If there is one trend in entertainment that I cannot stand in any capacity, it is the need for shows, movies and video games to be made as dark and edgy as possible. For some reason, people think that, show being dark and gritty means being more realistic and should be watched more. I don't get it, I realize that life can be dark and depressing, and I do enjoy that media can reflect that with metaphor and symbolism. But when you take something that, at its core was light-hearted and colourful, and then make it so it starts with someone getting murdered, I personally, am going to think you're just doing it for the sake of popularity. Cough... Riverdale... cough.
When did it begin? The whole idea of "Misery equals adulthood"? Did it start with the rise of the teenage demographic? Did it start with the rise of social media usage? did it start when we all started to realize that life sucks? I don't know, all I know is, it's just as wrong and harmful as ignoring all the misery.
But what does this movie, a movie that has Batman growing attached to a shape shifting queen, and has the line "It's not a cookie, it's a chainsaw", say about that idea?
At the start of the movie, we see what the once bustling city of Bricksburg has become, a Mad Max style apocalypse. Complete with everything being made out of scrap, and everyone being grittier. As we know, this is the world as set-up by one of the real world children, the older brother character. In this world, everyone tells Emmet that he is soft and needs to grow-up. This is a world that would most definitely be afraid of what the Systar System is, a fun, energetic, never ending dance party.
This is the world created by the younger sister character. The difference between the two is immediate, as one creates an apocalypse and the other creates a dance party.
I have noticed in life, that everyone wants to grow up quickly. Once you reach adulthood you put away your toys and pick up a briefcase, or a protest sign, or something. Being an adult means you have to be serious now. I've seen this happen before my own eyes as my older brother, who is only two years older than me, just had to start watching Family Guy and Robot Chicken, even though he wasn't even in high school. He had to start playing Rated M video games and watch all of the action heavy anime. Now, I am in my early twenties, and I am still watching SpongeBob and Fraggle Rock, have amassed a large collection of Disney VHS tapes and will not shut the ever loving Hell up about The Muppets.
Isn't that all part of being an adult though? to surround yourself with crude, violent and edgy material? Why is it children in middle school encourage themselves to watch vile and crude shows? Why do they feel the need to grow up in this manner?
Emmet is not a character who can do a task as huge as rescue his friends from an alien system by himself. He needed Rex Dangervest, he needed Lucy, he needed people there. Nobody was there, and that is how Rex came to be. Rex is a symbol of the idea of independence being a staple of adulthood, the idea that if you are getting help, you aren't a true independent adult. Rex, doesn't need anyone.
I find this aspect of adulthood to be hazardous. The idea that having to get help from your parents or some random strangers as being shameful. The idea that full independence is what separates the children from the adults. After all, if a full grown adult still lives with their parents, does that not make them like children?
There is an idea that maturity is all hard work and misery, and that is a part of it. It is harmful, I dare say even toxic, to ignore pain and misery in adult life. However, I find it equally destructive to have adult life be seen as all edgy and miserable. The thing that truly separates adults from children is that, at the end of the day, adults should understand the nuance of life. Children have simple minds that are still evolving, they don't see the world as nuanced and multi-layered. They see heads and they see tails, but the coins never flip for them.
We see this in the movie as well, the older brother sees maturity as gritty and un-childlike. This isn't a silly city where a business tower would be guarded by laser-sharks anymore, this is a world where you must fight to survive. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the younger sister's world is a poppy, happy dance party, where even saying the word "brood" can get you in trouble. In one world, happiness is seen as a sign of weakness, and in the other, misery is seen as a problem.
Of course, come the end of the movie, Emmet learns that growing up doesn't have to mean becoming Rex. Growing up doesn't have to mean disillusionment and misery. It means understanding when the dance parties have to come to an end and when to address the misery at hand. The idea that adulthood simply means to put away your love for things like rainbows and SpongeBob is obsolete, or it should be. I see on Twitter people who were bullied in school because they weren't watching Family Guy when they weren't even seventeen, people shamed for having a passion that wasn't seen as "Adult" or "Grown Up".
Now, I am not claiming to be digging deep into this movie. The main purpose of this post is to incite conversation about this topic. The ideas of what it means to grow up, what it means to put away childish things. Does growing up have to be the apocalypse setting, or can growing up coexist with a more pleasant and upbeat setting?
To end this post, I leave you with a quote from famous author C.S. Lewis.
-“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
-C.S. Lewis
No comments:
Post a Comment