Meta: Unionize the Bad Place (TGP s2)--DFvQ

[xandromedovna]

Obviously The Good Place is mostly concerned with human ethics and creating a just afterlife for humans, but it also raises interesting questions about the non-human beings the humans encounter. Generally the ontology of these beings is governed by the Rule of Funny (e.g. Disco Janet, Gen being obsessed with TV, the demon life cycle, etc.), meaning we’re not really meant to interrogate it too closely. The only exceptions to this are Michael, who even in the first season is obsessed with humans and eventually becomes one, and Janet, who’s been rebooted so many times she’s also taken on more human qualities. Because of this, it’s kind of hard to fathom how they all came to be and why, although part of that is by design—the afterlife isn’t supposed to make sense to humans.

 

And yet by humanizing Michael and Janet, the show also raises the question of how to improve the afterlife not just for humans but for the beings that work there. The Janets have very little individuality and are essentially cosmic assistants despite having immense power. The Good Place committee is scrambling to keep things interesting for the souls that are trapped there. The accounting department spends most of its time blanching at the newest sex infractions. And the demons, or at the very least Michael, are trying to invent new ways to torture people to… what?

It's never really explained why they need architects, Good or Bad, other than there are constantly new arrivals (in the Bad Place at least), but what is it about Michael that gets him to come up with this particular plan? Why do they need to revolutionize the Bad Place? There seems to be a burbling undercurrent of discontent among the demons, one that boils over during the reboots. In season 1, the demon actors seem excited about the potential of Michael’s neighbourhood, but by early season 2 they are disillusioned, burnt out, and eager to take control from Michael. Vicky literally becomes the strike negotiator when the demons get fed up with working conditions, eventually threatening to usurp Michael or turn him in to Shawn, which is what spurs him to work with the humans. When Michael defects and the neighbourhood is destroyed, the demons return to their regular assignments, but when they’re revamping the afterlife system they have to be retrained (by Vicky) in how the new Bad Place will work. These massive shifts in their work environment lead the demons to feel disempowered and unheard, an issue that isn’t fully resolved.

While this collective action was only marginally successful, the direct action of the Janets’ button keep-away in s4 has much more far-reaching consequences, because Janets are not only found in all the realms but their labour is essential to the maintenance of all the neighbourhoods. The Janets are much better organized (thanks to a group chat) and their action is theoretically informed by Michael’s manifesto, unlike the ad hoc, personal grievances of the demon strike. Bad Janet explains, “the whole system is royally effed. Humans suck, but this isn’t their fault” (4x8). This leads to the entire afterlife system being revamped to be more fair to humans. However, it’s unclear how this change improves conditions for demons, Janets, architects, accountants, or the other celestial beings. The Joint Council of Afterlife Affairs seems to be the body that would address those concerns, but we only really see them deal with the human adjustments.

Of course, the other thing about all this that gives me pause is that the marker of being ethical is being human. Chidi explains when trying to get Michael to care about the lessons that “if you live forever, then ethics don’t matter to you, because basically there’s no consequences for your actions” (2x4). So it makes sense that to be a ‘good person’ one must first be a mortal ‘person’, but there are some troublesome implications in making these beings become something else, that we’re holding them to human standards when they’re not humans. From a practical perspective it’s necessary because the only way they can ensure Michael will continue to help them is to give him the same values as them, and Janet’s increased humanity makes her stronger, but something unnerves me about this assumed superiority of humans and I can’t quite put my finger on it. (Something something, anthropocentrism and ideas of "civilization"/"taming the wild".)

Then again, on the other hand, we could do a trans reading of Michael and Janet to say that even partially holding them to human standards recognizes them as transspecies. Janet’s canonically nonbinary to begin with even in contradistinction to other Janets (after all, Jason can tell which Janet’s his wife because the other Janets don’t correct him when he calls them ‘girl’), and after falling in love with Jason, with each subsequent reboot she becomes something further beyond the binary of Janet/human. Most obviously with Michael, he starts the series with his Ariel-like collection of human artifacts (definitely a trans allegory), then gains awareness of his own mortality encouraging him to learn human ethics, eventually being granted his dream of living on Earth as a human—Eleanor even calls him “a real boy, Pinocchio”, another trans allegory (4x13). His last name is literally REALMAN. And don’t even get me started on the dysphoria when he first reveals he’s a fire squid, I have a lot of trans feelings about Michael and Janet.

Where was I going with that? Oh yeah, so in terms of making the afterlife fair for demons, Michael articulates the problem like this; “You guys get to move on, but I am trapped here forever? How is that fair?” (4x13), which is what gives Eleanor the idea to make him human in the first place. Eventually, to become completely fulfilled, the demon needs to become human. They do emphasize that this isn’t universal and Michael’s just like that (Eleanor tells Gen “no one else is ever gonna wanna do this”; 4x13), but it does leave open the question of what the demons find fulfilling, besides stuffing spiders in buttholes and flattening penises.

And having a demon union could help articulate what the answer to that question might be. Just saying.