Dirk Dunbar, Director of the Interdisciplinary
Humanities AA to BA program
Okaloosa-Walton College and University of West Florida, Niceville,
FL
Abstract
American mainstream film from the 1950s to the present has advanced
a barrage of countercultural heroes that bears witness to the shattering
of traditional cultural assumptions and to the emergence of new values
that help define popular culture. By examining the nature of the countercultural
journey across a variety of genres I hope to show how the cinematic
quest to define the characteristics of the new hero mirrors growing
perspectives regarding race, gender, sanity, spirituality, and environmental
relations.
I believe . . . to achieve this reintegration of the repressed
feminine, the masculine must undergo a sacrifice, an ego death.
The Western mind must be willing to open itself to a reality the
nature of which could shatter its most established beliefs about
itself and about the world. This is where the real heroism is going
to be (1993, 444).
Richard Tarnas
[1] Thanks largely to the 1960s Zeitgeist and the commercial success
of films with countercultural ideology, the conventional "Hollywood"
hero is not necessarily the paragon of pride, masculinity, and aggressiveness
that he used to be. Although the "feminine side" is cliché
and dominant-vision heroes still dominate "movies for guys who
like movies," the good-over-evil protagonist is being challenged
by dissenting-voice personae who expose and transcend, often through
a painful transformation, obstacles of sexism, racism, nationalism,
and speciesism. Hundreds of characters from Gandhi to ET, Billy Eliot
to Patch Adams, and Pocahontas to Erin Brockovich are searching for
tolerance, human potential, and environmental harmony. More apt to
cry and meditate than kill and conquer, the emerging hero seeks a
victory over the ego rather than an "evil" other and, in
the process, invokes characteristics that mirror a larger cultural
vision - one based in civil rights, feminism, deep ecology, Eastern
philosophy, ecopsychology, creation spirituality, Green politics,
and other movements that seek to define human identity beyond the
constructs of our capitalist culture, militaristic mentality, and
strictly patriarchal notions of the divine. After briefly discussing
the American monomyth, I will survey a few of the "thousand faces"
of the countercultural journey that reflect the turmoil and potentials
of our current cultural moment.
The Superhero of the American Monomyth
[2] The conventionally macho Hollywood hero does fit an archetypal
pattern. He is the extroverted warrior whose adventures end with the
conquest of evil and the capture of the treasure (the prized female
and/or riches). However, in concert with most of Western culture's
myths and legends, Hollywood has made that archetype a stereotype
from the rough and ready cowboy to Rambos, Top Guns, and Die Hards.[1] As John Shelton Lawrence and Robert
Jewett show, the "superhero of the American monomyth" serves
as "the zealous crusader who destroys evil" and not only
saves his endangered paradisiacal community but also serves as the
selfless source of communal "redemption" (2002, 6). Unlike
the Jungian warrior of "the classical monomyth" archetype
(popularized by Joseph Campbell) that focuses on rites of initiation,
the American superhero conquers the evil other but does not need any
rites of initiation because he "requires no personal fulfillment"
(2002, 357). He already holds all the answers, and, as fate would
have it, is always able to carry out his will. Careful to honour the
cultural experience and heroic traits that created and bolster the
monomyth, Lawrence and Jewett recognize that "the monomyth's
failures lie in the stereotypical identification of who is evil, its
melodramatic exaggeration of evil traits, its facile belief in selective
punishment, and the assignment of a retributive role to nature and
to superheroes" (2002, 358).
[3] One of film's early monomythic heroes, Ben Cameron, gives birth
to the Ku Klux Klan in The Birth of a Nation (1915). Incensed
by forces that threaten his idyllic home and community, Cameron and
clan rescue the "quaint" way of life of southern belles,
chivalry, honour, and supremacy. Tellingly, the evil others are the
black bucks including Gus, whose attempt to rape Cameron's sister
leads to her death, and Austin Stoneman, the "Northern liberal"
who empowers Silas Lynch, the mulatto whose dream to create a black
empire imperils the Southern paradise.[2] The climax, which purportedly led to the jubilation of audiences,
occurs with the famous cross-cutting scene that shows the ever-growing
Klan on horseback coming to the rescue of angelic, helpless women
who are threatened with certain atrocities at the hands of bloodthirsty,
sex-crazed bucks. The white men are ready to kill the women with the
blunt ends of their weapons rather than letting the blacks touch them.
The movie ends with a giant, superimposed Jesus who blesses the ballroom
of dancers celebrating the Klan's victory. Typical of the American
monomyth, the film's "pessimistic premise" is that, as Lawrence
and Jewett explain, "citizens are merely members of a spectator
democracy in which they passively witness their redemption by
a superhero" (2002, 29).
[4] The penultimate monomythic genre, the Western captures the savage
"Injun," the helpless squaw, and the domesticated "Tonto."
The cowboy's nemesis in films from The Covered Wagon (1923)
to Apache Uprising (1966), the Native American if characterized
at all tended to be an unintelligent savage in need of domination.
In Stagecoach (1939), Geronimo, whom we never see, and his
companions haunt the trail that an eclectic crew of passengers finds
necessary to traverse. Except for a close-up of an Indian "ally"
and a reaction shot of a squaw, in the only other scene in which Indians
appear it is their weapons not their faces that are shown. During
their attack, the dressed-in-black gunslinger holds his pistol to
the head of the woman he desires because of what we are to assume
the savages will do to her. It is left to Ringo Kid (John Wayne),
a salt-of-the-earth hero, to bring protection and justice to the Wild
West. Reminiscent of Odysseus and foreshadowing Rocky, Ringo helps
defeat the aboriginal enemy, gets his revenge in a one-versus-three
showdown, and wins his girl. In the meantime, the native antagonists
are depersonalized and demonized.[3]
[5] The monomythic hero not only lacks feminine traits, but also
demystifies and objectifies women, who have been subject to the "male
gaze" since the inception of Hollywood.[4] James Bond films lay bare the monomythic
roles of women. Even the old, evil lesbians who are immune to his
charm (and whom he often kills) fall prey to the secret agent's objectives.
Regardless of genre, women serve as property to be controlled, manipulated,
and saved. Moreover, when "redemptive violence" is called
for, women must be avoided for their weakness, as Lawrence and Jewett
explain, make them "acquiesce in an evil rather than destroying
it" (2002, 153). Only in "life-after-violence," when
the community is redeemed by the superhero, are women "desirable
partners" (2002, 154).
[6] The monomyth has set the stage for the countercultural hero,
who is seeking to understand a world that is not experienced in strict
black and white terms, one that dissuades the demonized "other"
and restores archetypes that have been traditionally suppressed. As
Carol Pearson avers, we are witnessing the initiation rites that mark
the shift of the values and worldview of the Warrior archetype to
those of the Magician archetype. The warrior whose journey is outward
and involves self-assertion, competition, and conquest is giving way
to the magical inward journey that involves a transformation of ego-dominated
goals to ones of service, healing, and compassion. According to Pearson,
"The movement from Warrior to Magician archetype hinges on the
ability to stop regarding the enemy out there as Çnot me' and to begin
seeing the shadow in oneself" (1998, 192-193).
The Archetypal Feminine
[7] As established in a vast array of fairy tales, folktales, and
films, the challenge of the archetypal feminine is, as A.B. Chinen
avows, "waking the world." In order to wake the world, women
must embark on their own journeys, recognize and reclaim their innate
power, sensitivity, and wisdom, and incite men to acknowledge the
"drug" of male privilege (1997, 247). With the increase
of multidimensional women's roles and female directors, more women's
issues are finding mainstream audiences. For instance, If These
Walls Could Talk (1996) offers a disturbing look at abortion and
articulates the need for women's choice, and The Burning Bed (1984)
exposes the impasse that confronts abused women who seek freedom.
Norma Rae (1979) and Silkwood (1983) are historical
dramas that champion women who fight the establishment. Fried Green
Tomatoes (1991) and The Joy Luck Club (1993) resound female
solidarity while Chasing Amy (1997) and The Tango Lesson
(1997) defy female sexual conformity.[5] Practical Magic (1998) and
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002), though kitsch-filled,
aim at feminine spirituality. Amidst hundreds of female journeys,
the end remains consistent: to overcome patriarchy by cathartically
freeing the archetypal feminine. Thelma and Louise (1991),
Contact (1997), and The Color Purple (1985) exemplify
the journey.
[8] Criticized for stereotyping men, Thelma and Louise leave their
men for a weekend alone, but embark on a satirical "buddy-film"
journey through the Wild West complete with panoramic landscape shots,
including phallic-looking rock formations. Thelma is a naive housewife
who caters to her belligerent husband, while Louise is a tough, easily
provoked waitress who has been hardened by rape. The journey begins
when Louise shoots Thelma's would-be rapist and proceeds through bouts
with men who seal their demise. After J.D. teaches Thelma the pleasures
of sex and steals their money, Thelma and Louise undergo a role reversal
that convolutes any notion of stereotype. In two decisive close-ups,
Thelma articulates her transformation: "Something's crossed over
in me"; "I don't ever remember feeling this awake."
Her proclamations are garnered by greenery in an otherwise desert-like
background. The newly empowered protagonists driven by an awakened
animus drink, smoke, cuss, discard their cosmetics and jewelry and
don men's hats and demeanors while finding resources within that surprise
even them. The gruff, muscular policeman becomes a weeping weakling
when they force him into the trunk of his car, warning him to be good
to his wife or she may "turn out" like they did. A redneck
truck driver falls to his knees yelling at "the bitches from
hell" after they reprimand him for not respecting his mother,
sister, and wife and blow up his tanker (another phallic symbol).
The climax and resolution occur simultaneously as the two women end
the manhunt by driving off a cliff into the womb of the Grand Canyon.
In a freeze-frame, the women are suspended in air, dramatizing their
martyrdom and emphasizing their cause is alive.
[9] Criticized for stereotyping black males, The Color Purple
is filled with heroes who battle patriarchy. Not only is Celie raped
by her "Pa" and has her children taken from her, but she
is also brutalized from childhood to adulthood by her arranged husband,
Albert, or "Mister." She is awakened from her "slavery"
mentality with help from, among others, the preacher's prodigal daughter
Shug Mister's mistress. Shug's tender touch and kisses key Celie's
transformation because they ignite the awareness that personal/sexual
relations can be gentle and caring. Although Shug's first words to
Celie are "You sure is ugly," she teaches Celie beauty's
inner quality and helps empower her to leave Mister, who, amidst many
inhumane acts, hides Nettie's letters from Africa. His pathetic means
of communicating is symbolized by the zoom lens that fades into the
mailbox, which becomes increasingly decrepit as the film goes on,
suggesting his ever-dwindling control over Celie, nature, and his
own life. The karmic hex that she throws on Mister, who takes it seriously,
signals the film's climax as well as Celie's newfound spiritual power.
The resolution occurs when Celie reunites with her sister and children
and, from a distant hill, a repentant Albert smiles. While the children
only speak a tribal African language, the whites are minor, background
players. Much of the hope-and-love ideology is related through Celie's
letters, the ones she receives from Nettie and those she writes to
God. The colour purple, symbolizing nature's divine majesty, bursts
from extensive shots of flowers surrounding Celie playing "patty
cake" with Nettie, walking with Shug, and at the reunion. As
a motif the colour affirms the sacred connection between nature and
women.
[10] Unlike Celie and Thelma and Louise, Dr. Ellie Arroway is introduced
in Contact as a woman beyond stereotypes, despite her dependence
on a father figure (which offended some feminist critics). A confident
scientist who has suppressed her "women's intuition" in
favour of machines, data, and mathematical probabilities, Ellie has
dedicated her life to the discovery of extraterrestrial life which
she does in the process of recovering her stifled feminine qualities.
Her catalyst, Palmer Joss, is a liberal religious leader who in touch
with his "feminine side" is studying the effects of technology
on third world countries when they meet. He constantly challenges
Ellie's atheism and obsession with rationality and gives her a compass
that serves as the film's primary motif. While fighting patriarchal
forces (from her boss to a Christian terrorist), Ellie undergoes a
transformation via a trip through a cosmic birth canal to a distant
planet, Vega. She arrives in a fetal position surrounded in the womb
of her suddenly invisible spaceship, which in one of many exaggerated
scenes quivers when she touches it. The experience reshapes her understanding
of higher powers and the sacred in nature. She finds comfort in her
alien-incarnate Father, but it is nature's beauty that validates her
ecstatic revelation and mitigates her consuming scientific convictions
with cosmic reverence.
[11] Thelma and Louise, The Color Purple, and Contact
impart strong ecofeminist messages. Emphasizing the close connection
between nature and the archetypal feminine, all three films utilize
powerful landscape shots wherein the protagonists experience moments
of self-realization, solace, and renewal. Their attempts to "wake
the world" to male prejudice and attitudes of dominion are amplified
by the stars, the canyons, the flowers, and other natural conduits
to the awareness that tolerance and compassion are not only prerequisites
to being humane, but also signal our planetary purpose.
Afrocentric Journeys
[12] Unlike the female hero, whose liberation was gradual, the rise
of the black hero, specifically the male, was meteoric. Counting the
success of non-Hollywood "race movies" from filmmakers such
as Oscar Micheaux, mainstream roles for blacks changed abruptly with
the rise of one actor, Sidney Poitier.[6]
Poitier's characters spoke to authority-questioning youth, carried
the aims of the civil rights movement, and fit black archetypes into
a white world, which is why beyond the packaging the actor was Hollywood's
number one box-office star in 1967.[7] Archetypal black journeys have become common
mainstream themes. The made-for-television Roots (1977) made
famous the character Kunta Kinte who is kidnapped from his homeland
and suffers slavery. The miniseries follows his and his descendants'
journey from captivity to liberation. Shaka Zulu (1983) also
made for television captures the effects of colonialism and tries
valiantly to do so through the eyes of a proud Zulu leader and his
tribe. Sounder (1972), nominated for best film, actor (Paul
Winfield), and actress (Cicely Tyson), tells the story of a black
sharecropping family in Depression-era Louisiana whose love overcomes
poverty and racism. Tyson also received acclaim for her role in The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1973), which depicts the protagonist's
life from childhood as a plantation slave, through the Civil War and
Reconstruction, to the civil rights movement. Many Civil War and civil
rights movies contain multidimensional black roles, three of which
were played by Denzel Washington. He depicted the murdered South-African
activist, Steven Biko, in Cry Freedom (1987), won an Academy
Award for his role as a soldier in a black regiment in the Civil War
movie Glory (1989), and portrayed Malcolm X (1992) in
Spike Lee's film.
[13] The most prolific black mainstream filmmaker to date, Spike
Lee has navigated a vast terrain of cinematic techniques and inter-
and intra-racial themes. The award-winning Do the Right Thing
(1989) assails stereotypes and bigotry. An actor-to-camera montage
of a black, white, Puerto Rican, and Korean spewing slurs against
one another captures the intent: to show the absurdity of hatred.
Whether or not Mookie should have thrown the garbage can through Sal's
window is left for the viewer to decide, but the act did transfer
the hatred directed at Sal and sons to the business. The thematic
ambiguity is marked by the film-ending quotations of the pacifistic
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the young, angry Malcom X - one of many
binary opposites that carry the film.[8]
The colour red, the strongest motif besides Public Enemy's Fight
the Power, emphasizes the destructive power of heat, fire and
hatred which is counterbalanced by the cooling and healing powers
of water (including showers, ice, and the party at the fire hydrant).
Jade is the sister/mentor archetype to her money-counting brother,
Mookie. The soft-spoken Jade is also the binary opposite of the angry,
outspoken Tina, who, like most women in the film (young and old),
tries to incite the value of fatherhood and male responsibility. While
revealing opposites in confrontation, Lee seeks a union and balance,
which is conveyed clearly by the archetypal World Parents, Mother
Sister and Da Mayor, who serve as moral guides of the community and,
after overcoming their differences, are "still standing"
at the end.
[14] Lee's focus on the "hood" helped make it a common
subject. However, àà la blaxploitation and other
inversions of the American monomyth, most of the stories concentrate
on men and are riddled with gratuitous violence as in New Jack
City (1991), Juice (1992), and Menace II Society
(1993). [9] John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood (1991) is regarded, fairly
and unfairly, as the prototype of gangsploitation films. Nominated
for best director and screenplay and one of the highest money-making
films made by a black, Boyz relates the coming-of-age tale
of Tre Styles in the midst of gang violence. Although women are depicted
as crack-using "hos," dependent girlfriends, and lazy welfare
mothers, Singleton breaks the fatherless black-family stereotype by
providing Tre with a loving father, Furious Styles, who teaches the
value of nonviolence, afrocentric awareness, and lessons regarding
culturally biased IQ tests and racial genocide. The movie-ending call
to "increase the peace" represents Singleton's thematic
intent and the violence that occurred following the original showing
verifies the film's urgency.[10]
[15] Along with the increase of black filmmakers and cinemas in black
communities, the advance of black themes involves the rise of successful
"indies." Kasi Lemmons' Eve's Bayou, the highest
grossing indie of 1997, breaks stereotypes by depicting a wealthy
black Louisiana family's fight with dysfunctional relationships, and
does so through the eyes of Eve, the youngest daughter who confronts
her family's failures in a brutally honest manner. The indie Slam
(1998) relays the journey of Raymond Joshua, who is sent to prison
for selling marijuana. Many scenes were shot with actual inmates in
a Washington D. C. prison, which, along with montages of ghettos and
graveyards, call for a new male identity in black urban communities.
Joshua confronts his inner and outer battles through poetry, which along
with his nurturing fellow poet, Lauren becomes his source of salvation.
A redeemed Raymond returns to the drug and violence-infested "Dodge
City" preaching the absurdity of an "eye-for-an-eye"
moral code and the power of nonviolence.
[16] The abundance of black archetypes in film reflects a growing
awareness of African and African-American ancestry, history and mythology,
tribal religions and rituals, fashions and names, and song and customs.
Called "Afrocentricity," a term popularized by Molefi Asante,
that awareness serves as "the transforming power" that seeks
to engage "our collective will to peace and consciousness"
(1988, 94). Afrocentricity recognizes race as a political concept,
not "a biological or anthropological fact"; and once accepted,
it forces us to see movies, other people, politics, and religion with
new eyes (1988, 95). Afrocentricity not only clarifies the black cause
but also serves as a universal challenge to create an egalitarian
society, a challenge that more and more filmmakers are invoking.
From Injuns to Earth Wisdom
[17] While most pre-World War II movies reinforce the "Injun"
stereotype, most post-Vietnam movies exalt Native American cultures.
For better and for worse, the themes tend to fall into three overlapping
camps: those that parade Indian protagonists as reconstructed "Thanksgiving"
heroes, ones that display the renegade as a good-over-evil protagonist,
and those that present the white-man-turned-Indian hero. In the first
camp are films such as Squanto: A Warrior's Tale (1994) and
Tecumseh: The Last Warrior (1995), wherein the evils against
the Indians are predictably told and the vengeful warrior of each
film settles the dispute with little violence, hatred or realism.
The second group is exemplified by the Billy Jack trilogy (1971,
1974, 1977), which portrays a Native-American/hippie neophyte who,
time after time, upstages his oppressors with quasi-civil rights pontification
and lots of violence. His "Indian" rituals include getting
bitten repeatedly by a rattlesnake that makes him "one"
with "brother snake." In a more legitimate but still conventional
manner, Thunderheart (1992) relays the story of an FBI agent
who has neglected his Native American heritage but, via a "cowboy
and Indian" battle on sacred ground, undergoes his own vision
quest and conquers the evil-doing white businessmen. The vision quest
is aided by the Indian sheriff/shaman, played by Graham Greene, the
(Canadian) Sidney Poitier of Native American films. The German "Indianerfilms" such
as in Sons of the Great Bear (1966) and Apaches (1973) fit
here.
[18] Movies such as Little Big Man (1970), A Man Called
Horse (1970), and The Last of the Mohicans (1992) break
stereotypes and even offer insights into Native-American sensibilities,
but do so through the eyes of white men. Dances with Wolves
(1990), the apex of the "white Indian" genre, charts the
transformation of Lieutenant John Dunbar, who is introduced as a depressive
bent on committing suicide by riding into the front lines of the Confederates.
He survives and, given his choice of posts as a reward, decides to
move to the frontier "before it's gone." He chronicles his
interaction with the Lakota Sioux, who are allowed to speak their
native tongue (which is conveniently taught to Dunbar by an Indian-integrated
white woman who becomes his "squaw"). Fittingly, the first
word exchanged between Dunbar and the tribe's Holy Man is "buffalo,"
for it is the relationship to the animal that epitomizes the conflict
between the white man and the Indians. In a riveting scene, the Sioux
undertake a sacred buffalo hunt but kill only the ones they need,
whereas another scene shows a field of rotting carcasses left by the
white men who kill for the tongues and pelts. Although Dances with
Wolves does little to depict the myths, rituals, and spirituality
inherent in Native-American earth wisdom, like a growing number of
movies, it shares a strong environmental message based on an alternative
worldview.
[19] The first completely Indian-made film, Smoke Signals
(1998), focuses on friendship, love, loss, reunion, atonement, and
reservation life. Scripted by Sherman Alexie and directed by Chris
Eyre, the film features two Coeur d'Alene Indians - the strong, athletic
Victor and the quirky, story-telling Thomas - who go on a trip to
retrieve the ashes of Victor's father. Victor tries to teach Thomas
to be a stoic, angry brave, but it is Thomas and Suzy Song who help
Victor forgive his father and confront his own demons. While the trip
serves as a vision quest, the film aims at exonerating Indian fathers
for the evaporation of their culture. Besides jesting about John Wayne
and Dances with Wolves, it decries Indian alcohol abuse and
the mainstream socialization of their culture. With less humour and
more anger, Eyre's Skins (2002) also depicts reservation life.
During the opening credits a narrator relays data regarding the joblessness,
alcoholism, and death rate on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (the
poorest county in the U.S.) over a montage of graveyard pictures at
Wounded Knee situated in the middle of the reservation. The enemy
is alcohol, the authorities that allow its rampant distribution, and
Native helplessness. The elixir is brotherly love, forgiveness, and
symbolic justice. Shortly after his brother dies an alcoholic's death,
the other well-intending hero, Rudy Yellow Lodge, throws a bucket
of paint from the top of the Mount Rushmore, leaving a red tear running
down George Washington's face.
[20] The shift in projections of Indians can be summarized as the
transformation of the savage Injun to the noble savage to, if the
trend continues, a subjectively authentic Native American. The first
shift, as Robert Berkhofer explains, simply inverts the monomythic
structure by casting the benign "countercultural Indian"
as a good rather than bad stereotype in order to deflect "some
Whites' disquietude with their own society" (1979, 103). Without
trivializing the aboriginal earth wisdom that propels much of religious
rhetoric of popular culture, to stereotype Indians as the mystic healers
and keepers of nature's secrets is as S. Elizabeth Bird attests to
keep Indians "deeply impersonal and distanced, once again ignoring
Indian people as individuals and allowing real Indian people no subjectivity"
(1998, 11). One can only hope that more movies such as Smoke Signals,
wherein Native American archetypes, heritage, and individuality meet,
continue to find mainstream audiences.[11]
From Teddies to Hippies
[21] As feminist and civil rights sensibilities found voice in film,
movies such as The Wild One (1953), Rebel without a Cause
(1955), and Easy Rider (1969) suggest how the youthful counterculture
turned the forms of revolt into principles of revolution. The original
antihero, Johnny, leads his delinquent group of teddies (the Black
Rebels Motorcycle Club) against a town (Wrightsville) of god-fearing
citizens and their right-wing sheriff who have no understanding or
compassion for the free spirits. That lack of understanding drives
Johnny and cohorts to anti-social behavior and incites the citizens-turned-mob
beating of the existential hero, making him the first cinematic martyr
of the generation gap. Johnny's love for a local girl tempers his
rage, and, in an atypical act for a male hero, he cries. The tears
signal his need for compassion and the inability of society to fulfill
that need, a given for James Dean's characters. The epitome of misunderstood
youth, the rebel Jim Stark and his companions, Judy and Plato, seek
love from their dysfunctional families. Stark's parents are content
to move from town to town to avoid confronting the source of their
son's inevitable social troubles. Stark's alienation from his weak,
compliant father and over-bearing mother is allayed by the death of
Plato (a name loaded with Western values), at which time the weeping
son falls to his knees and embraces his Dad's legs, thereby bringing
order to home and society.
[22] The fate of the easy-riding heroes, Wyatt and Billy, is void
of resolution and signifies a deeper pathos between society and the
emerging counterculture. "Captain America" and Billy are
blown off their motorcycles by a redneck's shotgun because the low-budget,
non-Hollywood script was not beholden to cinema's classical paradigm
and because the new martyrs knew there was more to life than submitting
to Western culture's internalized voices of authority. So they sell
drugs, throw away their watches, and travel across America in search
of adventure, which includes tripping on LSD in a graveyard, practicing
free love, facing bigotry in all shapes and forms, partaking in a
commune, and memorializing Route 66. Advancing causes of beats, hippies,
and intentional communities, Wyatt and Billy incarnate the spontaneity,
ecstasy, and earth-centered spirituality that the film - amplified
by rock‑ and‑roll anthems about peace, freedom, and the
new values - aspires to ordain.[12]
The Surge of Countercultural Heroes
[23] All kinds of countercultural heroes have questioned status-quo
values, norms, and stereotypes. Anti-heroes, superheroes, aliens,
gays, and the mentally and physically challenged are just a few in
the myriad. The antihero may be the protagonist furthest on the outskirts
of social conformity. The fascination with antiheroes demonstrated
by the success of Taxi Driver (1976), Pulp Fiction (1994),
and Fight Club (1999) indicates a growing dissatisfaction with
stereotypes and questions the very identity of the Hollywood hero.
For instance, the heroes of Fight Club turn out to be the same
dysfunctional person who narrates the film in a stream of consciousness
way that identifies the symptoms and sources of his pathology, namely,
insomnia, dissociation, a dehumanizing job, unnatural relationships,
obsessive hatred of consumerism, and violence. Hoping to crash while
flying around the country to attend fight clubs that he created to
help him and other disaffected young men exorcise their frustrations,
the protagonist/antagonist runs headlong into his painful self-discovery.
His journey is a social commentary. So is Aileen Wuornos' in Monster
(2003). A lost soul who is victim as well as victimizer, her journey
not only implicates society for her plight, but also allows viewers
to comprehend her misanthropic deeds. The movies does not make her
horrific killings more palatable, nor is she absolved, nor are we
meant to necessarily sympathize or identify with her, but we are asked
to recognize her humanity and our own cultural dilemmas in a world
filled with acts of terror.
[24] Superheroes have also donned "darker" faces. Figures
such as Superman (a monomythic supersaviour in the 1978 version) have
given way to id-based creatures that have to overcome their own shadows
before they can save the innocent. Although their powers are a boon
to the community, they are a curse to the superhero. The hideous Darkman
(1990) whose mutation brings his superhuman strength, the 1992 Batman
whose dark side is psychoanalyzed, the Shadow (1994) who knows
"what evil lurks in the hearts of men," and the beasts Hulk
(2003) and Hellboy (2004) are just a few superheroes that while
remaining true to the monomyth put into question the conventional
boundaries of "good" and "evil," at least as they
are perceived internally. The shadow/dark side is demonized, but it
is also recognized as part of the superhero and not just an evil other
"out there." The quintessential example is Star War's
Darth Vader, who is not only revealed as the Father of the rebellion's
saviour, but also following his redemption as part of the divine triune
with Yoda and Obi-Wan.
[25] While Earth-threatening, lizard- or bug-like aliens in movies
such as Aliens (1986) and Starship Troopers (1997) are
fashioned after those in War of the Worlds (1953), newer depictions
show a kind, highly intelligent being, as in ET (1982),
Starman (1984), and K-Pax (2001). Such figures defy the
violent characterization of extra terrestrials and indicate that ours
is not a cold, unfriendly cosmos. The consummate alien saviour archetype
may be ET who descends from the heavens, shares his love, heals others
(including plants), dies, is reborn, and returns to the stars. ET
becomes one with Eliot, symbolizing that only as a child can one enter
the cosmic kingdom. Following the same journey in different costume,
with the same innocence and purity, Starman and Prot (the hero from
K-Pax whose human/alien identity is left for the viewer to decide)
confirm the need for love, trust, and environmental harmony, all of
which is insinuated as realizable should humans learn to assure further
evolutionary adventures. As Caron Schwartz Ellis states, "Our
spacemen are important to us: They give us hope in a world in which
our vision of the stars is obscured by pollution and the potential
for nuclear holocaust" (1995, 93).[13] Hope in the future defines the
Star Trek worldview, which, as Michael Jindra shows, "is
one of the most visible locations to witness religion in popular culture"
(2000, 168).
[26] The influx of gay heroes, as chronicled in the Celluloid
Closet (1996), is marked by a shift from either comic "sissy"
figures or brutal victimizers to sensitive, intelligent protagonists.
As a production line from the film states, "Hollywood, that great
maker of myths, taught straight people what to think about gay people,
and gay people what to think about themselves." Once overwhelmingly
negative, those views are changing by virtue of sympathetic, compassionate
roles in films such as My Own Private Idaho (1991), The
Birdcage (1996), and Philadelphia (1993). Although Philadelphia,
the most commercially successful of the group, minimizes gay identity
and lifestyle in favor of mass appeal, viewers are exposed to the
fear and suspicion of Joe Miller when he meets Andrew Beckett and
are meant to experience his catharsis as the two become friends. Also
questioning social norms, the heroes in Rain Man (1988), Forrest
Gump (1994), and I Am Sam (2001) refute the roles à
la Psycho (1960) traditionally accorded the mentally challenged.
Although the films create their own kind of stereotypes while trying
to defuse stereotypes, the intent is noble: to redefine popular notions
of what it means and how it feels to be handicapped. Similarly, the
twelve year-old dwarf Simon Birch (1998), breaks physically
handicapped stereotypes by acting on a mission that he claims was
sent to him from God. While saving a group of children by prying open
the door of their submerged bus, he dies, thus fulfilling his martyrdom.
[27] Many countercultural heroes from doctors, teachers, and soldiers
to lawyers and politicians challenge norms from within the system
after experiencing an awakening that leaves them questioning their
professions, relationships, and even their reasons for being. Patch
Adams (1998) is introduced as a suicidal man who, helping a fellow
patient in a mental institution, discovers his purpose: to become
a doctor. Advocating joy, laughter and love to "treat the person"
as well as the illness, Adams prevails despite being indicted by colleagues
for attempting to "destroy objectivity" and demoting doctors
"to the level of our patients." Facing similar accusations,
John Keating, the nonconformist teacher in Dead Poets Society
(1989), incites his students to think "outside the box"
in ways that so disturb the administration, faculty, and parents of
an elite private school that, predictably, he is forced to resign only
to be redeemed by his students' climactic goodbye.
[28] Senator Jay Bulworth transforms his political platform after
planning then averting following his (dark night of the soul) suicide
in Bulworth (1998). Renewed, he disregards his previous rhetoric
and blares out truth as he sees it through rap songs. Incited in part
by an old black muse who appears to him intermittingly, Bulworth's
"vulgar" style of communicating and incrimination of bankers,
the film industry, and oil and insurance companies for their destructive
greed, make him a champion of the oppressed. He not only finds newfound
purpose and vigor, but also triggers hope and responsibility in those
around him. After Bulworth is reelected and then shot by his insurance
agent, the film ends outside the Sinai Hospital with old black prophet
restating the subtext: "Be a spirit, not a ghost." The transformation
motif also drives Civil Action (1998), which is based on a
successful lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann, whose life is changed while indicting
a tanning company that is contaminating a rural community's water.
He is introduced as a hypocrite claiming that the patient's pain "becomes
my pain," but slowly learns to empathize with them, their plight,
and their environmental cause. In the end he forgoes a huge payment
to stand by his clients who, ultimately, help free him from himself.
[29] Unlike classical war heroes who overcome evil enemies in Gung
Ho (1943) and The Green Berets (1968), an increasing number
of protagonists recognize war itself as the enemy. Heroes in The
Deer Hunter (1978), The Killing Fields (1984), and Thin
Red Line (1999) see the evil "other" as depression,
alienation, and insanity, and try to understand human purpose in the
face of war's hell. The title, The Deer Hunter, foreshadows
the transformation of Michael, who kills a deer early in the film
and purposely misses a big buck that he chases into a face-to-face
confrontation near the movie's end. On the first hunting trip Michael
explains angrily to his bewildered friends the art of "one shot"
in killing a deer (a metaphor that turns excruciating during the Russian
roulette scenes). Holding up a bullet and exclaiming the Zen dictum,
"This is this! This is this!", Michael affirms the seriousness
of death and the sacredness of life. Packed with religious iconography,
brutal war scenes, gender wars, and the insanity that accompanies
human violence, the film remythologizes Christianity around Michael,
who returns home from Vietnam wearing the scars of war that make small
talk, deception, and the fabricated roles of daily life intolerable.
Friends slip the epithets "Jesus" and "Christ"
in front of his name and, right before his covenant with Nick, Michael, drunk
and angry, strips naked and collapses into a crucifix on the asphalt.
The resolution begins on the second hunting trip when, surrounded
by a mountainside and near a powerful waterfall, Michael fires his
final, deer-freeing "one shot," looks the buck in the eyes
and asks softly, "Okay?" He then turns to the waterfall
and screams "Okay?" in hopes of redemption with nature.[14]
Finding the True Self
[30] The search for authenticity defines a genre of countercultural
heroes, as in Billy Elliot (2000), Pleasantville (1998)
and The Truman Show (1998). Billy Elliot, in the face of internal
doubt and social condemnation, finds himself through dance. Using
the money his father gave him to take boxing lessons, Billy sneaks
into a ballet class and realizes his passion for life as well as dance.
Dance not only offers him a nontraditional rite of passage but also,
as Thomas Kerkhoven (2003) suggests, impels him through a cycle of
self-awareness, a cycle that emulates the mythology of Shiva Nataraja,
the Dancing Lord. David and Jennifer, the heroes in Pleasantville,
are transported from their mundane daily life into the utopian 1950s
town on TV. Literally serving as the harbinger of the 'sixties Zeitgeist,
David questions authority, incites emotion, promotes rock-and-roll,
and brings change to a "Father Knows Best" town where nothing
changes. One by one, the characters turn from black and white into
coloor as they "turn on" to the new culture. Also captured
in a TV plot, Truman Burbank, the hero of The Truman Show and
the first infant ever adopted by a corporation, is the unwitting actor
in a mechanized world that depends on conformity. The false paradise
and the technocratic powers of Christof (or "anti-Christ")
holds Truman "safe" in its artifice, but cannot deter him
from his quest. From the depths of his basement/unconscious the "true
man" plots his reconstructed self.[15]
With help from a woman who offers him love and a glimpse of true personhood,
Truman literally runs into the edge of the only existence he knows,
appears to walk on water, and exits through a door on the horizon
of the fake world.
[31] The heroes in Seven Years in Tibet (1997) and The
Fisher King (1991) also retrieve messages from the unconscious,
but do so by transcending their formidable egos. Seven Years in
Tibet begins with Heinrich Harrer leaving his pregnant wife to
go climb Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas. Although he departs in pursuit
of an egocentric calling, his initiation includes being a prisoner
of war and a tutor for the Dalai Lama, and his return finds him transformed
on a mountaintop with his son. The movie's theme, articulated by the
Tibetan tailor, proclaims that Western culture honours men "who
push their way to the top" while Easterners emulate those "who
abandon the ego." Harrer learns from the Dalai Lama that "life
is dear to all" and, inevitably, the Tibetan cause becomes his.[16] Also introduced as self-indulged,
the "fisher king," Jack Lucas - a successful radio talk
show host - falls into an abyss that conquers him. Minutes after practicing
the fateful words, "Forgive me," while putting on a facial
in the bathtub, Jack watches a news bulletin that indicts him because
a caller took his anti-yuppie message seriously and killed patrons
of a trendy restaurant. His fall is immediate and lasts three years
(three seconds on the screen). Saved physically then spiritually by
Parry, Jack discovers that Parry's wife was killed at the restaurant
and, as a result, Parry the professor became the mad and homeless
street knight. Mixing his study of the Fisher King with demonic hallucinations,
brutal flashbacks, and the idea that the Holy Grail could along with
his newfound love heal him, Parry pushes Jack into the role of saviour.
Fighting Parry's demons, Jack brings Parry the Grail (a millionaire's
trophy) and frees him from a coma's grip. The act, of course, liberates
Jack, as is demonstrated in his movie-ending declaration of love for
his misused, but faithful girlfriend, Anne, who is linked to the Grail
as a symbol of the nurturing feminine. While Parry shouts the subtext -
the need for "a reverence for all forms of life" - to Jack's
assailants, Jack fulfills the plot through self-redemption.
The Classical to the Countercultural Saviour
[32] Lawrence and Jewett maintain that the "supersaviors in
pop culture function as replacements for the Christ figure, whose
credibility was eroded by scientific rationalism" (2002, 6-7).
While they offer many examples and convincing explanations, the overwhelming
commercial success of The Passion of the Christ (2004) offers
a stark exception to their premise. The Passion proves that
at least some elements of the Christian narrative can still drive
the American monomyth, wherein the passive, even "guilty"
community is redeemed through the hero via excessive "redemptive
violence." Rather than exhorting the violence as typical monomythic
saviours do, the hero endures the sadistic torture inflicted by the
evil others, including the repulsive Jewish clergy, the hateful Roman
soldiers, and androgynous-looking Satan who appears at the filmmaker's
whim throughout the movie. In line with the American monomyth, the
major actors are white and Christ, a physically imposing figure, is
aided by divinely ordained fate that helps him carry out his redemptive
social task in selfless perfection.[17]
[33] Along with Luke Skywalker, whose journey George Lucas pulled
wittingly from Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces, Neo in
Matrix (1999) typifies both the classical hero's journey and
the monomythic saviour.[18] The Call begins when Anderson
(Neo's "unreal" name) reads the words "wake up"
on his computer. The Departure from the "ordinary world"
starts when he follows the "white rabbit" and chooses the
red pill. Refusing to accept that "He is the one," Neo (the
"new" Christ) begins the Initiation with help from his guides,
Morpheus and Trinity. Born again, physically and spiritually, complete
with amniotic fluids and multiple umbilical chords, he transcends
the mechanistic world controlled by artificial intelligence. The real
world laid waste by nuclear weapons is part of the subtext relayed
distinctly by Agent Smith to Morpheus: humans, whom he likens to a
virus, are incapable of living in harmony with the environment. Neo
accepts his plight and eats the goo and lives in a dungeon-like spacecraft
but enters the matrix to find out, with the help of allies, who he
is. His descent into hell, prompted by the "Judas" Cypher,
is symbolized in his return to save Morpheus (the amorphous "Father").
After Neo dies and is reborn via a kiss from Trinity (the fairy princess/holy
spirit), he fulfills the Oracle's prophecy by learning to control
the matrix and reaches the final stage, the Return. His message, the
revelation gleaned from the unconscious and carrying overtones of
Eastern philosophy, is explicit. In the final scene, while setting
the stage for the sequels, he talks to the audience from a payphone,
claims that the new world order is irrepressible, and ascends to the
heavens.
[34] Despite the persistence of monomythic saviours, countercultural
ones as in Powder (1995), Phenomenon (1996), and Stigmata
(1999) are prevalent. Like ET, Powder is a race-free, androgynous
hero who serves as a mirror to others and wishes only to return home.
His extraordinary abilities stem from being in the womb when his Mother
gets hit by lightning. Super-intelligent, innocent, empathic, and
"like a little child," Powder represents the energy that
connects all existence. Although the science is flimsy, the film prescribes
education, pantheism, environmental awareness, and compassion. Besides
being lifted into a cruciform position by the electricity generated
by the Jacob's ladder in his science class, Jeremy (Powder's name)
is able to read and transfer the thoughts of those around him, an
ability that lets the redneck deputy experience the anguish of the
dying deer he shot. After overcoming the bigotry of classmates and
doctors, Powder ascends unsurprisingly into the heavens in the final
scene through a lightning storm leaving behind his legacy of human
potential.
[35] George Malley imparts the same legacy in Phenomenon.
Malley receives his extraordinary abilities after he is hit with what
appears to be a supernatural light descending from the night sky (the
hallucination, we learn later, is the result of a brain tumor). He
too has powers of telepathy, telekinesis, a photographic memory, awareness
of life's connectedness, and unending compassion. Also hunted by governmental
and scientific authorities, George was a stable part of a healthy
community until his powers became manifest which, though he uses them
to save the life a young Portuguese, triggers a persecution that only
his closest friends see through. After attempting to "tell the
people" what is happening to him, George retreats to his girlfriend's
home to die. He shares an apple with Lacey's children, explaining
to them that like the apple they ingest, he is part of them as they
are part of everything. Tuned to a thought-provoking rock-and-roll
soundtrack, the theme that life comprises inseparable forms of energy
is reiterated through George's constant realization that his abilities
are not willed by him, but gained through a "partnership"
with nature. The major motif, the wind blowing through the tree tops,
brings George enlightenment while he is hoeing in the garden and after
his death fills Lacey with peace. After she rocks her children in
rhythm with the swaying, the resolution is jump cut to the final scene
wherein friends gather to celebrate the birthday and purity of the
dead hero.
[36] One of mainstream cinema's rare female "Christ" figures,
Frankie Page undergoes a transformation in Stigmata. She is
introduced as single, an atheist, and a hair stylist who drinks, smokes,
cusses, and fornicates. Her internal conflict is foreshadowed during
the credits by a montage of blood, Jesus on the cross, and Frankie
"sinning," which is amplified by Billy Corgan's hard-rocking
but chant-filled Whatever Happened to Mary. Her stigmata experiences
are pure melodrama but the message inflicted upon her, that "The
kingdom of heaven is within you and all about you," comes from
the ancient Gnostic text, The Gospel According to Thomas. Helped
by Andrew Kiernan, a scientist-turned-priest, Frankie survives the
church's witch-hunt and, in an Exorcist-like scene, is crucified.
Gradually, she conquers her sinful habits and as Hollywood would have
it becomes a St. Francis-like nature mystic. Symbols such as the sun,
doves, flowers, wind, water, and fire reveal that spirituality is
not a matter of dogma, priests, or buildings, but an internal experience
of the divine as nature.
The Environmental Hero
[37] Witness to the boundary-free "categories" constructed
here, most of the heroes that I have discussed carry an environmental
message intended to ignite earth-centered spirituality. The protagonists
in Instinct (1999) undergo nature-based transformations tailored
to that message. Ethan Powell is an anthropologist who abandons human
culture in favor of the gorillas he studies and learns to love. Imprisoned
for killing two of the game wardens that killed his "family"
of primates, Ethan teaches his psychiatrist, Theo Calder, the value
of the aboriginal love of nature. Distinguishing between the industrial
"takers" and the primal "sustainers," he insists
that the obsession with dominion has wreaked environmental havoc and
alienated us from the more-than-human world. Attempting to link sanity
with earth wisdom, he also reveals ways in which social institutions
and hierarchies perpetuate their own ends by creating human "game-players"
unaware of their enslavement to the system and, ultimately, of their
planetary purpose. The strongest motif symbolizing baptism begins
with Ethan when, amidst the gorillas, he lifts his arms in a crucifix
position and raises his face to the falling rain and ends with Theo
doing the same in the middle of the street.
[38] The first cinematic environmental hero may have been the animated
Little Hiawatha (1937), the Indian boy who, on the journey
to become a hunter, befriends the animals he intended to kill. Animated
environmental heroes are standard. Pocahontas (1995) shows
John Smith that it is the colonialist attitude that is "savage"
and destructive to life's ecosystems. With help from Grandmother tree,
Smith learns the folly of pushing his worldview and values on tribal
people who have sustained a long tradition of harmony with nature.
The fairy Krista in Fern Gully (1992) teaches Zack the lumberman
a similar lesson and, in a pivotal scene, asks him to feel the tree's
pain on which he carved her name. The smoke rising from the forest-destroying
machine literally becomes the beast of technocracy, which is overcome
by the fairies' trust and the magic of Krista's rebirth. The circle
of life, a subtext in both Pocahontas and Fern Gully,
is the dominant theme of The Lion King (1994), Disney's first
animated film featuring only animals since Bambi (1942). As
Mufassa explains to Simba, grass is consumed by antelope, which are
devoured by lions that, upon death, return to the ground to continue
life's circle. The Pride Lands dry up when "the balance of nature"
is tipped. The restoration plays on Christian myth and the animals
are, as usual, anthropomorphized, but the film clearly indicates that
Hollywood's transformed hero includes the animal kingdom.[19]
Conclusion
[39] Via commercial success, the countercultural hero has become
a commodity, which helps explain why the journeys of the new hero,
male and female, still suffer from Hollywood kitsch and not just when
it comes to endings. In most countercultural films, the forces representing
authority, modernity, and technology are portrayed as a mandatory
evil. Even in films where good-and-evil binary opposites are mitigated,
they are transmuted regularly into ideologies that depict battles
between culture and nature, technocracy and the counterculture, aggression
and cooperation, and other polarities that pit the violently ignorant
against the enlightened. In short, despite fundamental changes in
character, the stereotypical structure of the Hollywood hero which
represents "us" against "them" is deeply ingrained
in the film industry and the Western psyche. But a transformation
is taking place. Despite the continued impact of the American monomyth,
a new hero is being constructed by an increasing number of filmmakers
(especially as more independent films "go mainstream"),
and one very important reason transcends financial gain. The transformed
hero reflects a cultural trend based on a vision that could mark our
Age as a turning point in cultural evolution. As Carol Pearson avows:
When we think archetypally, we also can recognize the
deep structure behind ideas in different fields that predominate
in any historical period. When the Warrior archetype was dominant
in Western culture, theology focused on the struggle between good
and evil, biology emphasized the survival of the fittest, meetings
were run along authoritarian lines by majority rule, and organizations
took on hierarchical structures, like the military. As the Magician
archetype emerges into consciousness, we see theologies emphasizing
oneness, biology stressing ecological interdependence, meetings
run according to rules of consensual decision making, and organizations
becoming flatter and more egalitarian in structure. When archetypes
are strong in the culture around us, we must be open to them or
risk becoming irrelevant (1998, 287).
[40] The Magician archetype contains, according to Pearson, the power
to transform, to reinvent personhood in lieu of a changing world, a
process that Erich Neumann called "centroversion." Unlike
the West's extraverted hero archetype whose victory occurs over the
dark forces that impede ego-consciousness, the centroverted hero has
as his or her goal the transformation of the psyche, wherein the feminine
unconscious is reintegrated with the masculine ego. Calling it the
latest stage in the evolution of human consciousness, Neumann regards
centroversion as the process whereby the ego recognizes the whole
self and willingly submits part of its domain to the powers of the
unconscious, a phenomenon that could and should determine the fate
of both the individual and humankind:
The civilization that is about to be born will be human
civilization in a far higher sense than any has ever been before,
as it will have overcome important social, national, and racial
limitations. These are not fantastic pipe dreams, but hard facts
... The turning of the mind from the conscious to the unconscious,
the responsible rapprochement of the human consciousness with the
powers of the collective psyche, that is the task of the future
(1973, 393).
[41] The androgyne is a predominant archetype used to convey the
transformation that transcends the classical hero's journey. Among
others, June Singer (1989) affirms the masculine bearing of the classical
journey and details ways in which the new hero is integrating the
long-established (but forgotten) androgynous archetype, wherein the
archetypal masculine and feminine are reunited.[20] The reunion represents the recovery of the
"balanced psyche," of wholeness, health, and a newfound
connection to, as Singer explains, "an innate sense of a primordial
cosmic unity" or "oneness" which existed "before
any separation was made" (2000, 5). That oneness refers to a
balance of qualities with which any man or woman can reunite without
losing masculine or feminine traits. In most cases, the androgynous
male discovers his anima by confronting his ego-limitations and seeking
peace, inner and outer, while the emerging female hero not only demands
equality but also finds the freedom to express a re-mystified feminine
impulse, replete with intuition, empathy, and a sacred sense of connection.
[42] The sheer number of films with androgynous, centroverted heroes
offers clear testimony to a collective awakening, one that I believe
is part of a new cultural project that could supply postmodern culture
with a vision that directs global citizenry to new levels of peace
and to new kinds of prosperity. That vision, which Charlene Spretnak
calls "ecological postmodernism," attempts to depict humans
at home in the cosmos, to redefine sanity with the Earth in mind,
to deconstruct the masks we have placed on our enemies, and to recognize
the spiritual in the natural.[21]
The ecopsychology in Instinct and Powder, the ego-to-eco
transformations in Seven Years in Tibet and Civil Action,
the ecofeminist sensibilities in The Color Purple and Contact,
the Afrocentricity in Do the Right Thing and Slam, the
Eastern philosophy in Gandhi and Matrix, the aboriginal
earth wisdom in Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves, the
creation spirituality in Stigmata, and the Green politics in
Bulworth all point toward a common goal: a centroverted hero
whose victory is presented through the death and rebirth of ego consciousness
in a journey intended to supplant aggression, revenge, and material
gain with self-discovery, equanimity, and planetary identity.
References
Berkhofer, Robert. 1979. The White Man's Indian. New York:
Vintage.
Bird, S. Elizabeth. 1998. "Introduction: Constructing the Indian,
1830s-1990s." Dressing in Feathers: The Construction of the
Indian in American Popular Culture. Ed. S. Elizabeth Bird, 1-12.
Boulder, CO: Westview.
Bogle, Donald. 1974. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks.
New York: Bantam.
Chinen, A. B. 1997. Waking the World: Classic Tales of Women and
the Heroic Feminine. New York: Tarcher/Putnam.
Churchill, Ward. 1992. Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature,
Cinema, and the Colonization of American Indians. Monroe, ME:
Common Courage.
Green, Ronald. 1998. "Oscar Micheaux's Interrogation of Caricature
as Entertainment." Film Quarterly 51(3) (Spring), 16-31.
Ingram, David. 2000. "Fly Away Home and the Hollywood Conservationist
Movie." Scope: An On-Line Journal of Film Studies (December).
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/film/journal/articles/fly-away-home.htm
Jindra, Michael. 2000. "It's About Faith in Our Future: Star
Trek Fandom as Cultural Religion." Religion and Popular Culture
in America. Ed. Bruce Forbes and Jeffrey Mahan, 165-179. Berkeley:
University of California.
Kerkhoven, Thomas. 2003. "Shiva on the Durham Coalfield: On
the Pertinence of Hindu Myth to the Film Billy Elliot," Journal
of Religion and Popular Culture (Summer). http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art4-billyelliot.html
Lawrence, John Shelton and Robert Jewett. 2002. The Myth of the
American Superhero. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans.
McKelly, James. 1998. "The Double Truth, Ruth: ÇDo the Right
Thing' and the Culture of Ambiguity." African American Review
32 (2) (Summer), 215-227.
Neumann, Erich. 1973. The Origins and History of Consciousness.
Tr. R.R.C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pearson, Carol. 1998. The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Can Live
By. 3rd Edition. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
Schwartz Ellis, Caron. 1995. "With Eyes Uplifted: Space Aliens
as Sky Gods." Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology
in Popular American Film. Ed. Joel Martin and Conrad Oswald Jr.,
83-93. San Francisco: Westview.
Singer, June. 2000. Androgyny. 2nd Edition. York
Beach, ME: Nicolas-Hays.
Spretnak, Charlene. 1993. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning
in the Postmodern Age. New York: HarperCollins.
Tarnas, Richard. 1993. The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding
the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View. New York: Ballentine.
Vogler, Christopher. 1998. The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure
for Writers. 2nd Edition. Studio City, CA: Michael
Wiese.
Weir, Peter (Interview with Michael Bliss). 1999. "Keeping a
Sense of Wonder," Film Quarterly 53,1 (Fall), 2-11.
Notes
[1] For a discussion of how formulaic the male-oriented
journey has become, see Vogler (1998).
[2] For an analysis of black stereotypes, see Bogle
(1974).
[3] See Churchill (1992) for a critique of cinematic
portrayals of Native American stereotypes.
[4] Films such as Pretty Woman (1990), in which
a prostitute meets her prince charming, still cater to the so-called
"Cinderella syndrome," much as the animated, thin-clad,
large-breasted Pocahontas falls victim to the "Barbie syndrome."
[5] The Tango Lesson is representative of a variety
of critically acclaimed independent films starring women, such as
Like Water for Chocolate (1992), Daughters of the Dust
(1992), and The Piano (1993). The impact of the feminine indie
is epitomized by Maya Deren's 1943 Meshes of the Afternoon,
which many film historians regard as the pioneer work of the New American
Cinema movement.
[6] For a discussion of how Oscar Micheaux put twists
on black stereotypes, see Green (1998).
[7] In the first film with rock-and-roll songs, The
Blackboard Jungle (1955), Poitier plays a delinquent-turned-hero
that helps pacify hoods in an angst-ridden high school a role he fulfills
as a teacher in To Sir with Love (1967). He received an Academy
Award for his role as a drifter who helps nuns renovate their church
in Lilies in the Field (1963, one year before blacks could
legally sit with white audiences). In A Patch of Blue (1965)
and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) he befriends a white
girl, and as Virgil Tibbs he fights racism In the Heat of the Night
(1967).
[8] Other opposites include the white
police and black "trouble makers," whose confrontation ends
in the death of Radio Rahim, whose love-and-hate brass rings epitomize
the plot. Dialogues between youth and the elderly reflect the generation
gap. Buggin' Out and the "wake-up" calling DJ Love Daddy
are black counterparts. Pino the segregationist and Vito the integrationist
are white ones. Sal's Italian hall-of-heroes juxtaposes Smiley's pictures
of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X. James McKelly (1998) describes
the profuse number of binary opposites used by Lee as "cultural
signifiers" of what W.E.B. Dubois called "double consciousness."
[9] Characters such as Shaft and Superfly, while commanding
black power, reinforced the black buck formula (one that Pam Grier
characters flauntingly reversed). Most of blaxploitation's blacks
were ghetto dwellers that, often lacking family values, suffered oppression
at the hands of black crime lords a view advanced by The French
Connection (1971) and The Godfather (1972). Even in civil
rights movies such as Mississippi Burning (1988), blacks serve
mostly as scenery, are weak and scared, and inspire pity rather than
respect; while the white FBI agents serve as saviours. A similar formula
is found in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Ghosts of Mississippi
(1996), and Amistad (1997), in which heroic white lawyers rescue
their black clients.
[10] Singleton's Rosewood (1997), based on the
1921 burning of a small, successful black community in rural Florida,
does what Mississippi Burning fails to do namely, conveys the
travesty of racial violence through the eyes of strong, self-respecting
minority.
[11] Obviously, other minorities such as Asians and
Hispanics have been afforded archetypal roles.
[12] Youthful lifestyles have become standard themes,
from the homespun American Graffiti (1973) about youth of the
'fifties to the Dazed and Confused (1993) kids of the 'seventies
to stereotypes of 'eighties youth in The Breakfast Club (1985)
to the "no-future" youth in Larry Clark's disturbing Kids
(1995) and Bully (2001). Correlative to his cult status, Kevin
Smith helped define Generation X from Clerks (1994) to Jay
and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) by attacking everything status
quo, from religious and political conservatism to the film industry,
and by promoting multiculturalism, sexual diversity, religious freedom,
and nonconformity.
[13] Ellis outlines how the "Cold War aliens"
that embodied our fear of "the Other" prior to the 1960s
has given way to "kinder, gentler aliens" who "addressed
our deep fears about technology and answered spiritual questions about
our destiny" (1995, 83).
[14] Clearly beholden to the monomyth, the film's evil
other, the Vietnamese soldiers who have no respect for life, are a
source of conflict and redemptive violence. The communal resolution
occurs as Michael and comrades sing "America the Beautiful"
and toast Nick.
[15] The film's director, Peter Weir (1999) likens
Christof to Dr. Frankenstein and Truman's basement with the unconscious,
a connection that Weir links to the basement where Jung claims to
have had some of his epiphanies.
[16] A number of films such as Gandhi (1982),
Kung Fu (1972), and Kundun (1997) have expressed the
value of Eastern philosophy for Western culture.
[17] Lawrence and Jewett, writing prior to the release of The
Passion, describe how Mel Gibson took the monomythic plot of the
Lethal Weapons films (1987-1998) and extended it backwards
in time to Braveheart (1995) and The Patriot (2000),
focusing on redemptive violence. They also discuss Gibson and company's
historical fabrication of the life, enemies, and conquests of Braveheart's
William Wallace (2002, 153-167). The construction of The Passion
seems to me to follow the same patterns, which, as many critics insist,
characterize an obsession with pain, martyrdom, and the damnation
of the evil "other."
[18] A prototype of "the new Christ," Neo
discards, as Lawrence and Jewett explain, "the ineffectual baggage
of the Sermon on the Mount" in favor "a duffel bag full
of pistols, guns, and explosives needed to destroy the command center
of political evil" (2002, 7).
[19] As demonstrated by the Free Willy trilogy
(1993, 1995, 1997), Fly Away Home (1996), and other such films,
wild animals are often transformed from a danger and/or obstacle to
human culture to beings with intrinsic value. See Ingram (2000) for
a discussion of that transformation.
[20] Lawrence and Jewett admonish the macho, hierarchical
nature the monomyth promoted by Campbell and "culture critic"
Bill Moyers, who, "like most Americans, are cheerfully oblivious
to the implications of superheroism and the aristocratic political
values in the materials they celebrate" (2002, 12).
[21] See Spretnak (1993).
