Notes regarding Heroes and movies.

There are several things I should be doing, so of course I'm going to ignore them and work on a blog post instead. The venomous expression of politics, with its accompanying slithering about, have made Facebook and Twitter a fly over zone for now. You know, I've never been fond of that 'fly over' expression, as it seems to me to be a bit of rhetoric that seeks to be divisive; it has a pejorative built in. I will note that the non 'fly over' portions of the country are those portions of the East and West coasts that are home to those awful liberal 'elites' (i.e. "blue" on a political map). They are almost magical areas where sanity still seems to prevail these days. Those areas fare better in everything from quality of life studies to education, health care, happiness, financial stability, and generate a sizeable portion of the country's income. Which explains why the Trump administration's budget and tax plans seem to target those very areas. I don't want to leave that statement unsupported, but I shall for now.

From 'Black Sheep' (2006)

There are plenty of other statements I'd like to make without posting voluminous notes to support my comments. I could, for instance, point out that two of our governments' agencies which heavily influence the daily life and future of our country are the Office of Management and Budget, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The two men in charge of those agencies were both politically active in their respective states. If one were to take an honest look at the financial health of those states, the status of education in those states, the tax burden, etc. ad infinitum, one of the first things one might notice, if one can look behind the curtain of tourist and relocation PR, is that both states are financially distressed to the point of being referred to economically as "sinkholes". Their people are largely poor. Their educational systems are in disaster mode. These states are the bottom of our country's barrel. These men are regarded by the current administration, and their enablers, as heroes.

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. More than a gal with a sword.

A recent discussion with a friend raised the issue of the Hero, and the Hero's place, in our entertainment culture. I had finally caught up with the 'Wonder Woman' movie, which was widely praised and a huge financial success. While it was delightful to have the super hero figure be a woman, there was little else to differentiate it from any other superhero movie, and I pointed out in discussion that the movie simply substituted a female lead for a male. Kind of like the change of sex for the role of Hildy between the stage play and movie of 'The Front Page' to the remake version known as 'His Girl Friday'. The hero role being female was simply a change, it didn't inform or impact the story. 'Wonder Woman' had the same tired tropes as any other superhero movie. I should point out that I'm just making observations; no judgement on the product is intended. It is product, and that statement isn't intended as a judgement either. I found it to be an enjoyable and entertaining movie. I'm not trying to impose my thoughts or vision on it. You know, I hate this. I hate having to qualify every statement; in this case to make it clear that I have no problem with female superheroes, lead roles, or action figures. I'd like to see more of them, and I'm delighted that young girls (or older girls, or women of any age) can have female fantasy figures which might inspire their dreams and persons.

Gal Gadot as Wonder woman,  her sword placed as if it were...
umm, nevermind.

The discussion veered to the first 'Star Wars' movie, which I rushed to see on opening day after reading a review which linked that movie's themes to Joseph Campbell's books, 'The Hero With a Thousand Faces', and 'Myths to Live By'. Such themes reflected some of my interests, and both books had been influences on my thinking. Thoughts of a hero's quest have been rambling around my brain due to the movies I've watched these last three nights.

Sunday afternoon was spent at a younger friend's home attending his monthly 'movie night'. The idea is that there is a stated theme; each person attending should (if so moved) bring a DVD of a movie reflecting that theme, and give a very quick pitch on its behalf. Those in attendance write on slips of paper the name of the movie which most appeals to them. The slips are put into a hat, from which one slip is selected, providing the selection to be viewed. The theme this time was 'really bad movies'. The winner was 'Black Sheep', a New Zealand indy effort in which a flock of sheep become ravenous flesh eating killers of humans. It's got blood, guts, a middling implied criticism of money making science, a zombie or two, and makes particularly good use of sheep flatulence. Science, in this case, was a substitute for magical forces. The male hero is a younger brother with a phobia about sheep, who has returned to the family ranch to sell his interest to his evil and deluded older brother. The boy, in his journey, must confront and overcome his phobia, confront and overcome his brother, and become action oriented enough to overcome his nelly attributes to fight off the marauding sheep for the survival of the main characters and all of mankind. The girl hero arrives to expose animal abuses at the ranch. Her journey moves her from babbling about new age mysticism to becoming an action figure fighting the sheep, helping the younger brother to survive, saving mankind, and, of course falling in love with the younger brother.

Experience (Danielle Mason) and Henry (Nathan Meister) in the midst of a long day fighting sheep. 

The sheep(le) are out to get you , you know. Be warned.

John Wayne as Ringo.

Monday night, a friend unexpectedly had free time and came over to watch one of the movies I wanted to see and delete from my digital video recorder. We settled on the 1939 'Stagecoach'. In it, the male hero escapes from jail in order to extract revenge on three bad guy brothers who killed his family and whose false testimony put him in prison in the first place. His journey includes fighting to save the stagecoach from Indian attack even though a sheriff has him in shackles. The girl hero is less action oriented, instead proving herself as a caring, nurturing goddess despite being thrown out of town by the uplifter ladies league for being of questionable moral character in her choice of employment. The movie took great pains not to use the word prostitute, and greater pains to not state that another female character was pregnant. The hero, named Ringo, was played by a youngish John Wayne. The good-bad girl was Clare Trevor, who had top billing. The rest of the cast was character actor heaven. It's the kind of movie which keeps things moving in an attempt to distract the viewer from questioning some sizeable holes in the story. I could, and should, go on at length about the movie, but that will have to be its own post in that great someday in the sky. I'll just note this about one iconic shot - Ringo is first seen, standing by the side of the road, his shotgun male appendage held akimbo. As he walked towards the stagecoach, I noticed was that he didn't fill out his jeans all that well. Simply put, John Wayne had a saggy female pear shaped ass. Otherwise, he was the slightly nelly butch straight shooter who treated the good-bad girl with the respect that no one else could muster, save perhaps for the drunken doctor who was really Scarlett O'Hara's father.

 

Last night, another friend came over on the spur of the moment. We watched the 1940 'Thief of Bagdad'. (Note to the Turner Classic Movies channel: the print quality was shameful.) Sabu, then 16, played the titular hero. He spends a portion of the movie as a dog, due to a spell by an evil wizard. He also helps a wronged Prince regain his throne, helps the Prince save the woman the Prince loves, copes with an ill tempered genie, fights off a giant spider without falling into an aqueous pit inhabited by octopi, visits magical places, and triumphs over other similar adversities while fulfilling prophecy. For his part, the Prince is cut from the same sort of slightly nelly English male cloth as an Ashley Wilkes or Sebastian Flyte. He must overcome magical blindness, find his Princess, and defeat the usurper of his throne, the very magician whose anti-education, pro-punishment, rule by fear, power mad greedy attitudes starves the population, and provides the evil which engulfs several kingdoms. In this, the oldest of the movies being noted, the hero journey for the Princess involves staying out of the clutches of the evil wizard, and falling instantly in love with the Prince who speaks in poetic phrases.

Two of the movies involved Princesses (Thief of Bagdad, and Wonder Woman whose journey includes learning that she is the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. She is out to kill Ares, the God of War. In classical Greek mythology, Hippolyta was Ares daughter. The movie's comic book mythology avoids the potential complications of that one. In Stagecoach, One might make a case for the woman traveling to meet her husband being a Princess stand-in. She was a Southern Lady, which figures slightly in the Grand Hotel on wagon wheels plot. The girl in Black Sheep starts as a satirical take on new age hippie throwbacks and could thus be said to be a Princess stand in, but was otherwise just a modern gal who proves to have some gumption.



Black Sheep (2006) Experience got a gun.  



In a sense, three of the movies had magical realms;  Black Sheep's was the New Zealand farm in the countryside which left me wondering when the hobbits were going to appear; Wonder Woman's realm was an island protected by Zeus' magic cloud cover, and Thief was set in ancient Iraq's mythical period. If there was a magical place in Stagecoach, it was Ringo's ranch in Mexico where he and the good-bad girl could live in blessed happy ever afterness if only they could reach it. It was only mentioned, never seen, and not integral to the story.

In all four stories, the heroes overcome obstacles, and fight for their happiness, as well as the common good. All of them must deal with the sacrifice of friends or relatives along their journeys' paths. In all but Stagecoach, the heroes save the world.

Of these four movies, the only one which didn't involve magical forces was Stagecoach. Well, unless you count too many bullets, or killing all of your enemies in an impossible situation (the main event occurs off screen). This American myth has a wronged hero, willing to suffer the penalty of 'doing what a man's gotta do'.



The Stagecoach about to depart a rest stop, even though they know Geronimo is out and about.
John Carradine (far left), Andy Devine (holding the reins), George Bancroft (riding shotgun), Chris Pin-Martin as the innkeeper, Louise Platt as the woman traveling to meet her husband, Donald Meek as the milquetoast liquor salesman, Clare Trevor as the good-bad girl, John Wayne as the Ringo Kid, Berton Churchill as the thieving bank manager. 
Thomas Mitchell, who won an Academy Award for his drunken doctor, is not in the picture.

Now, let's go back for a moment to those two erstwhile heroes of the right, the men in charge of the nation's budget, and the nation's environment. They present themselves as John Wayne he-men out to conquer a world gone mad due to the ideals of those annoying liberals who want to feed the hungry, house the homeless, educate the masses, and provide health care in a reasonable manner. Needless to say, these men do not fit the hero myth. Their 'common good' is what is good for the power brokers who pay them, those who steal people's money, food, kingdoms, and who unleash unholy forces in the name of profit.

Conrad Veidt, the evil wizard of Thief of Bagdad, plots how to cover up his orange hair.
No wait, that's not right... Mr. Veidt played Nazi Major Strasser in Casablanca, and
the murderous somnambulist in the silent German expressionist classic 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.'

What we need these days are honest nelly heroes, their butch helpers, angry women, and pissed off teenagers to work together to rid ourselves of the usurpers of power, who prefer their people uneducated, sent off to endless wars, fighting each other at home for scraps of food, so they can't unite to fight the evil taking over the kingdoms. But that would be the old school hero journey, and involve magical help. Even the American West loner hero living by a moral code seems decidedly old fashioned now. Folks are counting on the investigation being held by Mr. Mueller as magical help. In so many ways, it's the same old tropes.