I watched the documentary “My Octopus Teacher” for a class a couple of weeks ago.
While I went in with no knowledge of the premise, I emerged feeling confused by the nearly two hours I had spent watching South African documentary filmmaker Craig Foster (“The Great Dance”) obsess over a single octopus. He spent nearly a year tracking this octopus, forming a strangely intense bond as he watched her feed herself, camouflage in dangerous situations and die after childbirth. To Foster, his relationship with her was an important reminder of the preciousness of life and encouraged him to mend his relationship with his son Tom, whom he had seemingly neglected.
But to me and my friends who watched it with me, the framing of this relationship often came off as bizarre to the point of humor. At some point, I became fed up with his narration and simply scrolled through Letterboxd looking at shitty one-liner reviews. Many were just variants of either, “Wow … his relationship with the octopus is so beautiful,” or “Man, he is weirdly in love with that octopus.” My reaction falls closer to the latter.
I’m not doubting Foster’s newfound appreciation for life, but his exploration of the octopus came off as fetishistic, and the language he used to describe their relationship nearly veered romantic at points that felt uncomfortable. Not to discount his personal growth, but it felt almost insulting to see Foster selfishly use their friendship to realize that he has a family he’d forgotten to care about due to a year of stalking an octopus going about her daily life. What was intended to be a moving account of humankind’s relationship with other beings came off as a vanity project and a vulgar display of egoism.
Even as I was certain of my general dislike of the film, I still couldn’t shake the feeling of disgust that I felt after watching it. I’m no documentary expert, and most documentaries (let alone nature ones) don’t conjure extreme negative emotions within me, but this one just pressed all the wrong buttons. In an attempt to figure out the root of my repulsion, I posed a stupid question to myself: Am I the octopus?
What sounded silly prompted deeper examination, and I had an epiphany: My disgust with “My Octopus Teacher” was partly influenced by my lifelong fear and discomfort of being watched, and to be more specific, watching myself.
The year was 2007. Or 2008, 2009, 2015, 2019 or whenever. It’s a recurring experience: sitting in the car, three miles away from the event location, getting lectured by my father about the necessary social cues to follow when I’m there. Make eye contact with people. Introduce yourself “properly.” Smile whenever someone speaks to you, and laugh whenever they tell you something funny (regardless of whether it is). It would be shameful to your family otherwise.
Whether these kinds of reinforcements were effective or not is debatable, but it worked amazingly to get me to monitor myself. Now, my eye contact is often too direct to the point of being uncomfortable. I pre-plan sentences hours in advance so I’m not misconstrued or I don’t stutter when I say them. My wardrobe mostly consists of black or other dark colors to be less noticeable. On the off chance I do feel comfortable in a group setting, the second I feel like I’ve said something out of the ordinary, I shrink and stop talking. Sometimes, I feel like my only purpose is to become a doll to be used and imprinted on by others.
What did I see in “My Octopus Teacher?” I saw a creature being watched with zero input and a man who watched her like his life depended on it. I used to be perplexed at why I would get lectured so often; would it matter to some unsuspecting Malayali uncle or aunty that a 7-year-old kid felt awkward talking about themselves when they could’ve been playing with other kids? Sure, the person walking down State Street with whom I lock eyes may not be judging me, but what does that matter to someone who’s internalized the idea that their every move is being watched? Every stare, every question, every impending comment out of someone’s mouth feels like being stabbed with a jagged dagger. I realized that I not only identified with the octopus, as she was subject to surveillance, but also with Foster in his fixation with the octopus. Perhaps the largest set of eyes on me was my own.
Naturally, this made me turn to my biggest form of self-expression: writing. It was one of the realms of my life where I’d thought I was completely open with myself, where I was able to freely communicate my thoughts without feeling uneasy about them. I joined The Michigan Daily last year as a music writer, and I was incredibly excited to share my perspectives along with a structure to get myself to write more — both of which actually happened! But, after watching “My Octopus Teacher,” I looked back on the pieces I’ve published. Foster’s objective for the course of a year was to obsessively track the octopus’ behavior. Similarly, my writing was not immune to my obsessive self-consciousness. So, it became more formal. Less emotive. Less willing to outwardly express something, cloaked by flowery language to mask my insecurities.
I’m reminded of a criticism I got from a former editor on my very first piece for The Daily, a review of the album Spiderr by Bladee. She wrote that my draft was too dense and should sound more like I was speaking to an audience rather than filling up sentences with wordy descriptions. While I’ve made efforts to correct this, in rereading many of my articles (which I love), I realized I’m still holding back. There’s a particular distance I’ve often taken between myself and my writing to intentionally make it impersonal, as if to fully immerse myself in my work is to prod at my deepest secrets. I thought, “Was I even supposed to write for The Daily?” But what did the octopus think upon seeing a large creature point a camera in her face? I’m in a position where I’m both subject to the scores reading my work as well as my own obsessive self-critique. I don’t want to wallow in my misery, but how?
Art has been a particularly potent force in how I navigate the world, a reflective source of comfort amid uneasiness. When I was a kid, I saw myself in the world of Harry Potter; in high school, I turned to albums like Dirty Computer and Disintegration to both feed my aspirations toward confidence and to act as a relatable crutch. While I experienced those creations alone, I’m now finding more community through art; there’s nothing better than discoursing over the themes of some heavily layered film half asleep at two in the morning. I experience, identify with and share the art I love. I also love being a hater. Foster made me realize the extent to which my existence is defined by “soiveillance,” but also how I’ve coped with it through my engagement with art.
This isn’t a narrative of growth. I wish I could say that my dislike of “My Octopus Teacher” inspired me to dismantle my internal panopticon, to “break free” as the Ariana Grande song goes. But what it’s done is given me a framework to concretely examine my self-perception. I may not immediately confront what my mother’s death means to me or how culturally internalized attitudes in my youth are partly responsible for my present-day identity crises. I’m not even comfortable submitting this article for edits! But thank you Craig Foster for creating such a deeply annoying movie that, in a roundabout way, forced me to intimately reckon with lifelong issues. For now, I’ll be watching me watch myself.
Senior Arts Editor Thejas Varma can be reached at thejasv@umich.edu.