Movies as Myths

Movies as Myths

Let's take a quick example. There was a new Star Trek movie out in the summer of 2009. It was about the young Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, etc. This movie portrayed the young Kirk as a brash, confident, intelligent, gut-driven young man. He is able to take over command of the Enterprise after displaying his "vast" skills for leadership. I found this Star Trek rather lacking. The reason I found it to be lacking was simply that it was not believable. I can't buy the story that a young Kirk has all "the right stuff" to command a Star Ship. Would we find a 21 year old in charge of an aircraft carrier? Would we find a 21 year old in charge of a large company? This does not happen very often. Sure, you are thinking of young computer and internet guru geeks who have big companies by age 28 years old. Still, I will contend they have a period of development and growth. Most of us have a period of development and growth as we grow into these sorts of positions. Is it the dream of society that we be able to do this at a young age, no, I don't believe it is. And, for this simple reason the movie seems lacking because it does not speak to our needs as a society, it does rise to the level of a mythic dream. It does not call us to something we lack or complete us in any way. It simply shows us something very unusual, unlikely, and unnatural feeling, but then again maybe I am just an old man.

Now, let's consider another movie, the current blockbuster Avatar. When it came out, the reviews I read and listened to were not very kind. They felt it was basically a "cowboy and Indian" sort of story. It was not especially complex they believed: man meets natives, man goes native, and fights against his own because it is the right thing to do. If that was all there was to the movie, I would predict it would be a flop. I figured I wanted to see it in a theatre just to get the full effect from the 3D movie. I have to say, the computer graphics are stunning. The creativity is amazing, but, is this enough to make a great movie? I don't believe it is enough, there must be more. Somehow, this lack luster script, according to the reviewers, has taken in over a billion dollars in just a couple of weeks. How can this be? The answer is very simple, it speaks to us in a mythic fashion.

Yes, the movie is about a fellow, a crippled fellow, whose brother was killed on Pandora. He is going there to help subdue the natives in order to help the corporation that is working there to extract resources from it. The opening scenes portray the very masculine influence involved in this entire process. It is important to note that the lone feminine influence seems to be the small group trying to influence the indigenous folk of Pandora through what can only be seen as a very feminine process. Here we see displayed the mythic struggle between the masculine and feminine character of us as people. The broken man comes to Pandora to find some sense of self and healing. He is paraplegic and he can't be a soldier anymore, but still the masculine base commander will try to co-opt him into providing intelligence for his troops. He has come to Pandora because his identical twin brother has died. He is the only person alive who can "put on" his brother's genetically derived Avatar and go into the realm of the Pandoran's and commune with them.

Now consider our culture for a moment. How many of us are going about putting on Avatars? All of us do this. Today, it has become even more overt with video games, online gaming, chat rooms, etc. We bought a Wii for Christmas, and when you turn it on, you have to create your own little Avatar to play the games. We all throw on a persona everyday when we go to work, play sports, etc. So, we see that this seeming foreign world is actually quite common to our experience as a people and as persons.

One of the things we are not so aware of is the fact that our culture is mostly oriented toward the masculine personality style depicted in the movie. The masculine style is in fact our cultural style. This is very likely the reason we have such a bad reputation in the world right now. What the movie, the myth, the dream within us, tells us is that there must be something to balance the masculine side. The movie tells us that the balancing factor is the feminine side, the nurturing, healing, growth oriented aspect of life. The protagonist goes through a process and realizes his need. Ultimately, the planet itself, the feminine energy or life force will heal him and make him whole.

This is the exact mythic developmental process we all face. We must come to terms with and balance the forces of the masculine and the feminine. Why? The answer is found in our ancient texts, how did God make us, male and female, in God's image. God is both masculine and feminine. We know these things deep inside of us, in places we can't even name, if we were not so masculine maybe we could come to call it our soul. And when these forces are brought to light in a movie we become fully engaged. This is why Avatar is a great movie, while Star Trek was just a lot of action.

Now, Star Trek could be speaking to a new generation. If you consider the ideas of Strauss and Howe in their book The Fourth Turning, we could see this as a cultural story about an up and coming generation of "Heroes" destined to take on the seemingly insurmountable forces of the cosmos. It could be seen as a generation being called to stand up and take on the all the problems we face as a nation and a planet. What is required to do this? What Strauss and Howe say is a generation described as a Hero generation, a group of young people who come of age at a time of crisis in the outer world, a time when everything is rising in tension very rapidly and crises begin to occur. We seem to be at just such a position at this time in our history. The economic situation has deteriorated severely, wars seem to abound, the gulf between rich and poor widens, health care is in short supply for everyone, politicians seem stymied in all directions, rogue nations make bombs and refine the elemental components needed to potentially end civilization, while the ecosystem we live in is undergoing serious degradation. The crisis seems upon us and just out in front of us. Who will rise up to save us from destruction? The Hero generation will be called out, the young people coming of age. Who does James Kirk represent, of course, the young hero generation. This is why Star Trek is a great movie. It shows us the dreams of a people before they even know what their dreams are or what they need. This is so often the function of art, to be on the cutting edge of society, showing culture where it is going somewhere deep in our collective unconscious. The sad part is, we will have to endure and resolve the crises. According to Stauss and Howe it is all just part of the "circle of life", but that's a different movie (The Lion King).

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