executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, whomapped the Westworld story five years ago, see a universal comparison that goes beyond specific movements such as Me Too, Time’s Up and Black Lives Matter.
“We’re not crediting ourselves with fortune-telling, but the sad truth is, if you’re looking at the show as a metaphor for the way human beings have mistreated each other over the years, you can apply it to almost any moment in history,” Nolan says. “We wanted it to be timeless in the way it deals with its subject.”
The Me Too and Time’s Up movements may add symbolic weight to Westworld’s Season 2 drama, which continues the story of hosts rebelling against their masters. Wood appreciates the connection to the zeitgeist but isn’t entirely comfortable with it.
“Season 2 is very much about the uprising and the reckoning and … the phoenix rising from the ashes,” she says. “To have that mirror what’s been going on is really weird.”
Don’t expect the Westworld hosts to back down, Wright says. “They ain’t having it anymore. … You’re going to have a lot of angry robots running around.”
“If you’re looking at the show as a metaphor for the way human beings have mistreated each other over the years, you can apply it to almost any moment in history,”
Executive producer Jonathan Nolan