MHA's Blog: Chiming In

This week’s American Horror Story brings us to the end of the season (I’m sorry I missed last week’s blog.  I had the flu).  It also brought us one tiny glimpse of what I thought the show would be more about, the state of disrepair of the mental hospitals during the 1960s.  The show we got was nothing like that, but I wanted to talk about that idea for a bit. 

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I’m not going to talk about sexual fetishes, necrophilia and adults drinking breast milk, which all happened in this episode of American Horror Story.  Fetishes are thought-provoking in how the conscious and unconscious impulses in the brain intersect, but they are complicated and not really safe for work.  Instead, let’s discuss a topic that’s nearer to my X-Files loving heart, alien abductions.  One of the recurring themes (topics? Plot lines?) of this season has been Kit and Alma’s abduction by aliens in the opening of the first episode.

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What a way to come back! American Horror Story came back from its hiatus by hitting the ground running, giving us updates on Lana and the new Briarcliff Psychiatrist, Dr. “Bloody Face” Thredson, Kit, Grace and their new baby. We also saw the departure of Sister Mary Eunice (and presumably the devil inside of her). Most importantly, we got a musical number. Following a session of electroconvulsive therapy, Judy Martin (AKA Sister Jude) had a hallucination of herself and the rest of the patients singing “The Name Game.” It might have been the weirdest thing this show has ever done, and it’s a good excuse to talk about hallucinations.

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Since we didn’t get a new episode of American Horror Story this week, I wanted to talk about something holiday related, and the first thing that popped into my head was It’s A Wonderful Life.   Frank Capra’s story about man and his influence on the people around him has become a touchstone of holiday entertainment.  This movie has been copied and parodied so many times that it’s easy to forget about the original, and about the one element often ignored in all of the parodies.  George Bailey is suicidal.

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A question that has always fascinated me is how much influence your genes have on you versus your environment.  I come from a family with a history of diabetes, and everyone in our family has a greater likelihood of getting diabetes due to our genetics.  What determines who gets the disease and who doesn’t?  Can we change how our genes affect us?  This week’s American Horror Story brings up this question (but doesn’t offer any answers, obviously). 

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