The Marvel films produced in the past decade--especially the Iron Man films--have featured very tech-saavy characters who use amazing gadgets and can access unlimited information and communication at the push of a button. But I draw your attention to S.H.I.E.L.D. specifically because it is currently ongoing. ABC just approved the show for the duration of this fall season and who knows how many more seasons it will have. As it comes out, king-of-all-things-nerdy Joss Whedon, who directed the pilot episode and will be contributing to other episodes, announced that it will have tie-ins to the other upcoming Marvel films as they are released. It will be interesting to see whether or not he also ties in trends of modern digital culture as they come out, since he already has.
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| Disney ABC Television Group: Skye's interrogation in the pilot episode. |
Don't get me wrong, I love Coulson (he's the only character I'm really attached to), but the character that digital media fans should pay attention to is Skye. Skye is a self-proclaimed "hacktivist." We have mentioned this term under digital subcultures but not in depth, so allow me to do an Ishmael and define briefly.
The word hacktivists, you English majors may have guessed, is a hybrid of the terms "hacker" and "activist." A hacker is someone who hacks computers, an activist is someone who pursues a political cause. A hacktivist, then, seems like someone who is an activist who promotes his or her cause by hacking computers and digital accounts. One website defines hacktivism as "act of hacking, or breaking into a computer system, for a politically or socially motivated purpose." Mashable.com "the use of computers and computer networks as a means of protest to promote political ends" and also features a grandiose infographic about the history of hacktivism. To cite a couple of examples from this infographic, hactivists range from government-sponsored hackers (employed as recently as the war in Syria to keep tabs on certain parties) to underground hackers you may be more inclined to envision when the term comes to mind. Hactivists present a challenge to authority in a sphere--the digital--that governments and other agencies have only limited control over.
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| courtesy of marsmet tallahassee on flickr |
Skye in Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" falls in the latter category of hacktivists. She is a member of a very sketchy organization called "The Rising Tide" that opposes S.H.I.E.L.D's and other organizations' attempts to hide the truth about top-secret and supernatural events in the world, and she is very vocal about these views in the show. She is also extremely technologically-savvy, and as a character she is very careful about tying herself to certain sides of a conflict.
In the first episode, Skye is found working independently from a van rennovated to be a communication center, recording messages about how S.H.I.E.L.D. is covering up the truth and how the Rising Tide will thwart them. S.H.I.E.L.D., inevitably, tracks her down and arrests her for information in a case they are working on, and during her interrogation she boasts that she hacked into their "billions of dollars of equipment" with a laptop she "won in a bet." The line is funny because it's ironic, but it's also true. In our class as well as in Johnny Evers' lecture about creativity, we have seen examples where enthusiasts and fanatics have outperformed government and commercial research agencies in creating and deploying working technologies such as drones and space probes. According to Evers' lecture, it was not Steve Jobs who changed the world by himself, but Steve Jobs and a bunch of other obsessed fanatics who worked with him who changed the world.
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| Disney/ABC Television on Flickr. Left to Right: Skye, Simmons, Fitz, Coulson, May, and Ward |
Coulson is impressed by Skye's talents, and he sees her as an "asset" and invites her to join his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on their special missions to "protect the world from the weirder world"--an idea opposed to Skye's values, but Skye surprisingly accepts the offer. None of my friends who are watching the show with me are sure she's entirely trustworthy, but from what I have seen she is using her digital skills to prove herself. In the second episode, Skye lectures one of the other agents, Ward, about the value of collaboration, and this idea helps the team get out of a literally tight situation. At the end of the episode, when Coulson asks who idea it was to do such-and-such to save the day, one of the agents says, "it was everyone's idea." Skye values collaboration because as a hacktivist--someone who knows both computers and political causes--she knows it works in the digital world. As we very well know, in a movement known as the "Arab Spring" that began a few years ago, several middle eastern governments were toppled by people who banded together through social media and staged successful protests. As Dr. Burton said in our collaboration lecture, it is "no small thing if you can overturn an entire nation with your thumbs." To quote Skye, "1 person may not have 100% of the solution, but 100 people are more likely to have it." When people come together through the internet and share their ideas, they learn and solve problems in ways they could not have on their own or in offline company.
And then in this week's episode, Skye's help was needed in a break-in. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team was going to Malta to rescue a S.H.I.E.L.D. "asset", but could not land a full break-in squad legally due to international law. Skye, since she is not yet technically an agent, decides she will go into the manor of the villain billionaire on behalf of the team to help Coulson and Ward break in from the outside. True to form, she garners an e-vite to a gala at the mansion being held the day of the break-in--and may I add that she did this on her phone while the team is arguing about whether or not she should go--and she introduces herself to the billionaire as a "hactivist." So from what I have observed of Skye thus far, a hacktivist knows the ins and outs of private and organizational accounts and not only hacks but manipulates the system to get what she wants and make a statement. Our technology may not be as up-to-speed as it is in the Marvel Universe--touchscreen computer tables, communication earbuds, and instant data access--but it is interesting to see crossovers between that world and ours.
Classmates: I am having friends come over to my apartment to watch the show on Tuesday nights, and if you want to come over let me know! Marvels "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." is on ABC Tuesday nights at 7 local time, or you can watch episodes here: Watch ABC
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