Short Trips 10.X: Free Speech

Hahaha... thanks, everyone, for being willing to humor me. My response to this story has been... fairly extreme. By which I mean I've written a great deal about it--including three posts here--which I've subsequently deleted. Basically, it's just too much. So please keep in mind that, even with the wall of text below, this is me doing my very best to keep it concise.

So: why did I have an "extreme" reaction to the story? Because mutism is never explored in fiction. I quickly recognized the premise of this story for the opportunity that it was. And I became very frustrated with it when it became apparent that it was not going to fully explore it's own premise. I'd go so far as to say, even, that I was angry. Not at the script, not at the writer, but at Big Finish for looking at this idea and thinking, "this'll be a good Short Trip."

Because no, absolutely not, this story should never have been a Short Trip. A story like this--imagining an entire society built around enforced mutism--demands a full hour to explore. Ideally even more than that. It cannot be done within the confines of a short trip that must also struggle to incorporate all of those other dramatic elements beyond setting into a very limited run-time.

Speculative fiction is, at it's heart, simply asking a hypothetical question and providing a potential answer. That's it. That's all SF is. And Free Speech poses a hypothetical society built on enforced mutism. I dunno about y'all, but that idea sent my mind spinning: the whole time I was listening to the episode, I kept thinking of more and more ways such a society might differ from our own. I had to stop myself from pausing the story to list out more after scribbling down several dozens. It's just one of those ideas to which I was drawn with an intense attraction.

And you might say, "this story doesn't deal with mutism! It's about a fascy police-state where speech is heavily regulated!"

So let's talk a bit about mutism.

I can only discuss my personal experience. I've got selective mutism along with limited affect. I'm not sure if the two typically go hand-in-hand, or if the latter is more an ASD thing, but regardless, they both function to limit my capacity to physically communicate. I'm not sure familiar y'all may or may not be with the term "selective mutism," but in short it means that I am almost fully capable of speech in some contexts, only partly-capable of speech in other contexts, and utterly incapable of speech in many contexts. Let me explain what that feels like. Imagine being in a crowded room, right in the center, and screaming. As loud as you possibly can. Only the nerve impulse from your brain never reaches your larynx. None of the muscles in your throat--or even your face--so much as twitch. You can stand there, screaming, for hours--and no one will notice.

Mutism isn't silence: it's wanting to speak--desperately, sometimes--and that desire being betrayed by your own body.

Sort of like wanting to speak, but not being able to afford the words, huh? You can see, I think, why I found this story's premise so engaging. So captivating.

And it just did not have the time to really explore any of the ramifications of its own premise. Like the class divide that's lightly touched on? Well, I can guarantee you that the wealthy would be almost physically repulsed by the lower classes, because people do not react well to mutism, or other communication disorders. When presented with another person who does not react the way they expect them to--or react in a way they are capable of recognizing--people will react with antipathy, commonly, and sometimes abuse or even violence. The logical reasoning of, "oh, they don't speak because they cannot afford to" would not factor into it. They would think, "they don't speak because they are subhuman."

And the thing about mutism is that it can't really be conveyed through any medium but prose. And the basic structure of Free Speech was perfect to really dig into a mute character--the whole interrogation thing, with the story being told to us both through dialog and the narrator's internal monolog. Because, as perhaps you've been able to discern through my own ramblings, an inability to speak vocally does not correspond to an inability to articulate thoughts in general. In other words, being mute may manifest in someone appearing, outwardly, to be very inarticulate, despite being fully capable. It's a weird juxtaposition that cannot really present in a narrative where the audience is privy to both the character's outward speech and inner thoughts.

So... that's basically where I am. I feel almost as though this story was only about selective mutism by accident, otherwise the people who are being paid the big bucks to notice these things would have recognized the rich vein of potential running throughout the premise, and "promoted" it to something bigger, where they could really dive into the larger (and smaller) social and political implications of this world--and even, perhaps, address some of the physiological issues with mutism. Just think how language would evolve in this world! The rich would be excessively verbose, the poor relying, perhaps, on sign language or texting to get by. Basically... this Short Trip feels like Big Finish taking a mountain, and carving it into a molehill.

Is that a bad analogy? I'm sorry.

I really hope I don't come across as too critical here. Like I said at the outset, my reaction has been fairly extreme, and I've tried to parse it out in words several times. I think this is my last attempt to do so, but if y'all have any questions for me, please, feel free to ask. I did enjoy the story, but I just can't get over what a missed opportunity it feels like. How did Big Finish not see the potential here? I just can't get over this decision. If they felt like the writer (presumably an amateur?) wasn't experienced enough to fully flesh everything out into a full-length drama, well... editors exist--that is, in fact, why we exist.

Yep, that was pretty much my experience of being ace-orientated. Unusual was the word I eventually settled on. I didn't consider it to be a particularly dirty word, but people can be surprisingly narrow-minded about these sorts of things sometimes. That was a very small IRL group, though, and I've certainly no complaints about the forum. I've never had an issue. I've even had people ask me about it, out of good-tempered curiosity. In my personal experience, it's difficult for me to seek out particular kinds of media that cater to that aspect of my personality because... The broader rules are still being codified under my feet. It's so new, so recent in its recognition, that there are a lot of grey areas. Just by nature of what it is.

More often than not, finding the character/story covering positively it in any detail is just straightforward serendipity. A happy accident while examining something else. It is nice when it does show up, though. I appreciate that mindfulness.