It’s been a very lazy weekend for me, so I surfed the
channels and found myself caught up in the movie “The Day The Earth Stood Still”
with Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. The basic plot is that an alien,
(Reeves) lands on Earth, to make the final determination of whether he will
destroy the human species.
“If the Earth dies, you
die. If you die, the Earth survives. There are only a handful of planets in the
cosmos that are capable of supporting complex life...” - Klaatu
Seeing that the immediate reaction to his arrival brings a very
strong military response, the world panics and looting begins, he decides it’s
time to pull the plug. The hostilities toward the unknown is mirrored in the
response of Jacob Benson(Jaden Smith), Jennifer Connelly’s son. The boy wants
to just kill the aliens. But the decision is changed when Klaatu sees the other
side of humans. Our ability to empathize and the possibility of changing our
self-destructive behavior, convinces Klaatu to stop the destruction to the
species.
“There's another side to
you. I feel it now.” - Klaatu
Then I watched the movie “The Help”. This isn’t my
review of these two movies; it’s simply my observations of what each movie says
about us.
“The Help” takes place during the turbulent 60s in
Mississippi when, segregation was institutionalized and ingrained. Threaded
through the personal stories of the characters are historical references to the
civil rights movement. At one point a character says to the lead to hurry up
and write her story before the whole civil rights movement blows over. They
refer to Martin Luther King’s call to march on Washington and the killing of
Medgar Evers.
The movie was brilliant as was the story it told. It was not
preachy; it had its funny and profound moments. It was a peek into a world that
has hopefully disappeared forever.
As I watched the end credits of “The Day the Earth Stood
Still”, a simplified hope that man can change its self-destructive ways, I
looked at it with a personal meaning. I wondered if I could change my own self-destructive
behavior. Will it need a life-threatening situation before I do the right things or will I just devolve into a meaningless slug? Or could I even
change?
Then as I watched the end credits of “The Help” it dawned on
me that the 60s really wasn’t that long ago, given the grand scheme of things. So
if an entire nation can change, I can change myself to be the person I want to be, the person I know I can be and be proud of myself.
Love your observations. But while I believe what you took from it -- wanting to change and be the person you want to be -- is absolutely possible (I truly believe in you that you can do anything you set your mind to), I'm not sure we, as a country, have really changed all that much from the '60s. At least talking to my African American pals, that's what they say.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid the pressure from the economy is making things worse on a social level in many ways. I feel antisemitism, for instance, is definitely rising. People seem to always want to find someone else to blame for their lot in life.
--Diane