Westworld as a Commentary on Modern Day Society

One of the most intriguing things about HBO's Westworld is its ability to communicate with modern day audiences in the form of a societal commentary and its ability to elicit a strong emotional audience response.

After reading John Hartley's "Television as a Transmodern Teaching", it is easier to identify the ways in which television shows attempt to teach their audiences subtle lesson about reality, life, and society/ societal norms. It is not uncommon to find that a true captivating show is able to make some sort of implicit statement about the modern day lives of the audience members watching it. Westworld is one of these shows.

Perhaps one of the most unique qualities of Westworld is that the audience never sees life outside of the amusement park; the players are only seen arriving at Westworld and they rarely make many significant references to their outside, everyday lives. Despite the audience's inability to get this kind of background exposure into the lives of the players, the audience is still able to make a connection to the players and their desire to divulge into the alternate-reality of Westworld. How is this possible? How can the audience relate to the players and their way of life if they never really get to see what exactly that means?

That is where television as a teaching, and as a means of providing societal commentary comes into play. Westworld is able to make many subtle connections between the society in which the players reside, and the modern-day society in which audience members reside. Westworld's Episode 2 "Chestnut" is just one of the many episodes that is able to make these subtle connections, and it comes through with the use of dialogue.

" You know why this beats the real world, Lawrence? The world is chaos. It's an accident. But in here, every detail adds up to something. Even you, Lawrence."

Here the man in black is speaking, and although it is only the second episode of the series the audience can already use their own personal views of society and relate it to the hypothetical society of the players. If audience members view modern day society as one filled with chaos and disorder, then they can assume the man in black comes from a very similar background. Even though Westworld gives off some sense of a futuristic feel, since the amusement park would never exist in today's realm of technology and our world today is not capable of accomplishing what Westworld is capable of in the television show, it still gives off the idea that the idea that the audiences of modern day society and the players of the fictional Westworld are not so different at all. I can assume that the Westworld will only continue to expand upon this societal commentary in episodes to come. And if we as an audience are able to view the television as Hartley does (as a teacher) we will have to piece together exactly what this commentary is trying to imply about modern day society.