Better Dead Than Woke: Reflections on Sam Tyler's Suicide in 'Life on Mars'

 

The central cast of Life on Mars (BBC One, 2006-07)

 

 

I. 

 

Whether by accident or subconscious design, I have long avoided watching the British TV show Life on Mars (2006-07), starring John Simm as Detective Inspector Sam Tyler, who, following a car accident, wakes up to find himself in 1973 and obliged to adapt his politically-correct model of policing to the times, working under the command of DCI Gene Hunt (played by Philip Glenister).  

But, since it's now being broadcast nightly on That's TV3 (Freeview channel 75, 9pm, Monday to Friday) - and since I was intrigued by Mark Fisher's k-punk posts on the first and last episodes of the series, which can be found in Ghosts of My Life [1] - I figured, what the hey, I'll give it a go ...

 

 

II. 

Initially, I didn't much like Life on Mars - I found the character of Sam Tyler and all the supernatural elements irritating. Not only did I not know what the fuck was going on - what was real and what wasn't - I didn't much care. And if I simply wanted to enjoy a seventies cop show, I could catch The Sweeney on almost any day of the week over on ITV4 without all the poncy postmodern elements [2].  

 

However, I gradually learned to love it: particularly for what Fisher calls its reactionary character and, indeed, for its amusingly nihilistic message that I'm very much tempted to endorse; i.e., that it's preferable being dead in 1973 than alive in the drearily woke (and somehow far less real) present. 

 

As I wrote in an earlier post:

 

Those who now sneer with politico-moral correctness and a sense of their own cultural superiority at the music, the fashions, the TV, and pretty much every other aspect of life in the 1970s need to be told (or in some cases reminded) that it was more than alright - it was better. For despite all the boredom, blackouts and bullshit of the time, people were happier and I'm pleased to have been born (and to have remained at heart) a 20th century boy. [3]    

 

If by jumping off a roof top like DC Tyler one could guarantee arriving in seventies heaven based upon one's own experiences of the period, then, again, I'd be very much tempted to do so ...

 

It's not that I lack confidence in the future (or the possibility of such) - although I don't share the progressive optimism of those who insist that the sun will necessarily come out tomorrow - it's more a case of accepting the fact that the future belongs to those young enough to still have dreams, whereas to those of us who are now on the cusp of old age and who value the beauty of memories and madeleines belongs the lost past [4].   

 

And death. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (Zero Books, 2014). The article I refer to, pp. 76-79, is entitled 'The Past Is an Alien Planet: The First and last Episides of Life on Mars' and is based on two posts published on his k-punk blog (the first dated 10 Jan 2006 and the second 13 April 2007).

 

[2] Fisher argues that Life on Mars was basically a cop show; "because it is clear that the SF elements [...] were little more than pretexts; the show was a meta-cop show rather than meta-SF". See Ghosts of My Life ... p. 78.

 

[3] See 'Notes on a Glam-Punk Childhood' (24 July 2018): click here. 

 

[4] I'm (rather obliquely) referencing the French filmmaker and critic Chris Marker, who describes madeleines as any object or moment that serves as a trigger for the strange mechanisms that can suddenly transport you to the past. 

      Obviously, Marker adopts the idea from Marcel Proust's novel À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27). Readers who are interested to know more might wish to get hold of Marker's multimedia memoir Immemory (a CD-ROM released in 1997). 

 

 

Musical bonus: David Bowie, 'Life on Mars?', 1973 single release from the album Hunky Dory (RCA Records, 1971): click here for the 2015 remaster on YouTube. 

 

 

On Criminals and Capital Punishment

Flick through the numerous TV channels on Freeview on any night of the week, any week of the year, and you are guaranteed to find endlessly repeated episodes of Top Gear. But you will also just as surely come across programmes that bring you up close and personal with some of the most hardened criminals and gang members serving time in some of the world's most notorious prisons. And these shows - even when fronted by someone as likeable as Louis Theroux - have a phenomenally depressing effect.

It could be, I suppose, that some producers are interested in humane reform and want to shock us out of our complacency by forcing us to think more carefully and more compassionately about the issues and the people caught up within the criminal justice system. But most shows simply seem sensational and exploitative; turning human misery into cheap and voyeuristic entertainment.    

Either way, I suspect that many viewers will - like me - come away completely dispirited and despairing about the entire penal system and the deplorable wretches confined within it. And some will find themselves asking what's the point of keeping extremely violent and irredeemable offenders banged up for life behind bars; why not just have them all exterminated without fuss or any further ado?

These viewers are not moral and intellectual monsters and the question is not, I think, completely illegitimate.

Rather, like Lawrence, they have been driven partly by despair and partly by a form of utopianism into thinking such thoughts and into examining their souls for a way forward; they know a new vision of society is needed and that the true criminal should be afforded no place within it; they know that, at a certain point - and due to the very nature of the crimes committed - these shaven-headed, tattooed imbeciles with what Carlyle memorably describes as ape-faces, imp-faces, angry dog-faces [and] heavy sullen ox-faces, have compromised their humanity and, thus, all claim to rights based on such. 

I don't even think we should regard their elimination as capital punishment. It's simply pest control; the necessary destruction of vermin who have no interest in rehabilitation, but just want to steal, rape, torture, and murder for personal gain and personal pleasure; individuals who, as Rod Liddle rightly says, couldn't care less about society or its laws.    

As Liddle also says, if being nice to criminals worked, we'd all be happy to shower them with kindness. But it doesn't. Nor does being cruel and vindictive and it's here that Liddle and I part company; for what doesn't kill these individuals only serves to make them stronger. And so we might as well be honest with ourselves and deprive them not merely of their freedom, but of their foul lives (though this means of course granting to the State - that coldest of all cold monsters - powers that we might later regret handing over).  

See: 

D. H. Lawrence, '[Return to Bestwood]', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 13-24. Lawrence places his call for the execution of those he designates as true criminals within a wider programme of state eugenics, justified by his philosophical vitalism. 

Rod Liddle, 'The Spectator has gone soft - prisons should be much nastier places', in The Spectator, 26 Nov 2016: click here to read online. I'm grateful to Liddle for the reference to Thomas Carlyle that I made use of above.