Ready Player One: Community, Power, And True Winners

As a movie, Ready Player One probably deserves both the kudos and criticism it’s been garnering. Yes, it’s a visual feast. Yes, the 80s references are a lot of fun. Yes, it gives only a “meager emotional charge.” It’s also “a cautionary tale about burying ourselves in pop culture while the world burns,” but even that message comes across more clinically than experientially. As The Christian Science Monitor noted, “the message derived from it – that in our cyber age, we desperately need to spend more time in the real world – doesn’t resonate because Spielberg is much better here at virtual reality (VR) than reality.” Yup.

In spite of the mixed reviews, I enjoyed Ready Player One. The book was better – aren’t they always? – but RPO is an entertaining popcorn movie if you go into it expecting no more than that. If you are expecting something to deeply move you, choose another film. 

This is good for what it wants to be: a feel-good, pop culture homage validating our nostalgia for the years when technology was new enough (or we were young enough) that it felt like magic, the years when a screen of any kind could transport us into another world where we could escape from the frustrations and failures of the real world and be the person we always wanted to be in a world that made more sense to us than this one.

But that's not what stood out to me the most.

The Problem With Power

While the recent Harvey Weinstein scandal has highlighted the terrible problem of sexual
harassment and assault, it's also shone a spotlight on a broader topic: the misuse of power. In Part One of a short podcast series on this topic (see link below), Beth Milligan and I look at the recent sexual allegations in light of the broader dynamics of how power is given, gained, used and misused in American culture.

• How is our culture fueling this? One can firmly believe in personal accountability while also recognizing the powerful influence of the environment in which we are raised. 
• In what ways does this misuse of power, particularly in male/female interactions, manifest in more ordinary moments before it crosses the line and garners headlines? The Harvey Weinstein's of the world were not created in a moment; what does the process look like that enables or even encourages those in power to harass and assault?
• Finally, what can be done about it? Where do we go from here? What kind of dynamics must we address in homes, schools, and social institutions?

The ubiquitous presence of the #metoo has made more clear than ever that we must make a concerted effort to learn what honor, respect, and dignity mean in a world that seems to have forgotten these things far too often. We will be dedicating more than one episode to this, so this is only the beginning of a conversation we hope can be instrumental in challenging the status quo and offering a hopeful solution.

You can find the podcast on Soundcloud here, and you can visit our Facebook page as well where we continue a discussion and occasionally post additional links to related stories. We welcome feedback on this website and on our Facebook page! Our intent is addressing these topics is not to suggest we have finished the discussion; our goal is to pursue truth, and that is best done in community - which in this case includes you!

LINKS RELATED TO THE SHOW

Tinder And The Dawn Of The Dating Apocalypse
When Men Become Monsters
Why The Harvey Weinstein Allegations Could Change Our Culture
How Vulgarity Normalizes Predators
A Culture For Predators
The Minds Of Powerful Sexual Predators: How Power Corrupts
The Unsettling Truth Behind the #MeToo Movement
Why Power Corrupts
How Power Corrupts The Mind

SpiderMan: Homecoming

Spiderman: Homecoming, the latest movie in the Marvel Universe

franchise, is getting great reviews (93% at Rotten Tomatoes from critics, 92% from the audience). It’s not the best movie Marvel has done, but it’s solid. This version of Spider-Man is going to be an interesting addition to the Avengers: he’s lighthearted, somewhat naïve, and not yet jaded (matured?) by life; he’s also strong, fast, brilliant, and incredibly excited about fighting evil and injustice with his heroes. But, as this movie makes clear, he’s got some growing up to do.

Calamity (The Reckoners)

“Perseus had his magic horse, Aladdin had his lamp, and Old Testament David had his blessing from Jehovah. You want to fight a god? You’d better have one on your side too.” 

Calamity, the third installment in Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoners trilogy, continues a compelling
story of power, human nature, love, sacrifice, forgiveness, and an impressive array of super (and not so super) heroes.


In Calamity, we see David and the others face their greatest challenge yet: to restore rather than destroy someone who is evil. They have figured out how to take down Epics: find their fear – they all have one that will neutralize their power - and go for the kill. But when Prof gives in to the evil side of his Epic nature, they have to change their game plan. They need Prof - the 'god' referenced in the opening quote - to take down Calamity, the monstrous Epic who started this chaos. In order to have any confidence in this plan, they need to believe Prof can be freed of the calamitous evil that has consumed him.

This restoration will be monumentally hard. Calamity claims  “people are evil to the core.” If this is true, than those in whom Calamity’s power has manifested are doomed –as is the rest of the world. The Epics aren’t just supersized people; they are all immensely powerful villains. The more they use their power, the more they succumb to evil, and it always happens. Always.

Yet David sees hope. He does not believe people are doomed to failure, determined by their evil nature to succumb to Calamity’s poisoned power. He believes people are good. He's seen worlds in which good has prevailed even in the most fallen of the Epics. Granted, he is overly optimistic. He believes people are inherently good when the story makes clear that they aren’t (Calamity’s power doesn’t introduce evil to its victims; it merely makes the worst part of their nature overwhelming). Still, David’s hope is not unfounded. People change; why not Prof? It’s an obvious truth to him.

“I would watch the sun rise, and wish I could capture the moment. I never could. Pictures didn’t work—the sunrises never looked as spectacular on film. And eventually I realized, a sunrise isn’t a moment. It’s an event. You can’t capture a sunrise because it changes constantly—between eyeblinks the sun moves, the clouds swirl. It’s continually something new. “We’re not moments, Megan, you and me. We’re events. You say you might not be the same person you were a year ago? Well, who is? I’m sure not. We change, like swirling clouds and a rising sun. The cells in me have died, and new ones were born. My mind has changed… I’m not the same David. Yet I am.”

The ending will not surprise you, but the manner in which the journey unfolds is clever, compelling and insightful, as is always the case with Brandon Sanderson.  This is a series I have pushed my sons to read. The protagonist, David, is brave, loyal, and kind. His character is solid, and he longs for peace even as he enters a war that cannot be avoided. In the face of calamity, he clings to the hope of restoration and new life.

If he is going to lead the ones who bring about a reckoning, I’m in.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

"I bet your parents taught you that you mean something, that you're here for a reason. My parents taught me a different lesson, dying in the gutter for no reason at all... They taught me the world only makes sense if you force it to." - Bruce Wayne

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice has given critics plenty of reason to rant. As far as the art of film goes, it leaves a lot to be desired (though I must confess, I enjoyed it enough to see it twice). However, my goal is not to critique the movie as art but to look at the some of the worldview messages either embedded or preached in it.

Zach Snyder touched on a number of issues: terrorism, politics, power, genetic engineering and religion, to name a few. The one that stood out to me as the core of the movie had to do with power. 

* * * * * * * * * *

It’s been three years since the unveiling of Superman to the world at the end of Man of Steel. Plenty of people are angry about what happened in Metropolis, but far more are in awe of this Kryptonian god. He stops terrorists; he saves people trapped by fire and flood; he carries the space shuttle on his shoulders. There’s just that pesky and increasingly vocal minority that worries that a Man of Steel might not have the morals to match to his muscles. Early on, a Senator voices what many are feeling: “The world has been so caught up with what he can do that no one has asked what he should do.” Not even Superman has a clear perspective on the latter question, and therein lies the problem.

Lex Luthor highlights what he calls the oldest lie in America: “power can be innocent.” Not that this bothers Lex, of course. He’s not concerned that people have power; he’s concerned that people other than himself have more power than he does. After all, Lex knows his own heart, and he assumes others will do with their power what he longs to accomplish. Lex has never known power to be blended with goodness; no wonder the idea of a God who is all-powerful and all-good makes no sense to him. Superman is neither, of course, but he’s the closest thing Lex has seen. The principle still applies. Superman has power; he must be corrupt. And he must be controlled.

While the movie does not do a great job making this plain, Bruce Wayne is a mess. He has given in to depression and isolation. He drinks himself to sleep at night. His crumbling mansion matches his crumbling morality, one which now justifies torturing criminals and savagely attacking gangs. A clearly jaded Alfred notes at one point, “That's how it starts. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men... cruel.” Bruce’s response? “Twenty years in Gotham. How many good guys are left? How many stay that way?” Not Bruce Wayne, that’s for sure. “We are criminals,” he tells Alfred. “We’ve always been criminals.”

Deeper Hungers and Darker Games

 I'm a big fan of honesty in fiction. 

 I don't want cookie-cutter personalities, saccharine love, or shallow stereotypes.  I want the author to convince me to cheer for heroes and against villains - and I want to know why the heroes and villains are worthy of the label.  I want grit and beauty, despair and hope, love and loss. If a story tells me what the world is like, I don't mind if it’s happy or grim.  I want actions to have real consequences, and I want to feel like I ought to feel if the same situation were happening in real life.
   
I want to believe that some things are worth fighting for and some things are not, and I want to be reminded that people can be redeemed though not all will be.

This is why I like The Hunger Games series. There have been some really good posts about these books (Holly Ordway's comes to mind, as does J.W Wartick's); since I would be both redundant and boring if I covered the same ground, I will address an issue I have not heard discussed much elsewhere.

 The Hunger Games is entirely a world without God.

Suzanne Collins does not give even the slightest nod to God or religion. As a result, she has done a stellar job introducing a YA audience to a dystopian, godless future that reveals the horrors of unbridled human nature.  As a Christian, I don't mind that God is absent from the story.  If an author is going to write about a world without God, then show a world without God.  I just want the story to be honest about how awful that world would be - and it is.

•   There is no Higher Power to give objective standard for justice. Neitzsche said that when everybody understands that God is dead, they will know they are beyond such petty labels as "good" and "evil" and will simply exercise power.  In The Hunger Games, what happens when one corrupt regime is replaced?  The next regime moves in with the seeds of corruption already sown. The State kills people without benefit of trial or proof; so does President Snow.  So do the rebels.  Gale might just be the ideal Neitzschean Superman, finally able to move beyond attachments and emotions and wield his power on behalf of a regime that is new, but not that different.

•   There is no Higher Standard for morality.  Malcolm Muggeridge once wrote: “If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner.”  Neil Postman noted, "Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."  Collins’ world without God captures both these possibilities. Those in the Capital who are not abusing or being abused by power are consumed with ease and pleasure.  The rebels “fight the system,” but what can they offer to replace it?  They are already intoxicated with the power they have. The distorted pleasure will follow, as we see foreshadowed in the agreement to have yet another Game.  

• There is no Source of Hope outside ourselves.  Where does one find hope in the midst of the brutality and pain?  The only thing the book offers is relationships with others.  While I believe in the meaningfulness of community and companionship, that is the only hope in the story. Justice is either brutal, corrupted, or vigilante, and no ultimate justice will one day make things right.  There are no miracles, no unblemished saviors, no trustworthy authority figures.  There is only others - and even the hope found in them is broken. (The last chapter in the series is simultaneously hopeful and tragic - a measure of peace has been found, but it's a broken hallelujah). 

•  There is no Purpose to history.  In Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited, White, the nihilistic atheist, says: “The darker picture is always the correct one. When you read the history of the world you are reading a saga of bloodshed and greed and folly the import of which is impossible to ignore. And yet we imagine that the future will somehow be different.” What will happen in Katniss’s world?  No way to tell, really, but White appears to be correct.  If there were a Book Four, I suspect we would see the new government looking more and more like the old regime.  Even the best of the rebels seemed to lose their soul by the time the revolution was complete.  The Mockingjay can only repeat what it knows; just like the iconic bird, the individual characters appear to be only echoes of the people and events that have formed them.  Why should governments be exempt?

This list might leave the impression the series is not worth reading, but that is not the case at all. The series has a lot to offer in a world awash in worldview battles. Collins did not shy away from the reality of the world she created. There were no false moments.  If one can learn truth equally well through a story that shows compelling good as well as disgusting evil, The Hunger Games has done a lot in the service of truth, even if the story is disturbing and grim.
 

 Contrast this approach with another recent YA phenomenon: Twilight. The series is full of bizarre distortions of reality - it never does the story, the characters or the reader the honor of allowing something real to happen.
 
Young, impressionable teenage girls absorb the message that putting all one’s self-worth in one boy is okay; that stalking is romantic; that ordinary, boring friends are losers; that a love triangle involving a teenage girl and two really dangerous men (one who is much older than she) is really cool; and that rough sex is okay if he loves you (you only bruise the ones you love!) No, thank you.  I am not entertained.

Let's not kid ourselves; today’s youth know that life is grim. They already know that parents die, friends can turn on them, power can corrupt, and even the best relationships are full of tension and pain.  For many, life looks so overwhelming at times that the only thing they can do is hide for a while and wonder how they can possibly be made whole.  Maybe they are drawn to this story because it does them the honor of giving them truth.

I'd much rather they read a story that takes life seriously than one that insults them with beautiful twilight lies. At least now we are in the realm of truth, and the truth of Christ has the ability to bring hope, life, and light into very dark lives indeed.

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Recommended Reviews of The Hunger Games:
Christian Reflection on the Hunger Games Trilogy - very thorough post from J.W. Wartick
The Hunger Games, Ethics and Christianity - another post about the role of luck
Book Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy - good overview and perspective of the series as literature
Blood-Stained Ink has a three-part series worth reading
From Emily Torres' Dystopia Ministries - a series of short articles on how our culture is intersecting with the Capital.
A series based on The Hunger Games and Philosophy begins here.