Being A Hero vs. Doing Heroic Things: Katniss, Bond, and James B. Donovan

Several blockbuster movies this fall have presented very different views of heroism. James Bond (Spectre, 11/6), Katniss Everdeen (Mockingjay Part 2, 11/20), and James Donovan (Bridge of Spies, 10/16) all embody a version of what it means to be a hero. Are they all worth emulating? Should we make a distinction between being a hero vs. doing heroic things?

SPECTRE

At one point in Spectre, one of the expendable Bond girls says, “You’re a good man.” He’s not. He’s good at what he does, and that is a very different thing indeed. Quantum of Solace and Skyfall showed Bond with the glamorous façade rightly removed. He was a haunted, hardened man, fixated on fighting for a mother country that was as ready to betray him as embrace. In the process, he left a trail of used (and often dead) women in his wake.


Those movies actually brought me back to the Bond franchise, because they rightly showed that nobody can do what Bond does without chipping away at one’s soul. Bond was no longer the man we admired because we wanted his life; he was the man we wincingly accepted because we recognize that sometimes it takes monsters to fight monsters.

Spectre wipes away the grimy image of the recent Bond and recreates the myth. He’s bigger than life, handsome, and suave; he’s always smarter, always better, and in the end he always gets the girl (even if he’s just killed her husband – which was, frankly, one of the more unsettling seductions in the Bond canon). Spectre is getting great reviews for resurrecting the ghost of Bond’s past. I wish they had let the old Bond rest in peace.

Dracula Untold

Dracula Untold looks to do for Dracula what Maleficent did for its title character. What if there is more to Dracula than we thought? What if he is a hero (albeit a problematic one)? Dracula Untold suggests that he is just that – a misunderstood monster who has become what he is for love. And make no mistake, Vlad the Impaler is a monster. 

His childhood is tragic. He and 999 other kids were impressed into the service of the Sultan of Turkey, who brutally turned them into killers devoid of moral or a conscience. Vlad eventually made his reputation by impaling entire villages of people (much like the real Vlad, who apparently skewered 20,000 people - in one day).

When the film begins, he has apparently put that behind him. He’s now a prince of Transylvania, a tribute country of Turkey.  He has a beautiful wife and child and a populace who believes in him. When the Turks return and ask for another 1,000 kids, he’s not about to let that happen. Unfortunately, his army is vastly outnumbered. If he is going to save his people, he needs the kind of power that brings armies to its knees.

Maleficent: A Fairy Tale for Our Times

The new version of Sleeping Beauty showcases something Disney has been good at for a long time: offering a story that reflects the times. Maleficent is not meant to be a prequel, sequel, or addendum to the 1950's tale of Beauty. It's a new twist on an old story that Disney had already altered from its original version. If you think Disney's earlier portrayal of Maleficent should be set in stone, you won't like this movie. If you approach it with the idea that fairy tales are a flexible vehicle for insight into the human condition, you will probably like this movie quite a bit. It's not a perfect story, but it offers a surprisingly moving narrative that intersects with real life more than you might expect.

A young lady wakes up after falling asleep in the arms of a man who says he loves her. He drugs her and violates her by taking something precious. He then abandons her, brags about his conquest, and turns his back on her despoiled life. 

In the aftermath of her abandonment, she chooses to embrace revenge, hate, and a lust for power. Joy becomes bitterness; warmth and laughter become cold cynicism. She builds walls around her heart and her kindgom so no one can hurt her again. She begins to use others for her selfish purposes. And when the opportunity for revenge presents itself, the girl who once loved to help is the first in line to harm.

If you have not heard this story before, you’re not listening, and I'm not talking about Maleficent's updated story. It’s happening around us all the time. Lest you think I am reading too much into this, Angelina Jolie noted: "The core of [the movie] is abuse, and how the abused have a choice of abusing others or overcoming...What could make a woman become so dark? To lose all sense of her maternity, her womanhood, and her softness?"

Django Unchained

At a pivotal moment in Django Unchained, Django is told to shoot a man in front of the man’s own son. Django hesitates, but Schultz, a bounty hunter for whom he works, reminds him the man is worth $7,000, and he’s a wanted criminal. Well, then. “Like slavery, “ he explains to a man who understands slavery, “it’s a flesh for cash business.” 

Fast forward to a scene where Schultz chides Django for his apparent callousness to the cruelties around him. Django replies, 

“I recall the man who had me kill another man in front of his son.  You said, ‘This is my world, and in my world you gotta’ get dirty. I’m getting dirty.’

At that moment, in spite of the Tarantinoian odds, Django Unchained was primed to show how the journey into moral compromise makes monsters of us all. Instead, blood runs, infernos burn,  and audiences cheer vengeance as everyone just gets a little dirter.  So, do noble ends justify ignoble means, or must both be good? 

Life of Pi: Searching for the Better Story

Life of Pi recounts the story of Piscine Molitor Patel, mercifully known as Pi.  You can read the plot overview on Wikipedia; I'm not going to reinvent the Wiki wheel.  I will, however, highlight particular events that will lead us to the worldview embedded in this confusing, compelling story.

As a boy, Pi’s mother raises him as a Hindu. When he is fourteen, he begins to follow the teachings of Christianity and then of Islam, believing them all capable of teaching him something important about God. So, Hindu/Christian/Muslim. His father, a champion of reason, notes, "If you believe in everything, you believe in nothing." That's solid advice, but Pi seems far more motivated to embrace ideas based on personal experience, strong feelings and intuition. As a result, he does confusing things like a) embrace three contradictory notions of God and b) try to pet a tiger by luring it closer with a piece of raw meat. Think of these two events as related.

When his family and a bunch of their zoo animals head for Canada (read Wiki), a storm capsizes the ship, leaving Pi stranded on a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger named Richard Parker (the one he once tried to feed). Eventually only the tiger remains, and it is not inclined to share the space.

Pi ties a raft to the side of the lifeboat, and thus begins the heart of a mesmerizing story as they float for 227 days, fighting each other and the elements, surviving storms and carnivorous islands, and eventually making peace before finally landing on the shore of Mexico.

Insurance company representatives visit Pi in the hospital to find out what happened. They don’t believe his incredible story, so Pi quietly tells them a much darker one. It’s a horrible story of human atrocity, with a murderer and cannibal (the hyena) who preys upon Pi’s mother and another sailor (the zebra and orangutan) while Pi (the tiger) waits too long to intervene, then becomes a violent killer to destroy the evil on the boat. They believe that one.