American Gods rant: The Boys we could have had
I have a lot, a LOT of things to say about American Gods as a whole, and as I promise I shall sprinkle these rants like raindrops. After talking about Easter, today I want to talk about the Technical Boy - as a character within the show... Within season 2 to be more exact.
In season 1 of the TV show American Gods, we were shown that "the Technical Boy", god of computers, got a big visual update. From an overweight, acneic, awkwardly-social teenager in the original novel (reflecting the stereotypes of computer-geeks and nerds in the 90s) he became this young hyperviolent tech-bro of extravagant artificial fashions, reflecting how a god of computer and technology in the 2010s is WAY more powerful, influential and "cool" than he would have been in the 90s.
There has been a lot of talks about this change of design and appearance already, so I won't return to it... Except I'll maybe add this little detail that people who have not looked at additional material and bonus content for the show might not know - every costume of the Technical Boy in season 1 was designed with entirely artificial, un-natural materials, with a true effort by the costume-makers to create outfits that could not have existed were we not in the mid 2010s. Which is a excellent way of representing what Technical Boy is about - and what the New Gods as a whole are about (the subtle and delicate things costume-makers can introduce within characters' wardrobes is absolutely insane for me).
However I do not want to speak here of season 1's Technical Boy... But of season 2's Technical Boy, and about an element of the character that was... half-cut out of the season.
As you all know, when Fuller and Green left the show after season 1 various actors left in support, including Gillian Anderson, the actress for Media. Now, to replace Media with just another actress would have been very VERY easy since Media's whole deal is that she is a shapeshifter and an entity possessing fictional characters - in the novel she literaly manifests as the entire main cast of Cheers, so to have her sport a different face wouldn't be too illogical... Hell you could have started the habit of her having a different actor every season... But anyway, they rather preferred to introduce an in-universe reason for Media's actress to change by showing her evolve into New Media... A decision which has a lot of pro and cons, I will admit, and that needs an entire other post to discuss. But one that is very interesting because it affected the Technical Boy's own character journey...
Indeed, by introducing Media evolving into New Media, season 2 made the purposeful decision to stress a detail that has been a core part of the New Gods' entire shtick since the novel, but wasn't very much exploited by Gaiman... It is something mostly dropped by the finale and not really explored (it should have been presented a bit more in advance if you ask my opinion), even though it is one of the big reasons we are supposed to sympathize for the Moderns - and I do believe the show made a very good move in deciding to highlight this fact (even though maybe Media becoming New Media is more questionable). And this thing is, the short life-span of the New Gods.
In the novel it is mostly alluded to or vaguely exposed through mentions of the railroad baron-deity being on hard times and various of the Modern Gods (implied to be of television or cinema) only glowing by their own light, soon to fade... With Shadow stressing out that one of the reasons the New Gods are so arrogant and power-hungry and disdainful is precisely because of how easily and quickly they fade away and become irrelevant, compared to the Old Gods who had millenia of worship and religion to back them up. This is why they bite so easily into the "If we get rid of the Old Gods we will have more faith-resource for us" offer of Mr. World.
And season 2 explored this a lot, in fact it basically was supposed to be the main arc for the New Gods. With Old Media (classic cinema, deceased singers) evolving into a New Media, embodying notably social media - and said New Media entering into a competition and rivalry with the Technical Boy, who embodies modern technology and computers. This results in Technical Boy being considered "outdated" and being replaced by a new version... We only glimpse it by the finale of season 2, and season 3 literaly retcon this for no obvious reason (AAAARRRGGGHHH), but the culmination of Tech Boy's arc is that he becomes Quantum Boy, a deity embodying even more cutting edge technology (like quantum computers) and a certain faith in transhumanism, it seems...
Another costume trivia drop, revealed by Tech Boy's actor Bruce Langley: the strange suit Quantum Boy wears is actually a cooling-system, referring how quantum computers require a LOT of cooling to properly work... Again, I think it is a very cool detail. And it makes kind of "logical" the idea that his new form was so "unstable" that the "update failed" by season 3... But it doesn't remove the fact it makes one go "WTF we went through an entire character arc for it to just be removed from one season to the next? TRY TO HAVE SOME CONTINUITY DAMN IT why the heck are your throwing away a whole season"
Now, not only do we see the Technical Boy "upgrade" as Quantum Boy, but we also have an entire episode revealing that Technical Boy had a previous life, an older incarnation in the 1930s as "Telephone Boy" - thus foreshadowing, preparing the idea that the Technical Boy is a much older deity than one would think, and that he had "upgrades" through human generations.
Now, all I said above was in the show proper, but there's a lot of content out-of-series or removed from the series that expand upon this much further... At one of the public talks promoting the upcoming season 2, it was Neil Gaiman who explained that he had talked with the writers of season 2 and it resulted in the idea of exploring the many lives of the Technical Boy - because unlike in the novel, where the Technical Boy is "merely" the god of the computers and Internet of the 90s, in the TV show the Technical Boy is a god of technology as a whole, and there was this very VERY clever idea that he modifies/changes/upgrades/replaces himself, through strange metamorphosis, with every generation, to embody what is the "cutting-edge" technology of the time... Gaiman notably listed (it is unclear if this is canon or him just throwing examples) Telegraph Boy - Telephone Boy - Television Boy, as previous lives of the Technical Boy.
This also notably, in retrospective, makes his name truly clever. Because the "technical boy"'s original name was not "clever". Heck it wasn't even his actual name in the novel. He got called "the kid" or "the fat kid" more often than "the technical boy", and while he did get called this (and the gods of technology are nikcnamed the "techies" if I recall well), it is actually a nod to Johnny Mnemonic rather than an ACTUAL proper name... (In fact, this is part of a nice little theory I saw on TV Tropes that Technical Boy in the novel probably would look like a teenage, overweight version of Keanu Reeves, because he shapes himself after movies Reeves starred into - taking his name from Johnny Mnemonic and his outfit from the Matrix). But by deciding that the Technical Boy gets "reborn" or "upgraded" every generation, his name makes TOTAL ABSOLUTE SENSE in the best way ever!
Because he is the "boy of technology". He is never allowed to fully mature, to grow old, he remains a "young" god as he can only exist for maybe only two decades at most before being replaced by a newer, shinier, younger self. The telegraph is replaced by the telephone which is replaced by the television, etc, etc...
We know for a fact that the original plans for season 2 would have highlighted and exposed far more of this "Tech Boy evolution". Indeed, season 2 suffered from the same turn of fate as season 1, with planned episodes having to be cut at the last minute... If you remember the various promotional pictures and trailers for season 2 you might remember seeing shots and images that never appeared in the show proper... That's because we know that a certain episode was actually created by smashing together two halves of very distinct episodes... With the remaining, fully shot, fully edited halves being just dumped away. They are not even available as bonus features on the DVD, they are currently fully lost media... Entire sequences dumped into oblivion
And these sequences would have involved much more scenes of the Technical Boy... Most notably we had one entirely new incarnation of the Technical Boy that was removed. Well, "new" not really... the TV show's equivalent of the novel-version of Tech Boy. Indeed, a behind-the-scenes promotional video (still on Youtube) showed us the stage for a planned sequence with Technical Boy never shot... And an entire makeup of Bruce Langley in a fat suit was first posted by Colin Penman (the guy behind the AG special effects, and the special effects of various other shows) before being removed (probably due to copyright reasons), and then years later reposted by Bruce Langley. These videos and shots revealed that, as a nod to the Technical Boy from the book, we would have had a second "previous life" of the Technical Boy, just like Telephone Boy, who would have been an overweight young man surrounded by video-games of the 80s and 90s. I started jokingly referring to this incarnation as "Game Boy", but I do consider this a half-serious theory, because we do have the appearance of a Game Boy (the product) in the actual season 2, in the episode showing the "manifestation" of Technical Boy, and given the "fat kid" Boy was VERY very clearly an entity of video games and game consoles... It makes sense to have a literal "Game Boy"... X)
All of that to say... I really REALLY love this concept. Especially with how, had the "Game Boy" deleted scene been kept it, it would have resulted in season 2 offering a literal meta-commentary and pointing out the evolution from the novel with its late 90s setting to the show's mid 2010s one... And in general I really like this concept of a "generational spirit" that reflects the fast evolution of time. I only saw this concept being used once elsewhere, and it was in the comic book "Astro City" where you have a spirit of counter-culture manifesting through generational counter-culture music... And thus evolving with each decade, going from Mr Cakewalk to Jazzbaby to the Bouncing Beatnik, and existing in identities such as the Halcyon Hippie, Zootsuit, Glamora, etc, etc... And I think it is a really neat concept!
