The Good Place¶
Spoiler Warning: This rant containers spoilers for the show “The Good Place”. If you have not seen it before, and think you would be interested, please avoid these.
In the interests of helping, here is a little “spoiler” buffer space to lower the chances of you seeing an accidental spoiler.
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Eleanor¶
In the first episode of “The Good Place” Eleanor finds herself in what she is told is “heaven” (AKA “The Good Place”). She senses there was some mistake, as she is a self-described “Arizona trash-bag” who was not a good person.
Pause here and reflect.
Eleanor was, indeed, not a good person during her life. She is, and was, completely aware that she was not a good person. She was not self-deluding herself to believe she was good, and did not even pretend to be good to other people (unless it served a specific goal of hers).
For a while, she latches on to her upbringing as her excuse for being a bad person. While it does not excuse her, it does contextualize her badness. On some level, she never felt like she “should” be a good person – that being good is a privilege reserved for others.
Privilege here is important. While Eleanor is white, she grew up as a poor woman. Those aspects of her identity contributed to her development of her self-image. The “tough bitch” persona she developed was, in part, a defense mechanism against a world quick to exploit vulnerable women.
Moreover, the “tough bitch” persona, especially a “poor tough bitch”, lives in a world that constantly looks down on her and mocks her. The world has informed her, time and time again, that she is a bad person.
Because of that, once she is afforded the opportunity of “unearned paradise”, she is self-aware enough to come up with a plan to, if not exactly earn her place, being able to “pass” for good.
The Other Three Humans¶
Three other humans go to the same pretend-Good-Place neighborhood as Eleanor. Jason, a Filipino poor man from Florida. Chidi, a middle-class Black man from Senegal who moved to Australia. Finally, Tahani, an upper-class ethnically Pakistani British woman.
It is important to note that none of them are white men. All other three humans are people of color.
Racism was certainly experienced differently by each of the humans. One thing, though, they all had in common was that they lived in a world that, on occasion, had informed them that they are out of place.
Because of that, although Tahani and Chidi did believe they deserved heaven, as soon as they learn they are in the Bad Place, they are quick to accept that.
Brent¶
Brent is one of the “experimental” subjects in the fourth season of “The Good Place”, designed to test whether humans can be redeemed. He is the first time that this is tested on a straight white man.
On Earth, his main accomplishment was to inherit a $90M company and turn it into a $94M company. It is implied that while he did not quite sexually harass women, he toed the line pretty close, and telling a woman to “smile, it will make you prettier” seems perfectly fine to him.
When he suspects he does not belong in “The Good Place”, the only hypothesis he can generate is that he belongs in “The Best Place”. Over the course of a year, it is the only at the end that he manages to, literally, half apologize for the one of the many bad things he did (his apology is cut-off by being frozen while awaiting the experiment to be evaluated).
While all other subjects (a gay white man, a Black woman, and Chidi again) show considerable improvement, Brent barely makes any progress. At the end of the show, when the system designed to continuously improve people in the afterlife is implemented, it is implied that he is taking longer than almost anyone else to improve enough.
Privilege and its effects¶
In the show, Eleanor and Brent are depicted as parallels. Both have been pretty bad on earth, and both have a chance to improve in the afterlife.
But while Eleanor jumps at the chance, Brent fails to even consider that he should make any effort. A lifetime of feeling like he belongs anywhere he went, and given awards for mediocre achievements, has not prepared him for the possibility that there is a club he does not belong to.
While never calling this out explicitly, the show is all about privilege and how it blinds people to reality. Brent, the ultimate privileged kid, is forever struggling with true repentence because he cannot even imagine the inner lives of those he has wronged.
Summary¶
The Good Place is a complicated series. Ethics lessons are interwoven with human drama and human foibles. But the biggest hitting part of the show as a whole is how privilege warps perspective.