I got an email from friend and fellow blogger Jeff Hodges, who suggested I watch a particular video titled "Cupid's Paradise." I found several results for "Cupid's Paradise" on YouTube, but only one that matched Jeff's note that the video was "ca. 15 minutes." It was a bit under 13 minutes and had been produced by the DUST group, which puts out science-fiction shorts (I've already watched several of these shorts; they're generally quite good and interesting).
Here's the video:
The only comment I'll make is that, years ago, when I was significantly thinner (although not thin), I uploaded a photo of myself onto the Hot or Not website. Submitting a pic means allowing the general public to rate your looks. I ended up being rated around a 7.5, which was fine by me. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't rate above a 3.0 these days.
By the way, I wasn't sure what happened at the very end. Did the woman become Cupid's Slave, after all?
ReplyDeleteJeffery Hodges
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I think she did. I saw several theories in the comments thread beneath the video, and that was a popular interpretation. The question of why she got the "Time's up!" treatment, though, is a matter of some intense speculation. Was it because she was starting to experience genuine human feelings that went beyond the superficial (which seems to be Cupid's focus)? Was it simply because she had used a wig that amounted to "false pretenses" in Cupid's dating game? (The computer voice shouts something like "System breached! Unknown object identified!"—referring to the wig that Jenn tossed away, and which got spat back out at the very end.)
ReplyDeleteThe short video offers plenty of grist for speculation. Twelve or thirteen minutes isn't enough time to do any comprehensive world-building. If we assume the wig isn't supposed to be used, this leads to the confusing question of why the bartender so casually offered it. Was she offering it as a sort of contraband workaround to Cupid's system? That seems bizarre: if anything, the bartender seems to be part of the overall system—she's there to aid and abet your superficiality.
So could it be that the wig was a sort of moral test, like Eve grabbing and biting into the apple? If so, that leads to a world-building question: is Cupid's paradise essentially one gigantic temptation factory whose purpose is to test all participants' moral fiber? If that's the case, then is it possible that Cupid's Paradise actually serves a moral purpose by gathering all the vain, superficial people in one spot and then slowly plucking them out of society? Think of it this way: if the story ends with Jenn about to be enslaved, it could be that she's being punished for having been especially superficial: she did eagerly drink that white, score-improving potion, after all, and she accepted the all-powerful wig that brought her score up to a 9.0.
But there are story elements that contradict the idea that Cupid's Paradise has a moral purpose, e.g., the way Cupid announces compatible couples. The neck collars are also a trope indicating slavery: they can obviously knock a person out when that person has "lost" at the dating game after a hundred tries. There is much that is sinister about Cupid's Paradise, but it's interesting to observe that all the participants are there of their own free will.
Director Ivy Lao left a statement beneath her video. In part, it says:
The film is a hyperbole of social apps. It reflects myself and my personal experiences getting lost in the current digital space filled with superficial criteria such as likes, beauty standards, and digital first-impressions. The story emphasizes the pressure to look, behave, and think a certain way. Cupid’s Paradise is loud and absurd, poking fun at everything that’s acceptable in society today and bringing out the ugly sides to finding love in a superficial, digital world.
I'm guessing that Lao herself sees Cupid's Paradise as fundamentally evil, not as a slyly moral project that weeds out (or ensnares) especially superficial people. It could be, though, that Cupid's Paradise's evil is merely a reflection of the evil that is the vanity and superficiality of the people who, for lack of a better image, come to that temple to worship. Blame the app, or blame the app's users? Blame the "social pressure," or blame the individuals who make up society?
But back to the original question: yes, I think poor Jenn got enslaved. I assume she had either used up her 100 tries, or she had begun to express genuine, deep feelings toward Kevin Kim as her attitude toward Cupid's Paradise changed and become more enlightened. Either way, she had to go: she had become a bug in a smoothly running system. No room for true "amor" in an AMORal universe.
PS: one thing I couldn't figure out was the whole "Time's up!" thing. You get 100 tries to find a compatible partner (alas, the video doesn't take time to explore whether those partners truly are deeply compatible). I get that. But upon rewatching the video, I saw that Jenn was given an hour to snag each of her new "assignments." So does this mean that, when the first girl gets knocked out and dragged away to computerized shouts of "Time's up," she has failed to snag a beau within an hour? If yes, then how does that work with the idea that a person get 100 tries to find the right partner? And if Jenn is the one rejecting a suitor, does this count as a failure on her part, or as a failure on the suitor's part, or as both? I'm not clear on the scoring system. How does one tally those 100 tries?
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