Avengers - Battle of Identities

Joss Whedon's Avenger's is a movie that both the jocks and nerds can enjoy. The jocks enjoy the mind-body defying stunts, the nerds enjoy the brilliant script.  The jocks and nerds will laugh for different jokes though.  If a jock and nerd were to sit next to each other, one of them might wonder if the other is seeing a different movie, I wouldn't be surprised if it is the nerd that is doing the wondering...

The crux of the Avengers is the personality tussles among the super heroes. The tussle between Captain America and Iron Man I think brings out the essence of what the movie is about. Captain America is a WWII hero who has been resurrected back to life. He thinks Iron Man a narcissist intent on building a personality cult. Iron Man thinks of Captain America as 'old-fashioned', obsolete and useless. They keep having verbal duels from time to time.

When Director Nick (Samuel L Jackson) tries to recruit Captain America, he isn't excited about coming on board. He a recluse who sees himself as 'Old-fashioned' and out of touch with modern life. Interestingly, Samuel L Jackson says that it is his old-fashionedness which would be valuable to the team. Among the Super heroes, Captain America appears to have little to bring to the table. For the better part of the movie, he appears confused and out of touch (you got to have some pity for a  man that had been sleeping for the better part of a century). 

In fact when Director Nick says Captain America's old-fashionism is what what he needed, I thought it was a mistake in the script, especially in a movie with 'modernized' superheroes. It is only at the end of the movie that I realized what this under-valued old-fashionism brought to the table and how it really made the Avengers a strong team. But before we can understand how old-fashionism is a solution, you have to first understand the problem with Avengers... To put it in the simplest form, Captain America's old-fashionism is the solution to the problem of Iron Man's narcissism. 

Captain America comes off a rusty man that cares too much and is always in a serious demeanour as though the whole world's weight were resting on his shoulders. Iron Man on the other hand comes off as the typical 'modern super-human man' who in many ways is still kind of a boy and needs a mom-figure to keep his act together (Gwyn Palthrow pays this mom-figure). Iron Man cares nothing for anything other than his own 'brand'. His doing cool stuff and saving people is more a celebration of narcissism than love. 

The irony is that most people, myself included, went to see Avengers to see this self-absorbed narcissistic Iron Man.  It is for a reason the movie's trailer prominently has the caustic yet 'cool' exchange between Captain America and Iron Man, where Captain America asks, "without the mask and the suit, what are you?". Iron Man coolly replies, "billionaire, inventor, genius, philanthropist, playboy".  The reason we love Iron Man is precisely because he is such a self-absorbed guy, oozing an almost god-like persona. The narcissistic Iron Man does not care much about anything but his self-image. In fact his love interest itself is portrayed with a sort of selfish nonchalance that is 'made' to look attractive. 

We live in a world where the narcissistic are more admired than the 'dull' ones who live normal lives and go about each day doing the 'right' things. A few months ago, 'Psychology Today' did a feature on raise of narcissism in the last two decades. I am not talking about celebrities like Charley Sheen or Lindsay Logan whose lives are fodder for the tabloid junkies. I am talking about you and me. In fact, Facebook's sky-high $100 billion (expected) valuation was mostly based on everyday-people's need to make little-celebrities of themselves. Here is the question - how does old-fashionism solve this problem of fickle, pointless celebrity creating narcissism? 

 The novels 'The Great Divorce' and '1984' have the similar problems too, though different manifestations. In one, people are so self-absorbed that they cannot stand each other and move away from each other. In another, people are so self-absorbed and the powerful put the weak on the ground and press their boots on their faces. The former is a democratic manifestation of the need to make oneself bigger than one can be, the latter is an autocratic manifestation. In the fragmentation of life that happens in sophisticated societies and the pressing of boots on the faces of the weak that happens in the banana republics at the other end of the world, we see this happening in real-world outside of fiction. 

In both the worlds, the problem is the one thing - self-sacrifice is not seen as a virtue. This is were Captain America comes in, back in the WWII era, self-sacrifice was seen as the chief virtue. This self-sacrifice entailed that people were willing to give up their lives for the sake of others.  In Avengers, Captain America's old fashionism rubs against the others too, in the final scene the narcissistic Iron Man does the ultimate sacrifice of risking his precious life for the sake of saving mankind. In a world that is increasingly narcissistic, unless there is a self-sacrificing Captain America to show the way, the narcissistic Iron Men (boys, actually) will be lost in themselves.

In some ways, Captain America comes close to the Christ-figure in Avengers. For Christ is the ultimate epitome of self-sacrifice. He show us that to lay down one's life for one's friend is the greatest act of love, ever. The problem with mankind is that from Facebook to I-Phone, we exhibit the propensity to change much of the novelty into things that feed into our narcissism. Not that anything is intrinsically wrong with technology, technology is good. Narcissism is really a problem of the heart. The question before us is whether we seek old-fashioned self-sacrifice over novel manifestations of narcissism. What we seek will depend really on what we admire. Do we adore the Old Rugged Cross or the shiny new Iron Man suit? Do we adore the narcissistic Robert Downey jr or the loving Jesus Christ. Most Christians would say they would chose to adore Jesus Christ, as they rightly should. But the question would be why we seem to emulate the self-loving Robert Downey jr more than the other-loving Jesus Christ.

The battle of personalities that we see in the Avengers is really a battle of  Identity in the Culture at large. Will the narcissistic boy-man win or will the self-giving (sacrificing) real Man win. The answer to this I believe lies in the question of whether you try to reflect the image of the cocky narcissistic unloving Robert Downey jr. or the image of the humble, Rock-solid sacrificially loving Jesus Christ.

Hunger Games - A Fight for Love and Life!

I saw the movie 'Hunger Games' sometime back. 'Hunger Games' is based on the popular teen novel written by Susan Collins. As is my custom, not having read the book, I attempt to write about my impressions of the movie. 'Hunger Games', I think, ultimately alludes to the deep hunger for love which make a human being truly human. I think a scene in the moive which alludes to this Truth is when President Sown has Seneca, the Head Gamemaker of Hunger Games, commit suicide. Seneca's job was to entertain the rabble. His cardinal mistake was in encouraging love to blossom in the midst of glamorized celebration of kids killing each other.

'Hunger Games' is not much unlike the Gladiatorial fights that made the Roman arenas famous. The difference being that instead of the brawny Gladiators, kids from ages 12 to 17 are made to fight each other to death. The elite and the powerful live in opulence of the Capitol governed by President Snow. The 'slaves' live in 12 Districts. Each year a male and a female kid from each district is chosen by lots to go to the Capitol and fight and kill other kids, until one victor remains. The fight is televised for the amusement of everyone in the Capitol and the slave Districts. The District with the victor get special rations. So this is the National sport, and then some more.

'Hunger Games' has two motives. One exterior, another one ulterior. The exterior motive is to provide entertainment for all. The ulterior movie of the games is to remind slave Districts, who is Boss - the Capitol's Hunger Games force the slaves' kids do something they don't quite like - killing each other. This way the 'slaves' a afraid of rebelling against the Capitol. Seneca's mistake is that in trying to fulfill the exterior motive, he had inadvertently jeopardized the ulterior goal of keeping the slaves from contemplating rebellion. By encouraging love in the loveless 'Hunger Games', Seneca inadvertently gave the oppressed a reason to hope.

Katniss and Peeta the chosen pair from District 12 are in love with each other (actually it is more complex than just that, anyways...). If the game had one victor, they would have to kill each other. Seneca realizes that his game has a pair of star-crossed lovers. Seneca changes the rules of the game that if a pair from the same district reminded alive at the end, that they wouldn't have to kill each other. He decides encouraging their love would make the game more interesting. And it does. It captivates the attention of the audience. After all, who wouldn't want some good romance in an action flick?

President Snow warns Seneca that his change would encourage love would give hope to the hopeless. The point of 'Hunger Games' was to assert power over the oppressed subjects to the point of denying them the right to love each other. President Snow understood that love was divine, within the human heart it had a power of its own. Love would make life special and would give the slaves the self-sacrificial strength and the will to fight for life. Love would create hope and urge to fight for freedom.

President Snow subtle warnings doesn't quite get the attention of the superficial Seneca. He continues on with the game thorough acts of self-sacrificial love, Katniss and Peeta finally win. There is a point at which  both decide the if one of them has to die the other will die too, so self-sacrificial was their love. In a game that is all about killing, self-sacrificial love inspired the oppressed to fight. As President Snow predicted it gave them hope. People in a District start a riot against the opressive Capitol. President Snow asks Seneca to pay for his mistake with his life.

Trying to create oppressive society using President Snow's philosophy of 'denying love' is effective, but only for a while, eventually it breaks down. Denying something is not a best way to keep people from doing something. A better way to keep people from doing something is to make love meaningless. In fact, the brilliant Aldous Huxley does precisely this in his dystopian novel 'The Brave New World'. He creates a hierarchical society not by denying people love, but by making love meaningless. The 'Brave New World' makes love meaningless by giving its subjects two things - free sex and free drugs. People access to unlimited pleasure wouldn't want love any more. They would willingly submit to any system of oppression created in the 'Brave New World'. President Snow understood human nature much better than Seneca did. Aldous Huxley is a league ahead of President Snow himself.

When we look at our own world, any observer of current affairs can see that we are much closer to Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' of meaningless love than Susan Collin's 'Hunger Games' of denied love. From easy access to unrestrained use of contraceptives to legalizing marijuana, political elites are passing legislations that make it easier to have indiscriminate recreational sex and drugs. This will result in making love meaningless and will ultimately rob people off the need to fight for what is right.

Kate Boltlick in the Atlantic, she explores the idea of being happily single all her life. She takes a role model, an elder single lady living in France. The lady live unperturbed her own little home. She has a boy friend with whom the agreement is that none should sleep over at another's place. To have another person sleep overnight is too much of a violation of private-space. They don't 'love' each other but they are sort of together free from the entanglements of love.

The reason why love is increasingly becoming meaningless in our society is because the idea of love has be disassociated from the idea of sacrifice. Love is confused with having a sense of 'feeling good' about oneself. Recreational sex and drugs serve to foster a craving for the 'feel good' mentality and makes people atuned to seeing any form of sacrificial love as something alien.

In Hunger Games, when the love deprived people look at the games and see how sacrificial love finally won, it stirred them to do the right thing sacrificially. The reason why the society of today's has the epidemic disease of meaningless love is because we do not have a good role model for sacrificial love. I have said it many times, but I'll say it again. The ultimate model for sacrificial love is the love of Christ on the Cross. Any culture that does not look up to the love on the cross will end up missing the point of love. It will lose the will to fight for love and life.