Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Pitt through season two as well as casting spoilers for season three. It also touches on some spoilers for the movie Sinners. Read at your own risk.

Intro

Artificial Intelligence is the next big thing. Or so we’re told. It slices! It dices! It makes julienne fries! Actors say get on board or get left behind (or maybe they don’t?) AI videos of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are revolutionizing the idea of movies as we know them! Dear god THE WORLD IS CHANGING!

Or, you know, maybe not so much.

Look, I’m not going to say there’s never an actual use for a glorified autocorrect or computer automation that can genuinely aid in the creation of art. But when it comes to the idea that AI itself - and I’m going to keep calling it that because while I don’t dispute artificial I very much dispute intelligence - is going to replace humans in the creation of movies and TV shows the answer is no. Very much no.

To that end, I want to talk about why. And as I watched season two of The Pitt I noticed how one character, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, was an excellent example of why AI can’t replace humans. Not because Al-Hashimi the character advocated for AI usage in the hospital, which I also disagree with, but because of the way the humans working on the show made us feel about her as soon as she showed up on our screens.

To be clear, there are a lot of things that go into audience reaction to a character. The writing, the acting, the sounds, the cinematography - it goes on and on. But me being me, of course I’m going to talk about costumes.

Let’s get started.

How Costumes Tell A Story

I’ve covered this topic before (see the three costume related links right above this). But for those new here the quick recap is that costumes give an immediate understanding of a character. Things like what time period they’re in and what job, if any, do they have are the bare minimum. To that end, The Pitt’s costume designer arguably has a very easy job. Modern day hospital! Scrubs for everyone!

If all your costumes do is answer those two questions you’re doing fine. But great costume designers do more than that.

Is it even a costume article if I don’t mention Ruth E Carter? In the above picture we see Smoke and Stack from Sinners. Our bare minimum here is that these are two men in early 1900s America involved in some kind of business and that we learn that we can always tell them apart because Smoke is in blue while Stack is in red.

But Ruth E Carter doesn’t stay on minimum. We could do an entire college course on everything going on with just these two outfits but just to hit some highlights: Stack’s suit is in an Italian style and Smoke’s is Irish, telling you which mafia each were involved in when they worked in Chicago. Red doesn’t just indicate Stack and those connected to him but, throughout the movie, symbolizes the idea of freedom but only with great sacrifice. Blue not only symbolizes those connected to Smoke but also the idea of the impact of oppression on individuals and society. The symbolic meanings of the colors tie directly to the fate of the brothers by the end of the film.

And as I say, that’s just hitting the highlights.

Ryan Coogler has a metaphor about movie making being like a croissant. If you pick up a croissant and eat it and enjoy it, that’s great and nothing wrong with that at all. But if you understand how croissants are made when you pick one up you’ll have additional levels of appreciation for all the work put in and aspects of it that result in you enjoying that croissant.

Let’s see this in action with how Dr. Al-Hashimi's appearance is like a croissant.

Why Dr. Al-Hashimi Feels Like She Doesn’t Belong In The Pitt

HBO’s The Pitt introduced the character of Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, played by Sepideh Moafi, as a foil for Noah Wyle’s Dr Robby. She’s there to fill in for him while he’s on a three month sabbatical. On paper, she has great bona fides. She’s multi-lingual. She’s driven. Her time working in a war zone with Doctors Without Borders is so badass it impresses resident Batman Dr Abbott. Her most recent job was at the VA, where she worked with fan favorite characters Mel and Mohan, both of whom adore her.

Yet… she feels like she doesn’t fit. Like she doesn’t belong. It’s just off somehow.

Now as I’ve said, there’s a lot of things shaping audience’s perception of a character. The fact that Robby, who at the start of the season is still firmly in beloved Dr Daddy mode to most of the audience, bristles at the very mention of her is one such thing. But again we’re focusing on costuming so let’s take a look.

Hmm. It’s fine, right? We already covered this. She works in a modern day hospital and she’s wearing scrubs. What else could costume designer Lyn Paulo even try to do here? It’s not like she can put Al-Hashimi in a lobster costume for a 15 hour shift.

But let’s look closer.

Yes, the people working with patients at the hospital wear scrubs. But scrubs can still tell a story. The color of the scrubs tells you where the person works. Doctors are in a near black, nurses wear a blue grey, surgeons navy, and so on. In season one Whitaker even gets teased because at one point he’s stuck wearing nurse’s scrubs which means even in universe people can't tell where he works by looking at him.

So we see Al-Hashimi is wearing black doctor scrubs, and that’s good. But she still doesn’t feel like she fits. Why?

Let’s start from the top. Which granted isn’t costuming but styling. Specifically her hair, which falls under the domain of Myriam Arougheti and her team.

With no other information to go on about Al-Hashimi, one of the first things we notice about her hair is that it’s curly. As in naturally curly. Baran Al-Hashimi is not white. There is considerable pressure on women of color to straighten their hair in order to be considered acceptable in Western society. Actress May Calamawy of Moon Knight talked about how meaningful it was for her to keep her curly hair while portraying an Egyptian superhero. Dr Mohan, Supriya Ganesh, has also talked about the pressure to conform to Western ideas of how hair should look. And in other roles and her personal life, Sepideh Moafi doesn’t eschew straightening her hair if she feels the need so we know that's not the issue.

Dr. Al-Hashimi keeping her hair’s natural curls, then, says something about her as a character. She’s a woman of color who doesn’t submit to Western beauty standards. She has the confidence to be herself and stand in who she is. To certain kinds of people - let’s be real, racists - that’s unacceptable for a woman of color to do.

But not everyone in the audience is a Monica Peters, making faces when we hear someone talking in anything other than English. True. But Al-Hashimi’s hair still makes her not fit in. Why? Well let’s look at everyone else.

Looking at Mohan, Mel, and Garcia what do you notice about their hair compared to Al-Hashimi’s? It’s back. Not only back, but tightly so. This isn’t about Western standards. Garcia still has gorgeous curls going on. But each and every one of them has their hair pulled up and out of their face.

And the doctors aren’t alone here.

Yes, Al-Hashimi is a doctor and not a nurse, but what we’re seeing here with Dana, Emma, and Donnie all have their hair tightly tied back as well.

Why? Because in season two of The Pitt everyone is ready for battle. Dana frankly looks like she’s stepped in from the set of Top Gun, she’s so braced for whatever comes her way. These are all people who have lived through personal trauma: difficult patients, mass casualty events, violence directed at them and know that one of the ways you handle it is to button yourself up, hair and all, to keep life and people from grabbing you.

The slight exception to the rule? Brand new nurse Emma on her first day. She’s got braids but they are hanging at the side of her head, not the back, and sure enough she does get grabbed by a patient later. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s back in season three with her hair as tight and high on her head as Garcia keeps it.

Looking back at Al-Hashimi now, we can see that oh yeah, her hair isn’t fitting in. Not because of the curls but because, other than pulling it out of her face, it’s soft and loose around her shoulders. This isn’t a woman who’s braced for impact. If she’s braced for anything maybe a busy day where she doesn’t want to be brushing her hair out of her eyes, but that’s about it.

Let’s go lower now. Al-Hashimi’s clothes. In addition to scrubs she’s wearing a Lululemon Define Jacket Nulu (shout out to Reddit user thepacksvrvives for IDing that). Which is fine, right? Loads of folks wear something over their scrubs. Dr Robby himself is famous for it. So much so that his hoodie shows up in SNL’s Pitt parody, in This Hour Has 22 Minutes’s Pitt parody, heck even on the Dr Robby version of this adorable pit bull puppy. If you know Dr Robby, you know that man is in a hoodie.

Hey, funny story. Know what Dr Robby didn’t wear in season two in addition to a bike helmet?

Oh yeah. His hoodie.

Robby does start out his day wearing a leather jacket that he briefly sheds for a fleece one (which… it’s July but whatever). But by hour 2 he’s shed both and is in short sleeves. Doctor scrubs, three quarter sleeve shirt underneath, no hoodie.

Again: it’s a croissant. Maybe you look at Al-Hashimi’s outfit and styling and think it’s perfectly fine. But maybe you notice that these details of how she looks means that she doesn’t match anyone else in the ER. She doesn't fit. Here she is with Robby, Langdon, and Dana

We can absolutely talk about blocking here. Robby and Dana are together and facing the same direction. Langdon, a man trying to find his place in the ER again standing to the side and facing no one, and Al-Hashimi stands opposite everyone else. But we can also clock right away that she doesn’t look like anyone else in the picture. Though they are at odds, Robby, Dana, and Langdon all visually tie together. Al-Hashimi does not.

But that’s unfair! There are others who wore something over their scrubs all day. Surely the better thing is to compare Al-Hashimi to them? Indeed! So let’s do it. First up, Dr McKay:

Oh. Hum. Turns out not so much. Because McKay is in a loose fitting dark grey, nothing like Al-Hashimi’s darn near tailored fit of light lilac. (I know it looks grey in the picture but based on the Lululemon website the more likely color match is “Lilac Play.”)

Still. Gotta be someone though, right? Surely somebody is wearing something that creates a visual connection to Al-Hashimi? Here, let’s try a group photo to get as many options at once.

Great! There we go! Someone who’s also got a light hoodie on that’s so obvious our eye is drawn right to them and it’s…

Javadi.

Now no offense to Javadi but she’s 20 years old, a student who is frequently referred to in terms of her youth, and her storylines and character arcs are about her lack of real world experience and not knowing where she ultimately belongs as a doctor. All of which is beautifully exemplified in her costume and styling: Hair pulled back in a ponytail but a loose and flowing one, and an even lighter and perkier colored lavender hoodie which doesn’t fit her right.

Great choices for Javadi. You look at her and instantly tell this is someone young who’s trying to figure themselves out and where they belong. Now, is that a thing that applies to an older single mother with war experience and the qualifications to be an attending?

No. And that’s what carefully curated appearance of Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi is trying to make you feel. It’s trying to make you say no! Ew! She doesn’t belong here! She’s not experienced enough! She’s not hard enough! She’s not good enough!

It’s making you feel the discrimination Al-Hashimi faces every day of her professional life simply for existing as a woman of color in a white male (hi, Robby!) dominated space. Someone who, because of her appearance, gets dismissed as being unqualified even though she’s just as if not more qualified than others for the job.

It’s also telling you her history. Al-Hashimi has suffered immense trauma but, unlike Robby, she’s managed to keep her empathy and emotional stability in spite of it.

This does make her different from all others in The Pitt since, as Javadi points out, everyone who works there has been deeply affected and changed for the worse by the experience.

Except, yet again, oh wait. What does Al-Hashimi look like at the end of the day? A mere single shift in The Pitt, where the stress and pressure was so bad it may have upended her entire life by making her seizures come back again?

The Pitt’s hurt Al-Hashimi too. She matches Robby perfectly now.

No surprise she’s coming back next season. She finally looks like she belongs.

Why AI Can’t Replace People

Generative AI can’t think. It takes existing media, analyzes it, and spits out statistical likelihoods.

AI doesn’t understand that red means escape at great sacrifice while blue means the impact of oppression. It only knows that for fifty percent of a movie Michael B Jordan wears one of those colors.

AI doesn’t get that Robby doesn’t always wear his hoodie. It doesn’t get why it would matter if Al-Hashimi wears a jacket that only matches that of a character who is still a student. It doesn’t understand that a half up ponytail isn’t the same thing as a tight bun, or that a black, short sleeved shirt means that working in the ER of a major American city has left a psychological wound on you that may never heal.

It just knows those things happen sometimes. It doesn’t know why. It doesn’t even know enough to say it had a nice croissant.

To AI, those things just are. To humans, they’re art.

Now go rewatch season two and notice all the other stories the costumes are telling you. Because even Mel’s socks were on purpose and AI only does that shit by mistake.