Heroes in a condition of doubt and uncertainty: Tara, WALL-E, The Dark Knight & Parker Palmer

This season in films is filled with heroes - a bright red one,  a uniquely American girl, someone who is not so smart,  a kick-ass panda and even a nasty, snarky superhero. 

image from Kate's Eye

I depend on heroes in my media diet, even pretend ones, to embody hope and to point out a path for slaying the dragons (real & imaginary) that arise in my journey.   Lisa, my wife, is a living, breathing hero of mine - she teaches me so many lessons about how dragons might not be so scary.  People who compete in the Olympics have always been heroes of mine, ever since my mom & I watched the '72 Games in Munich.  Artists are heroes of mine - the way they animate life and live in a rhythm that is their own.

Tara Hunt had a great post on what it means to be a hero, in which she lays out some of the attributes of heroes she groks:

#1, to be a hero is to be selfless
#2, to be a hero is to hold true to a code of ethics
#3, heroism requires action
#4 ability to be egolessness
#5, heroes don’t discriminate

That is a pretty high bar Tara sets - it is tempting to be cynical and not even try to meet that standard.  But more & more, I am reminded that cynicism is a spear with fear at the tip, looking to pierce creation in all it's beauty.   Even at age 44,  I need heroes to stave off that cynicism, to fend off the spears.

I really resonated with Tara's point about another aspect that makes heroes so captivating:

They falter. They have times where they don’t want to be heroes. They want to be “normal”.

This is not what we expect of people in our lives - we do not expect friends to falter, we are thrown off when "heroes" want some time off, when they hunger to be normal.

This is particularly the case when faith is part of the equation.  Pastors fall, soul friends are normal broken people, great artists or writers so often do not want to be great or heroic or ab-normal.

I thought of this again when I read Uncertainties About the Role of Doubt in Religion, in which Peter Steinfels asks a powerful question:

So what exactly does it mean that many contemporary believers will be living their faith “in a condition of doubt and uncertainty”?

So much of my cultural experience of faith is holding up the pretense of certainty, covering up the doubt.  Just like the superhero outfits that Peter Parker or Princess Diana of Themyscira dress up in, I think of my faith as some "outfit" that I needcto pt on when things get dangerous.

The summer 2008 film season started pretty cynically for me, with a hero from my younger trotted out in a film that was just beneath the talents of all involved.  But over the last few weeks, I have been lucky to sit in a dark room with hundreds of other people living in doubt & uncertainty, animated by the stories of two rogue robots and the narrative imagined by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finge.

This summer's gift from the folks at Pixar is WALL-E,  conceptualized, written & directed by Andrew Stanton.  A commentor I adore - Rod Dreher - has described this film as a "postmodern masterpiece ....one of the most        subversive films I've ever seen", even going so far as to describe it as what would happen if "Wendell Berry made a sci-fi movie for kids".  As proof of what a truly extraordinary work this is, a writter on the other end of the political spectrum - Frank Rich - writes in glowing terms about a movies that clings to "the fleeting green memory of the extinct miracle of photosynthesis is as dazzling and elusive as the emerald city of Oz."

In this interview, Stanton, a self-described Christian, unpacks some of the heroism that this work of art captures:

Well, what really interested me was the idea of the most human thing in the universe being a machine because it has more interest in finding out what the point of living is than actual people. The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that's not always our priority. So I came up with this premise that could demonstrate what I was trying to say--that irrational love defeats the world's programming. You've got these two robots that are trying to go above their basest directives, literally their programming, to experience love.

With the human characters I wanted to show that our programming is the routines and habits that distract us to the point that we're not really making connections to the people next to us. We're not engaging in relationships, which are the point of living--relationship with God and relationship with other people.

 

As my buddy rick writes, The Dark Knight is not "just" a comic book story - it is much more than that - it is:

a crime drama, a jarring and frightening suspense movie, a meditation on good and evil, a challenge to beliefs and assumptions about order and chaos and human nature; it's a collection of psychological studies, a descent into despair, a call for hope, a horror movie with a mass murderer stalking citizens, a story of love and loyalty. and it's got kickass action. and brilliant, subtle, serious acting.

I was most struck by the tension between anarchy & order that Joker & Batman embody.  The Joker challenges the conventions of a villain in that he has no inhibitions and refuses to adhere even to the ultra-basic moral code of criminal.  The Joker traffics in terror, plays with the very nature of what being a hero means, makes a joke of the idea of good existing or triumphing.  The climatic boat scene will no doubt be shown countless times as a sort of social experiment to test heroism among common folk.

I must say I have been somewhat haunted by how the film ends.  Batman takes on a mantle of darkness, some we must hunt & attempt to capture.  The community is now part of this heroism - it is no longer a single figure who holds hope.

Paul Fromont blogged recently about a book we both recently read - The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life.  Parker Palmer is a hero of mine - an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change.  He lives & writes in the world that Peter Steinfels captures - he also reaches for the type of hero that Tara Hunt captures.  But his heroism, at least for me, comes in the way he talks openly about how he falters, his struggles with depression & pride, his very normal-ness.

Paul points to a section of Palmer's re-released book, which for me could easily fit into the stories of rogue robots and a dark knight:

“ …The capacity to embrace true paradoxes is more than an intellectual skill for holding complex thoughts. It is a life skill for holding complex experiences. Take for example our encounter with “the other,” with the person who sees a different reality from ours because he or she stands in a different place. To some extent, the other contradicts not only our thoughts but also our lives, and that can be threatening. If we lack the capacity to allow this to segue into a paradox – a both-and that has the potential to open our minds and hearts to something new – we will most likely fall back on our hard-wired “fight or flight” response. But if we understand the promise of paradox, our encounters with “the other” have the potential to make our world larger, more generous and more helpful…

If we are willing to “hang in there” with a country, a colleague… a child [or a fellow Christian with a different understanding of Biblical interpretation, sexual ethics, truth, and orthodoxy] – holding the unresolved tension between reality and possibility and inviting something new into being – we have a chance to participate in the evolution of a better reality..

 

Comments

[Paul Fromont]

Great post Bob. Thanks. Thanks to for the link. Your blog continues to thrive. Well done.

[stevehollinghurst]

Bob
i love this post,
we need heroes, we need to become heroes, and we need ot know the ambiguity of that place.

reflected on how being a minister is like putting on the heroes costume, and somtimes wanting to be normal, and finding that often, like the hero you can't be....mmmm and so many of us aint so heroic but we are asked to be. and indeed is that not what a kingodom of priests is? a people in the mantle of heroes sent to save, fight for justice, bring int he kingdom of God?

every blessing to you as ever ;o)

[Laurel Anne Hill]

On the rope of life, heroes climb above their weakest point, putting themselves at risk for the benefit of others. Heroes are not always aware of their own heroism. Love, compassion, duty and honor call them forth and they respond.

Laurel Anne Hill
Author of "Heroes Arise" (KOMENAR Publishing, October 2007)