The Janus Project: Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s Utopia, Anempathetic Empathy and the Radicalization of Convention

Abstract

Davison and Reyland’s chapter offers a critical analysis of Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s music for the Channel 4 serial Utopia, written and directed by Marc Munden. Utopia explores the frightening problem of our planet’s overpopulation. Rather than encouraging straightforward identification and empathy with the unlikely group of heroes seeking to uncover the conspiracy at the show’s heart—plans to sterilize most of the human race—Utopia’s music and narrative entwine unconventionally. Groovy rhythms and unique timbres draw attention to themselves, cues encourage empathy and anempathy by turns, and audio-viewer assumptions about right and wrong, hero and villain, are manipulated, challenged and inverted. Davison and Reyland theorize the term anempathetic empathy to encapsulate the unique qualities of this important example of recent, high-end TV scoring.