Eye of the Beholder Redux

 

Rod Serling, creator of the original Twilight Zone, pulled off a pretty neat trick when Eye of the Beholder aired 60 years ago.

The story takes place in a hospital where a bandaged woman is waiting to see if "treatments" to repair her facial malformations have worked. Interactions with the hospital staff reveal she's been in and out for treatments many times and this is her last go. If this doesn't work, she'll be relocated to live with other unfortunates like herself -- by order of the state.

Now, the trick I'm referring to is NOT the big "pig face" reveal after so much suspense had been building about what Miss Tyler's horrific face would look like.

No. The real trick was to have the escape sequence that closes the show read BOTH as Miss Tyler (the beauteous Donna Douglas) hiding her hideousness from the hospital workers (which would be consistent with the narrative) AND recoiling from their messed up mugs (which would be the audience's POV).

If the scene played too much as Douglas running in fright from their appearance, then the story's mythology would be trashed. And if the pig faces responded by recoiling, then the audience would likely respond by laughing and not sympathize with the running woman because it was all a big joke.

Miss Tyler runs barefoot down twisted corridors as the leader speechifies on suspended screens about rooting out non-conformity. It's meant to be surreal but also pointedly relevant as the U.S. was wrestling with its changing national identity and the rights of the minorities and unfavored. I'm sure Serling wanted viewers to wonder if they were Miss Tylers or Pig Faces.

Messing around with people's perceptions and expectations is a dicey proposition, and Serling was a master mindf***er -- for the good, in my estimation. This episode especially -- with its messages about state control of personal liberties and ghettoization -- was a powerful television moment that I think became clearer as the years passed.

The resolution might not sit well with today's viewers who resist its message of acceptance through segregation, but it was Serling's warning not his recommendation.