Bashir from Fishtank season 5

A character study

Some years ago, I had a friend. He was a redhead with long curly hair, who was extremely “high in trait openness”, as people say nowadays. Extremely outwardly energetic, social, upbeat and positive, dressing purposefully like a clown, and acting like a clown. Naturally, I couldn’t stand him.

He was just too, something. Something was forced, although what exactly was hard to pin down. But it felt sleezy or deceitful, something in the facade made me uneasy, the very fact that there was a facade. “trying too hard”. If he was a girl on the Internet you’d call him a “pick me”.

My impression changed, or rather, I gained an understanding, when I learned that he had, and I met, his younger brother with down’s syndrome. It all clicked: this guy had been forced into an adult role too young. He had been made by his parents, or the universe (I never knew their parents), his brothers caretaker to some degree, since infancy. And that had molded him in a certain way, and molded the framework through which he met all other future human beings. Once that clicked, our relationship changed, because all of a sudden, without any choice or intention of my own, I found that I trusted him completely. He didn’t change his behavior one bit, but I no longer kept him at arms length or felt uneasy.

It was the same eeriness I have been feeling watching mister Bashir on Fishtank season five. I suspect similar forces are at play.

I think Mr Bashir is similar in some roundabout meta ways. I think my friend acted as a paternal caregiver to others, being excessively open and upbeat, not just because he was “trained to do so” by his brothers circumstances, but because HE was himself deprived of those things. I think he created the things he felt deprived of as a child, from his own parents, because he had a handicapped younger brother who took all their time and energy. As coping mechanisms go, you can do a lot worse.

But he was hurting, and lacking, and had needed to learn that about himself to overcome it.

I believe that some similar trigger and result is happening in Bashir’s personality. I think he acts out the spiritual paternal guide, because for whatever reason, I don’t know the fucking guy, he feels that he was deprived of that as a child. And whenever he gives a speech or shows off to the camera, or becomes a loving paternal voice that says “don’t listen to the mean tts, you’re a perfect spiritual warrior”, he is acting out what he wishes someone would do to him, on a subconscious level. And the reason he feels fake or insincere to some of us, is not exactly that he is doing anything wrong, any particular action. But he is un-integrated, and is doing them automatically, not with agency, out of “habit”, like a robot, and that is what gives off the feeling of facade.

Audiences are divided on Bashir. Is he a flawed but good guy trying to do his best, or is he an evil lying male manipulator? I say, he is neither.

Despite self deprecating ironic (note: always ironic)ly calling himself autistic, he is neither autistic or narcissistic, as his opponents claim. He craves attention very much, and desires very much to be the center of attention, and “in control” socially. But he is not delusional - he is capable of understanding when he isn’t, such as, losing a fight, or a challenge, or a social interaction, enough to adjust his behavior and try to reclaim the power. If he was a genuine clinical narcissist he would be oblivious, and unable to change gears, I think.

This is behavior that’s very much competing for limited or conditional parental attention.

He starts fights and complains when people fight back. When he loses a fight, he tries to lawyer his way out and argue why it was actually a meta/moral victory for him. When you steal from me, shame on you for stealing. When I steal from you, shame on you for not being able to stop me.

He has demonstrated on the show that he is completely unwilling to accept losing. He will gladly lose in purpose though. What gives? Because in the latter, he remains “in control” socially. And for Mr Bashir it’s not important whether he wins or loses, it’s important that he stays in control, and is the top dog. It’s easy to offer to lose on purpose and fall on a sword - because then he is still the center of attention, for being noble enough to let the other one win, and that makes him the real winner.

After being physically bested, he cannot simply say “fuck good one, you got me, I lost this one”. He tabs out and then complains that it was unfair and unethical and actually his opponent was the real loser for compromising on his morals (as interpreted by Mr Bashir). It would be so easy to just say “you got me, I lost that one bro”, but he can’t stop from lawyering and continuing the fight. Because he is much better at that than actual fighting.

He talks a lot about, and idealizes, the idea of a spiritual or mystic warrior, and likes to compliment others by calling them either or both. But he is himself not a warrior. This is pure ideation. He is a lawyer. To overcome himself, and be loved in a genuine way like he desires, he must learn and accept this about himself. He should be thanking Mr James Drake for putting him in a chokehold, this has been the closest thing to a spiritual breakthrough he’s had in the show.

To accept unconditional love is impossible as long as you are competing for it - as long as you dress up like a cowboy samurai, and look into the camera, and tell long boring stories about “obscure” (lmao babbys first hipster film selection) movies, that you are really down to earth about, and you don’t even think you are better than everyone for knowing - you cannot experience it, even if it is given. In human or divine form. To experience it you must give up trying to earn it. It’s unconditional. If you bring conditions into it, then you’re causing the problem. But it takes a lot of faith to let that happen.

The ideal outcome with the movies, is that if one just changed attitude ever so slightly, people like me would say “bragging about knowing obscure films because you’re a wannabe hipster attention whore”. We would say ah how interesting yes I have heard of Dr Chicago. It has nothing to do with the film selection, or being a snob. I’m a snob. All of my best friends are snobs. I only have the biggest of snobs as friends, actually. You probably haven’t even heard about them.

The reason it flips and half the audience bullies him about it, is because deep down in his childhood formative years, he felt (regardless of whether it’s true or not) that he had to compete for and earn affection, and that screams out into every prosocial action he attempts.

Mr Bashir does not have a “huge ego” as I have seen some claim, he has a fragile one, and a lot of very strong and rigorously trained coping mechanisms.

I learned in later crisis scenarios that my cowboy samurai friend could in fact completely lock in and drop the act. He just preferred not to. Fishtank is different, and having the cameras and awareness of them, changes the whole calculation, but having seen Mr Bashir in multiple crisis situations, some of which being so intimate and immediate as a slap in the face, he has yet to ever break through the facade. The cameras probably make it harder, not easier. We are all fundamentally attracted to situations that enable our patterns, whether they are healthy or destructive, and Mr Bashir is intensely attracted to being on camera.

I say, because that offers him control over how he is perceived, which is the key ingredient. Or at least to HIM it offers the experience, of that being the case.

I have noted that rather than a competitor, Bashir wants to be the director. He has strong ideas about how to make the show better, more uplifting, more artistic, and complains when he has to be a contestant in humiliating and pointless crude and vulgar things.

Here is it worthwhile to contrast him with the closest thing to his shadow on the show, actor and actual physical combatant who knows wrestling and boxing techniques, Mr James Drake.

James is a shadow, because he is much closer to being an actual warrior, and because he is completely conscious (albeit with a world of his own problems) actor. James knows he is an actor, knows when he acts, which is most of the time. Possibly all the time. James and Bashir are natural dramatic opposites.

James knows exactly what his job and role is, and to his immense credit, takes direction extremely well. Bashir, when cracks appear in his persona and facade, immediately retracts to from the role of actor to director, and if his “role” loses a fight, he tries to take over the role of director instead.

When you throw pee pee at me, shame on you. When I throw pee pee at you, shame on you, for being in the pee pee poo poo show.

The horrible tragedy for Mr Bashir is that despite it being completely accurate for him to say that James is “fake” and “acting”, when they both attempt to be nice and kind and gentle to the girls or their downs syndrome little brother, James Drake is still more genuine than himself, because James knows when he is acting. Even if it’s all the time. Bashir does not. He could easily overcome this, but he would have to open himself in a way he has as of yet only pretended to. But that’s not so bad! We all LARP before we can run, that’s just the way of things.

The further tragedy, what makes Bashir a tragic character dramatically, is that he is right that fishtank is a strange artistic thing that has uplifting qualities, but his idea of how to make it better or more so, is exactly what is making him become the heel and villain of the show:

Fishtank is not the silly poopoo torture show where nothing matters and the rules are fake, and the challenges are fake, and everything is pointless torture porn. That’s every other reality TV show. They started out attempting to create, essentially, a parody of reality television, of making it so caricatured and extreme that the audience couldn’t deny how horrible these things are - an HONEST reality TV show, where we don’t pretend it’d not evil.

But what gradually grew out of that was the exact opposite. The appeal of fishtank is, despite it appearances, that it is the most, in Internet lingo, “moralfagging”, reality TV show, of all time.

How do you win Fishtank? The rules are arbitrary and change day by day, and the only common rule given is “be interesting”. And yet, through seasons 1-4, every season Mr Sam Hyde has said openly on camera “I’m not gonna give x thousand dollars to a junkie/insane person/etc” , despite these insane junkies being objectively the more “entertaining”. So there is a push a pull. How do you win Fishtank? Ultimately, from s1-now, the answer is, be the person Sam Hyde likes the most. Be the person who has had a character arc of growth and becoming stronger and more capable and higher agency. Embody the values of Sam Hyde’s moral worldview the best. Josie “won” season 1, but they rigged it for Letty because she was the most high agency sam-like individual. TJ won when he let Sam punch him in the head. Luke won s3. Nobody won s4. But the pattern is there.

What are Sam Hyde’s values? Professionalism, artistic or practical achievement/skill, a kind of nietzschean selv-overcoming, growth into a stronger, more capable individual. Coupled with a couple of deontological red lines, notably in regards to children.

Fishtank is, paradoxically, for all of its purposeful literal filth, the only “moral” reality tv show - according to one person’s vision of morality. The winner is the one who “deserves” it the most, not the one who “wins” it. Who decides who deserves it the most? Many references are made to this, and to some abstract dramatical rules, lots of talks about Arcs and struggle. But it is not the Audience who decides what a good character arc is, and it is not the contestants who decide who is more “likeable”.

Bashir cannot win, because the environment is incompatible with the necessary process of his self overcoming. The camera is enabling his coping mechanisms, and they cannot be destroyed on camera. With this, he cannot embody Sam Hyde ethos of selv overcoming. The idea that he knows better, that fishtank should be the Bashir Show where they get the red scare girls to come on and listen to him talk about movies and speak Japanese, because he faintly recognizes the above paragraphs, is exactly what prevents him from achieving it - his tragic flaw, his ironic flaw. Beauty will forever elude him, until he ceases grasping for it.

Now, season five is without Sam’s direct involvement and that changes things a bit. Because now the measuring stick is no longer Sam Hyde’s moral worldview. It is producers Ben and Jet’s, presumably Jet’s primarily. And we’ll see what he believes.

My prediction is the finale will be James Drake vs the Twins, because those are the two horses of Ben and Jet’s respective visions. If I had to put money on it I’d say James takes it. It might be the case that without Sam Hyde as the moral centerpiece is the thing falls apart. But in that case nothing matters anyway and nobody wins anything. Anyway the twins should have gone home and Landon was robbed. With Landon and Blane, the show is over anyways. Landon was the heart of the show and he had the biggest arc. He earned it. He deserved it. He was ROBBED. The show is STUPID.

We can talk about Landon and James and bullying some other time.