The Twilight Zone has never been a stranger to tackling weighty social themes. Confronting the audience on ideas like racial prejudice, beauty standards, and the Red Scare that swept Cold War-era America. There’s no wonder that the hard-hitting sci-fi anthology Black Mirror cites the show as a significant inspiration, with endings that range from thought-provoking to genuinely bleak. Though their record is relatively flawless, one episode handled its subject in such a way that it was pulled from CBS syndication for over 50 years. The episode in question was Season 5’s “The Encounter,” a story of wartime trauma, suppressed prejudice, and racial disharmony. The episode’s apparent good intentions in portraying the crippling consequences of racism were mostly undermined by its mishandling of the same theme. When Fenton (Neville Brand), an American veteran, invites Arthur (George Takei), a Japanese-American gardener, up to his attic to share a beer, the two men each grapple with their trauma from World War II and their racially prejudiced perceptions of each other — until tragedy intervenes and brings the men to a cruel fate.
There’s plenty that “The Encounter” does right, namely its method of portraying the lasting, trickling effects that subtle acts of racism have upon a society. The problem, though, and the reason why civil liberties groups found the episode harmful, is that it fails to present a fair portrayal of Arthur and the Asian American demographic he was meant to represent. Utilizing a horror lens to take on themes of racism can be particularly effective, as we’ve seen in flicks like Get Out, The People Under the Stairs, Candyman, and, even if unintentionally, The Night of the Living Dead.
“The Encounter” is undeniably an episode that can snap audiences back into the reality that The Twilight Zone was made in the 1960s, when white America was still stumbling and grappling with ideas of civil rights and racial integration. These moments rarely happen, but this is undeniably one of them. As many have experienced, even the most enlightened in any dominant socio-economic class can completely fumble in making a point. The episode is terrifying in a way that many Twilight Zone entries are: it’s a horrific examination of man’s folly and the ugliness that hides beneath the surface of American society and human nature. The problem is that, especially for the time, the episode makes narrative choices that only add to the idiotic racist beliefs that it meant to condemn.
Why Was “The Encounter” the Only Banned ‘Twilight Zone’ Episode?
Airing only 20 years after the U.S.’ shameful incarceration and forceful relocation of massive numbers of Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II, Twilight Zone‘s “The Encounter” ultimately stumbles over itself while portraying its character of Arthur Takamori. From the start, at least, Arthur is portrayed fairly enough: he’s just a professional gardener looking for some work and finding it on Fenton’s property. He’s uncomfortable with the way his white neighbor talks to him, deeming the man’s racist condescension as wanton acts of hatred. You see, Fenton tends to call Arthur ‘boy’ in a way that suggests an unspoken belief of superiority. He also makes ignorant assumptions that Arthur, an American-born man, can naturally read Kanji script, throws about slurs as if he genuinely doesn’t think them to be harmful, and belittles Arthur’s physical strength when he can’t open a mysteriously sealed door.
Arthur, meanwhile, expresses his discomfort. “I get bugged by ‘boy,'” Arthur retorts to Fenton’s condescension, “I’m a full-grown man. I work for a living. I answer to Arthur, Takamori, or — believe it or not — Mr. Takamori.” He doesn’t like being there, and why would he? Fenton’s ceaseless microaggressions are exhausting. Even if Fenton’s so-called hospitality of offering the man to share a beer is, on paper, the neighborly way of being, it’s too heavily eradicated by the man’s insensitivity-slash-outright-racism.
It’s almost ahead of the curve in Fenton’s breed of prejudiced behavior. Microaggressions still go over people’s heads, especially when they’re not directed right at you. It’s also refreshing the idea that Arthur should be thankful he’s even being invited for a beer and just take whatever insensitive comment he’s offered in good humor is immediately shut down. He won’t tolerate being spoken down to even when he is a guest in a seemingly inviting situation, whether it kills the friendly mood or not. That level of self-advocacy is something that people should take to heart, especially as Asian Americans would soon be saddled with the model minority stereotype for the next couple of decades. The Twilight Zone posits that sometimes racism doesn’t appear as obvious, outright aggression, but ignorance (willful or not) and patronisation.
On one hand, this blatant portrayal of racial disharmony assuredly proved to be a provoking, uncomfortable experience for viewers of the horror anthology, but it isn’t the problem. The issue comes near the start of the third act when Arthur reluctantly admits that his father, a Japanese-American man working construction on Pearl Harbor at the time of the Imperial Navy’s attack, was a spy who gave the planes directions on where to attack. Arthur’s shame and trauma are unbearable and serve as a crucial part of his undoing, but it’s also rooted in the same racist notion that led to the creation of the internment camps in the 40s. It feeds into the absurd and baseless assumption that those of non-European ethnicities are naturally less inclined to be good “Americans” — whatever that means. It’s an unfortunate twist in Martin Goldsmith‘s otherwise poignant script that ultimately led to the episode’s removal from syndication.
‘Twilight Zone’s “The Encounter” Underwrote George Takei’s Character
Sure, The Twilight Zone episode is only about 20 minutes long, but “The Encounter” had the potential to take on its themes with more credibility and honesty. Underwriting Takei’s character is the episode’s fatal flaw, especially when compared to the weight given to Brand’s character. Brand, the episode’s white man, is a product of cultural and militaristic brainwashing that led him to form insidious racist beliefs. The acts of wartime violence that plagued him with inescapable trauma were, he claims, simply orders that he was carrying out at the demand of powerful, hateful men. This was also something that was explored, and much better, in the episode “Deaths-Head Revisited” from Season 3. Also about and set after the events of WWII, it focuses on an SS soldier who is faced with his horrific deeds in the shell of a concentration camp. It’s also an episode that focuses on the xenophobia that causes atrocities, and two seasons before “The Encounter”, it more brutally represented the ideas of propaganda and what “just following orders” can lead to. It used the most catastrophic, and most obvious example of it, so it is a genuine shame that a less spoken-about one – the treatment of Japanese-Americans post-WWII – did not get the treatment it deserved.
He claims that his attitude towards Asian Americans is purely the result of the way that such demographics of people are culturally portrayed. With the war over, the ’60s tumultuously arriving, and progressives and civil liberties groups at long last making strides to convince white Americans that equality and understanding is the only reasonable or respectable path, Fenton nevertheless remains confused. This overdue cultural progression is in inherent conflict with what he was force-fed during the war. Fenton later admits to Arthur that he drinks a little too much. He hints at a pervading alcoholism that estranged him from his wife and lost him his construction job. The reason, he claims, is not only his haunting trauma from his wartime stint in Okinawa, but the way that the outright horrors of war violence become all the more apparent when racism is eradicated from the equation.
Even within Fenton’s character, there are important themes of post-traumatic stress, mental illness, and most importantly what America’s jingoistic values can do to both soldiers and civilians. The idea that America is the good guy, and therefore right in any action they take in warfare, is a concept we’ve seen well into the 21st century. It’s another idea that’s ahead of its time. It’s another way this episode is somehow both biting in its reflection of cultural values and frustratingly of its time in fumbling its representation. Fenton’s character, as detestable as he is, is a well-written character that serves as a metaphorical point aiding the episode’s intended message. Arthur, meanwhile, is tragically underwritten.
“The Encounter” Feeds Into Harmful Asian American Stereotypes
It’s not as if horror can’t be mined from this exact subject, the cultural trauma that Japanese-Americans experienced during and after WWII. Takei himself went on to star in 2019’s The Terror: Infamy. This story captures the experience in a more in-depth way, weaving it into Japanese folklore and mythology. Most importantly, the Japanese-American characters are their own people, rather than just supporting a white character’s emotional development like Arthur turns out to be for Fenton. This is how a lot of Asian characters, especially Asian women, have been written for decades, and we’re just now crawling out of it. This is a more enlightened time, at least we hope it is. One that does, or at least should have more to offer AAPI storytellers. Unfortunately, “The Encounter” does more than give less to offer.
Arthur’s identity is ultimately distilled to being the child of a military traitor who used his American identity to aid a wartime enemy. It’s a needlessly patriotic and undermining plot twist that only leads to the metaphor collapsing upon itself. Fenton’s senseless assumptions about Arthur, though no less credible, are almost excused through the episode’s fractured moral lens. Arthur Takamori deserved better treatment. He deserved more depth and characterization. When the episode culminates in Arthur clutching a katana and jumping out of the window to his presumable death with a screeching “Banzai!” escaping from his throat, “The Encounter” goes all in on a fatal gamble and comes up short. The fact that this is the only time an AAPI actor was a lead character in the original series makes it so much worse, as if this was the one shot. It was like a checklist of stereotypes past and future. The son of a spy against the US, who ends up clutching a katana (not even Star Trek gave George Takei a katana), swinging at the nice white man who offered him a beer, and ending his own life like many AAPI characters are subject to doing.
Even as a product of a less inclusive era, “The Encounter” should have done better. Underdeveloping its Asian American character and feeding into harmful stereotypes goes against what you’d expect from The Twilight Zone. With a plethora of cooking shows portraying the rich, diverse culture of Asian Americans and their cuisine, movies like Minari and Blue Bayou creating stirring and poignant depictions of the Asian American experience, and shows like American-Born Chinese forming an Asian American all-star cast, the late 2010s and 2020s have begun to give audiences some long overdue representation, working to undo the cultural harm Hollywood — and well-intended but misguided episodes like “The Encounter” — had done.
Other Episodes of ‘The Twilight Zone’ Handle Racism Better Than “The Encounter”
Had the episode handled its subject better, it could have been among the best and scariest episodes of The Twilight Zone. In dealing with the weighty, timely themes of war trauma and the perpetually harmful consequences of even minor acts of racism, the episode was close to coming up with something spectacular. Considering that Rod Serling‘s creation of The Twilight Zone stemmed from a censored attempt at writing a screenplay about the brutal murder of Emmett Till, there’s virtually no reason why such an episode of The Twilight Zone shouldn’t excel in its social commentary.
On a technical level, the episode is exceptionally well-crafted. The performances of Brand and Takei are both fantastic, and the tight cinematography gives a claustrophobic feel to the tightly crammed attic. Beads of perspiration begin to appear on the actors’ foreheads, multiplying with the urgency of bacteria until the men are as volatile and sweat-drenched as the Brooklyn residents in Do the Right Thing. The episode understands, as the best Twilight Zone entries do, not only that there’s a social problem, but also a solution. Only it stumbles and falls flat on its face as it approaches the finish line, an unfortunate misstep in what could have been a Twilight Zone classic.
Looking at the closing monologue of a Season 5 episode titled, “I Am the Night—Color Me Black,” we see a Serling-penned speech in which exists the anti-racist sentiment that the series often took. “A sickness known as hate,” Serling narrates, “Not a virus, not a microbe, not a germ — but a sickness nonetheless, highly contagious, deadly in its effects. Don’t look for it in the Twilight Zone — look for it in a mirror.” Though heavy-handed in its own right, that episode makes a furious statement about the insidious effects of racism on marginalized groups and society as a whole. It works better than “The Encounter” because it doesn’t indulge in the same ill-executed portrayals of people of color that ultimately become the entry’s undoing.
The problem isn’t that racists are living in the Twilight Zone. It’s that they’re living here, in the real world, and insensitive racial portrayals like that seen in the final act of “The Encounter” only continue to perpetuate the hate. And it’s all a hell of a lot more terrifying than anything we’ve seen in The Twilight Zone.
You can now watch “The Encounter” from The Twilight Zone, now streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S.
Watch on Paramount+
