“Oh I’m not gonna kill ya. I’m just gonna hurt ya, really, really, bad.”
I have no words for Jared Leto’s Joker at the end of this trailer. Just watch it. Then watch it again. And then after you watch it a couple hundred times, watch it again.
Dreamers of Tomorrow
This past week, I was published in an online publication called The Spectatorial. You may recall that my post Truth, Justice, and the Kryptonian Way was published on the site in the winter. My most recent piece is about Disney’s movie Tomorrowland. Though the film was confusing, the message was worth it. Dreamers come in all ages and all sizes. And sometimes the fiercest dreamers are the adults who are working to achieve their goals no matter what is thrown in their direction.
Check out “Dreamers of Tomorrow: A Meditation on Disney’s Tomorrowland” here!
– Q
“The Red Capes Are Coming”
If you’re like me, you love superheroes. If you’re like me, you especially love DC superheroes. And if you’re like me, there is no limit to the amount of times you can watch this trailer. Not only is it a fabulous trailer, but the quotes used are fantastic. They do more for us than just build excitement. And if the script is anything like what Zack Snyder teased in this trailer, this is going to be a phenomenal film.
Here are my top favorites:
“People hate what they don’t understand. Be their hero Clark. Be their angel, be their monument. Be anything they need you to be. Or be none of it. You don’t owe this world a thing. You never did.” – Martha Kent
Go Ma Kent. First off, this line is great because it points back to what Jonathan Kent said to a young Clark in Man of Steel: “People are afraid of what they don’t understand.” The change in “afraid” to “scared” implies the immense tension between the American public and Superman. Second, it is filled with so much emotion. The heart and gentleness of Martha’s love, as well as her fierce protection for her godlike son.
“Do you know the oldest lie in America, Senator? Devils don’t come from hell beneath us. They come from the sky.” – Lex Luthor
Why does Lex Luthor have the best lines? It seems that Lex is going to be one of the largest advocates against Superman. What I’m excited to see is why Lex hates Superman so much. Was it the destruction of Metropolis and possibly LexCorp property? Or is there something else happening? Either way, this quote shows the disdain Lex has for the Man of Steel.
“Black and blue. God versus Man. Day versus Night. The red capes are coming. The red capes are coming.” – Lex Luthor
Okay, this line gives me chills every time I watch the trailer. It is the culmination of this film. I mean, it is called Batman v Superman after all. But it intrigues me that Lex is saying this. We can speculate the fight between the two has something to do with Superman’s destruction of Metropolis. In the trailer, we see Batfleck in Metropolis the day of the Zod/Superman fight. But, why would Lex be so interested in this fight? Does he have a hand in pitting them against each other?
Ah only time will tell. All we can do is wait. One thing is for sure, though.
The red capes are coming.
– image from batman-news.com
Confessions of a Lovesick Romantic
– image from wikimedia.org
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and to be loved in return.”
My sister and I are very opposite. Sure, we are similar in some things like physical features or outgoing personalities, but when it comes to love, we are polar opposites. We were watching Stuck in Love (2013) one night, and we heard something that summed us up perfectly:
“There are two kinds of people in this world: hopeless romantics and realists.”
We looked at each other and knew. She’s the realist and I’m the romantic.
So as we watched Moulin Rouge (2001), we knew who would be feeling the sharp truth of the realistic side of love and who would be feeling the dizzying romantic side of love. Or in other words, who would be weeping through the end.
I’ve decided recently that it is one of my favorite movies. It’s a Baz Luhrman film, think the Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo + Juliet or The Great Gatsby (2013), and you will get a sense of the artsy, dramatic flair of the director’s style. It is far from the typical, romantic musical, but instead it thrives on the boisterous, circus feel of organized chaos. I won’t lie, the first time I saw it, I was very confused. It was one of the oddest movies I had ever seen. But then, I got to know Christian (Ewan McGregor), the penniless writer hungry for love, and I knew this movie would connect with me immediately.
Christian has never been in love. Yet he knows all about love.
“Love is like oxygen! Love is a many, splendid thing! Love lifts us up where we belong! All you need is love!”
– image from fanpop.com
Ah, doesn’t that just make your heart flip for joy? If you’re a romantic, then yes. Yes it does. Yet, when we first meet Christian at the beginning of the film, he is in a dark place, literally and figuratively. His clean-shaven face is covered in a scraggly beard, and his apartment is a mess. The place reeks of disappointment and loneliness. How could this man have been the hopeful romantic we see in the rest of the film? Don’t worry. I won’t spoil the ending for you.
What I will tell you, though, is that his troubles are a result of love. His love with the beautiful Courtesan at the Moulin Rouge across the street. Satine (Nicole Kidman).
– image from jasonfbh.com
It was love at first sight.
But, she sells herself for money. How can there be love for a woman like here? Aha, now we meet our Realist of the film.
There you go. Two people. A Romantic and a Realist. Two very opposite personalities, and yet, they fall in love. The Romantic teaches the Realist how to let go, and the Realist reminds the Romantic that life is not all about fuzzy feelings. They need each other no matter what the ending of the film is.
I’ll be honest. I don’t understand the Realist brain. When my sister and I talk about love, her words are usually quite frank while mine are often sugar-coated. But, when looking at our love lives, she’s the one who has been in a relationship before. I have not. She’s been in the throes of Aphrodite’s games, while I have watched from the sideline. I hold the optimism of Christian; she holds the wisdom of Satine.
What scares me is the wisdom of Satine. What will happen when he, whoever he is, comes into my life, and I have to face the truth? Life isn’t a romance. And this is the Romantic’s curse. We all know the world isn’t what we dream of. We are full aware of heartbreak and sadness, yet we choose to ignore it for the hope that one day we will be able to change it. For the hope that one day, we will find the perfect love that will fight all others. One day, we will achieve the ultimate goal for a Romantic:
“The greatest thing in life is just to love and to be loved in return.”
Is it? A Realist might so of course not. Most Romantics would agree.
Me…well, I want to say I believe that with all my heart, and yes it gives me the “ooey-gooey” feelings in my stomach, but there’s doubt lurking in the back of my mind. Is love really the greatest thing? What about World Peace? Or Environment conservation? Feeding the hungry and healing the sick? Aren’t these all greater than just love?
“They should be,” says the Realist.
“But I don’t want them to be!” whines the Romantic.
And we are back to fighting again.
Sometimes I get carried away in the fight between the Romantics and the Realists that I forget how much Romantics need Realists. I’ll say it again, this time with more feeling: Life isn’t a romance. And I think that scares Romantics into their books and movies, into their fantasies and imaginations where life can be a romance. And I know this is the truth because I do it. When things get hard, I know where I can go hide in plain sight. Just pick a faraway land and some fantastic adventure in my head, and I’m suddenly drifting away from my problems and not dealing with them. A Realist would help me snap out of it.
Romantics need Realists. I could talk about how much Realists need Romantics, but I don’t think that’s the main purpose of Moulin Rouge. This is Christian’s story, Christian’s awakening. This is the story of how a Romantic learned the truth, a truth he needed to know. The world isn’t all fairy tales and bright circuses. It can be a dark place. And the Realist is full aware of this. But Christian learned a valuable lesson, and from his heartache sprang the beautiful story of the Moulin Rouge and its mystifying Courtesan.
I may not like it when I talk about love with my sister because she offers some true points that I don’t always want to hear, but it’s necessary for me to listen. She’s been there, and she knows.
So, yes, I am a 100% Romantic, full of feelings and sap that I want to share with everyone, but I need someone on the ground reeling me in when I fly too close to the sun. Romantics can feel the sun’s heat coursing through their veins, setting ever nerve ending on fire, but the Realist knows when pleasure turns to burning pain. Without a Realist, we Romantics would fly too close to the sun. And though we will probably get hurt and fall no matter where we fly, wouldn’t it be nicer to know there was someone on the ground ready to catch us?
– image from ellieann.net
A Cynical Happily Ever After
– image from patheos.com
A Cinderella story. A Cinderella dress. A Cinderella ball gown. A Cinderella *insert into the blank.* We’ve all heard these phrases, the perfect happily ever after too good to not be a Disney fairytale stories. And, no matter how cheesy it is, we want it. We want to have our own Cinderella stories. We want to be the one everyone watches in awe, the mysterious gem in the midst of a crowd, the one noticed by the love of our lives. Flawless. Wondrous. Stunning.
The purest of magic.
I’ll be honest, I want to be the girl the prince falls in love with, not for her beauty alone, but for that aura of elegance and spirit she exudes. She doesn’t have to be a princess. She doesn’t have to be famous. She just has to be herself, and when he sees her, he knows. She is the one he will marry and be with for the rest of his life. She is his happily ever after.
What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good happily ever after.
But how realistic is this Cinderella fairytale romance? In the new live action adaptation of the Disney film, she’s graceful and enchanting, the epitome of beauty when she meets Prince Kit for the first time in the forest.
– image from comingsoon.net
But I am not that graceful or enchanting or blonde, and I still want that happy ending. Is that too much to ask, Fairy Godmother? Wherever you are…
Don’t misunderstand my tone, though, I loved the film. I liked it even more than the animated version. This one had more action and more depth to it. More meaning than the “your dreams can come true if you believe” message. Kindness and courage can go a long way; follow your heart; stand up for yourself; all of these are beautiful lessons I learned , but one thing got in the way. My Inner Cynic.
Sometimes, I hate my Inner Cynic.
Even though there was a smile on my face the entire movie, there was a war in my heart between the dreamer and the realist. There is no way Cinderella would ever happen in real life. What are the odds they would meet in the forest and “fall in love?” What are the odds Kit would know at first sight she would be the one he would marry? What are the odds they would even make it past the first year after having talked to each other three times?
Don’t we remember Elsa’s sagacious refusal of Anna and Prince Hans’s engagement in Frozen?
– image from adaddyblog.com
Now there is a Disney princess who has her head screwed on straight and out of the clouds. After all he turned out to be a bit of a jerk. A lot of a jerk.
I was so angry at my cynical side during the entire movie. Why did it have to ruin the movie for me? Why couldn’t I enjoy a classic fairytale despite its improbability of happening to me or anyone else? It seems impossible to do because reality has such a tight grip on our hearts. It allows us to hope for a little bit, but not too much because then we would lose all rationale and believe in a world that is far beyond our imaginations. A world of glass slippers and perfect gentlemen.
It makes me sad that believing in happily ever after is reserved for the movies. It shouldn’t be. It should be allowed to seep into our lives and into the real world. It should be at the back of everyone’s mind, whispering to them that their happy ending is possible. Everyone can dream of it, fight for it, and achieve it. The danger in this, though, is that we all want the same happy ending. But, my happily ever after will look different from the person to my left or right, from yours, and that’s what Cinderella shows us. Why would we want another’s happily ever after, when ours is perfectly created to fit who we are. I am not at all like Cinderella, so her happily ever after would not fit (kind of like a famous shoe?). And maybe mine isn’t what she would want. But that’s okay.
Instead of yelling at the Inner Cynic, maybe we need to thank it. It judges the happy endings we see in popular culture against the happy ending we could actually have. None of use are Disney Princesses or Princes, so why should we base our endings off theirs? The Inner Cynic tells us that. The IC (Inner Cynic) isn’t as much the bad guy of the story as it is the “slippery when wet sign” placed before the slick path of movie romances. It reminds us what isn’t reality.
But what we can’t mistake the IC for is a heartless realist with no romantic bone in its body. In fact, the IC might be the most open to romance. It’s a little judgmental because it wants to point us in the direction of the romance that best suits us. I’m beginning to see how grateful I am for the IC. It reminds me that I am the way I am for a certain way. There is a happily ever after waiting for me in the future, and it’s not going to be some grand prince sweeping me out of my place as a servant girl and into the courts of a palace. But that’s okay. Happily ever after comes at the end of many diverse movies for a reason. There isn’t one recipe.
So, be thankful for your Inner Cynic, but don’t lost hold of the Inner Dreamer. For it may be the Cynic that tells reality, but the Dreamer holds the magic.
– image from perksbewithyou.wordpress.com
Equal Rights for Different Movies
– image from nymag.com
At the 81st Annual Academy Awards, Hugh Jackman opened the ceremony with a DIY opening number, one he “stayed up all night in his garage” preparing because the Academy didn’t have the money for a real opening number due to cutbacks. It was full of laughs, surprises, and Wolverine belting into the auditorium. What a show.
But one small portion of his performance resurfaced in my mind after watching Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). In the year 2008, the second installment of Christopher Nolan’s wildly popular Batman trilogy was released: The Dark Knight. Hugh Jackman plays with this film in his opening song when he jumps onto a homemade Batpod and sings:
How come comic book movies never get nominated? How can a billion dollars be unsophisticated? Everyone went to see The Dark Knight! What am I doing you think is not right? Is it my cape or my bulletproof tights?
– image from tampabay.com
It’s funny, and we laugh, but we laugh because it’s true. Isn’t he right? How many comic book films are nominated for Best Picture? Usually they fall under the special effects or the make-up categories. But aside from that, the only places you see comic book movies sweeping awards are at the MTV Movie awards or the Nickelodeon Teen/Kid Choice Awards. Hardly the place for the class and sophistication of true Hollywood cinema.
Riggan Thomson (MIchael Keaton) experiences this same double standard as a washed up superhero actor who is trying to jump-start his career as a serious actor on Broadway. But a vicious critic, Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan), stands in his way, and she vows to tear his show apart simply because she hates him. To her, his work as Birdman is nowhere near the level of art and prestige of the theatre. “Entitled, selfish, spoiled children. Blissfully untrained, unversed, and unprepared to even attempt real art. Handing each other awards for cartoons and pornography. Measuring your worth in weekends?” she exclaims when Riggin asks her why she doesn’t like him. Apparently, superheroes aren’t worthy of the critical acclaim the theatre deserves.
– image from ferdyonfilms.com
“Says who?” That’s what I wanted to shout. Who gave her the right to say that superhero movies aren’t art. Okay, maybe they don’t win Academy Awards, and yes, maybe they aren’t brooding and dramatic and aren’t held to the same standard as Best Pictures, but does that make them less than art?
I’ll admit it. I label films too and put them into boxes. There are blockbusters, and there are critically acclaimed films just as some books are considered fiction, and others are considered literature. But, who came up with these categories anyway, and why is one thing less than another? Aren’t they all books? Aren’t they all movies?
I love superhero films, and I’m sure if I lived in the world of Birdman, it would be one of my favorites. But I also love award-winning films. Should I look at them differently, and judge them because one is more artsy than the other? Superhero films win at the box office, and Oscar films win in the Dolby Theatre. And winning in the Dolby Theatre makes something art. Winning in the box office makes something a really good action/comedy/romance flick.
Honestly, though, that makes me sad, that we would consider some films “better” than others. Superheroes are great at bringing in cash for the production company, but do not expect them to bring in prestige and Academy Awards. Leave that to the true artists.
Let’s look at the world, shall we. Isn’t this a common problem among people? Hasn’t it been something we’ve battled through the years? African-American rights, women’s rights, homosexual’s rights are causes fighting to show that all people are equal. Well, who’s going to stand up for the movies? Who’s going to say that comic book movies are at the same level as Academy Award winning Best Pictures? Take away the labels, and they are all the same things. Movies.
Superhero films have just as much to teach us as Best Pictures do. They may be hidden underneath the action and bravado of heroes in suits and tights, but they’re still there, and it’s thrilling to sift through the action sequences and find the truths writers’ want to share with us, the stories they want to tell the world. I can learn just as much about foreign policy from Iron Man as I can from American Sniper. I can learn about the dehumanization and lack of equality between different races from X-Men as well as 12 Years a Slave. We shouldn’t write off the blockbusters as non-art because they are winning golden popcorn statues rather than golden men.
I’m a geek through and through, and sometimes there is nothing better than a really good superhero movie. And I will stand by that until the day I die. But there are movies that I adore that aren’t superhero flicks. They are about regular people living their lives, and those films are great too. So, what I want to say is this: I’ll do it. I’ll stand up for the movies. I will proudly say that a superhero film is just as great as an award winner.
Aristotle once said:
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of thing, but their inner significance.
Despite the critics and the number of awards, if a film tells a beautiful story and contains a moving message, I see it as art. And art is good for the soul.
– image from collider.com
“What if there was a place, a secret place, where nothing was impossible. A miraculous place where you could actually change the world. You wanna go?”
Ah this line gives me chills. And not because it is inspiring, but because it is sad. If should be an exhilarating line, one that sends adrenaline pumping through your veins because it had led you to believe that you can change the world. But, you wouldn’t be changing this world. You’d have to go to another one, a far away land where you could actually change the world. What makes that world so special? Why can’t we change our own? Do we lack the ability to change our own world that we have to go to some land of tomorrow to make a difference?
What really is the purpose of Tomorrowland?
“You Wanna Go?”
The Imagination Game
– image from imdb.com
Pinterest is the place for weddings and DIY and houses we will never be able to actually live in, but it is also the place for quotes. Often a Pinterest user will have a board only for quotes. I know I do. My sister does. My friends do and probably a couple of cousins do as well. There is no limit to the amount of quotes you find on Pinterest, and every so often one sticks out in your mind. Such as this Japanese parable:
– image from weheartit.com
Well isn’t that sweet. Sarcasm aside, I really do love that. It’s nice to believe that in your tossing and turning and misery because you’ve been up for hours unable to rest, someone is thinking about you. It’s nice to know.
Whenever I go to a restaurant, I play a game with straw wrappers; when you get a straw you take it out without destroying the wrapper. Then you tie the wrapper into a knot and pull it out. If the knot is still there, no one is thinking about you. But if it isn’t…its your lucky day, and you, my friend, are alive in another’s mind. Again, a nice thing to know.
We love that, the idea that someone is thinking about us, that someone deems us worthy of occupying his or her thoughts. It’s natural, one of those human nature characteristics we all have wired in our souls. And it’s not a new idea. Sometimes in our minds, to be thought of is to be loved. And to be forgotten is to be lost.
Alan Turing must have felt lost at the end of the film The Imitation Game. (Spoiler Alert) As he sat alone in his apartment, weak and sick from the drugs he had to take because of his sexual orientation (despite helping the Allies win the war) he must have felt forgotten. It was gut wrenching for me to watch a man so brilliant be stripped of his brilliance.
The Alan Turing of the majority of the film was bright and intelligent, maybe not the most street smart when it came to social interaction–think Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory only older, and from the 1940s–but still an incredible human being. But his fault was his homosexuality. And for that he was handed pills instead of medals.
But there is a little bit of hope at the end of the movie. Just a sliver that Alan can hold onto in the last moments of his life. And that hope takes shape in the words of Mr. Turing himself relayed to him through his friend, Joan Clarke:
Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.
– image from theatlantic.com
How Alan must have felt when she said this to him, I can only imagine. Forgotten and alone, dejected and humiliated, but she helped him realize again that though he had been left behind, he had changed the world. The Allies owed much of their victory to Mr. Turing; we owe computers to him.
But there is a dilemma I am starting to see in this phrase. It is a beautiful line, don’t get me wrong, and perhaps it too will be added to my Pinterest board, but what makes me stop is the double standard in the line. Do I want to be imagined of? Or do I want to do what no one imagines can be done? It is a kind of tricky Would You Rather question.
So, on the one hand, I could choose to be continually thought of, to know that there is always someone out there dreaming about me or thinking about me. Or, I could go down in history as having done something that changed the world. But never be thought of while I’m living.
I have no answer. One day, I might believe I am strong enough to know I can survive lifelong loneliness, which means creating something the world has never seen. But one day, I might believe that there is no way I could go on if I didn’t have the knowledge that there are people caring about me constantly, supporting me always, even if just in their thoughts. What must Alan Turing have thought? After all, those words were originally his own; therefore, he must have accepted his inevitable loneliness. But that didn’t make it any easier after the war.
So what do we choose? What do I choose? What if we can have both? Can we have both? I want to believe we can. Those words are comfort to the people who feel alone like they are not loved or cared about. Those words help them understand that despite their loneliness, they can be great. But I want to believe that no one should feel forgotten or lost, and everyone can change the world. It’s a beautiful quote, but it shouldn’t be a universal truth. You see, the quote begins with the word sometimes and sometimes implies not every time. Why should there be some cases where a lonely person changes the world? Why can’t there be an eradication of times where forgotten people change the world be cause they aren’t…forgotten.
In his acceptance speech after winning Best Adapted Screenplay for The Imitation Game, Graham Moore stood in front of hundreds of people in the Dolby theatre and in the world, and said this:
When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself. Because I felt weird and I felt different and I felt like I did not belong. And now I’m standing here. And so I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like she’s weird or she’s different or she doesn’t fit in anywhere. Yes, you do! I promise, you do! Stay weird. Stay different, and then when it’s your turn and you are standing on this stage, please pass the same message along.
Alan Turing may have felt like he was weird or different or didn’t fit in anywhere. And maybe he felt that way because of the pills in his hands handed to him by the people his machine protected. But, we have the chance to not let anyone else feel that way. To let all people change the world and to let no person be forgotten.
– image from variety.com
“I Would Like to Thank the Academy…”
– image from kingoftheflatscreen.com
Sunday night was the night in Hollywood. It was also the night in my dorm room. Finally, after waiting and watching and predicting and voting and watching some more, it was time for the Oscars. Ever since I was a little girl, they fascinated me. The beautiful gowns and dashing suits, the glorious theatre and brilliant stage, the funny host and tearful acceptance speeches…ah they gave me chills. They still do.
Sunday night was no different. The older I’ve become, the more excited I get for this night because my appreciation for film has grown. The eight movies nominated for Best Picture weren’t obscure titles, but they were films I was invested in. I had my favorites not because I was familiar with one nominee over the other, but because I had engaged in their story and journey to the 87th Annual Academy Awards.
If you have read my earlier posts about the Golden Globes, you will understand how excited I was for this night. It needed to be better than the Globes. I wasn’t sure if I could handle another night of upsets.
It didn’t disappoint.
Birdman soared, Eddie overcame, and a little robotic marsh mellow was heroic. And that is only a portion of the night. Follow the link to check out the rest of the award winners:
Lastly, I want to thank you all for reading, but the orchestra is playing so I must bid thee farewell.
Q
– image from mynewsia.com
A Sheepdog’s Story
– image from imovilizate.com
Not many people know this, but there was a time in my life when I wanted to go into the army. I researched how to apply, what the training would be like, what kind of jobs I would be doing, everything. I was certain that my calling after high school was to enlist, be a soldier, and protect my country.
But that calling lasted for a week.
It came from a Current Events class I took my junior year of high school. Once a week, we were required to write journal entries summarizing and reflecting on something happening in the news. We were nearing election year, so many of the topics were about the upcoming presidential candidates, and with that territory came debates about the War on Terror. We had been in Iraq for so long; I couldn’t (and still cannot) remember a time where war was not being talked about on the news. I was in elementary school during the attack on the World Trade Center, and since that day, the ideas of terrorists in the Middle East and suicide bombers on busses and in buildings and everything else had taken its place in my schooling amidst math and science and AR reading.
I had always been sensitive to topics of war, and the older I became, the more that sensitivity deepened. PTSD wasn’t a couple of letters thrown together, and Jihadist wasn’t a foreign word I didn’t understand. Men and women were dying over seas, so how could I stand by and not go help? I needed to do something. Desperately.
Chris Kyle couldn’t sit on the sidelines as he watched the horrors of the Middle East, the terrible things happening to those risking and losing their lives for the United States of America. He needed to do something.
So he enlisted and became a legend: America’s deadliest sniper.
In the beginning of the film American Sniper, a young Chris Kyle (Kole Konis) and his family sit around the dinner table when his father (Ben Reed) teaches Kyle and his brother (Luke Sunshine) a life lesson:
“There are three types of people in this world: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. Some people prefer to believe that evil doesn’t exist in the world, and if it ever darkened their doorstep, they wouldn’t know how to protect themselves. Those are the sheep.”
“Then you’ve got predators, who use violence to prey on the weak. They’re the wolves. And then there are those blessed with the gift of aggression, an overpowering need to protect the flock. These men are the rare breed who live to confront the wolf. They are the sheepdog.”
So though he was young, I like to believe Kyle realized that day that there was something different about himself. His heart beat wildly when he watched a fellow student beat up his brother. His blood raced hotly through his veins, and his vision narrowed on the attacker. His fists balled in rage, and he advanced because he couldn’t stand a weaker man being picked on by a bully. Sheepdogs protect the sheep from the wolves, and Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) took that metaphor with him all the way to Iraq.
– image from asset1.net
Chris Kyle was a sheepdog, and he embodied it through every single one of his four tours overseas. He would not stop until the wolves that had killed his men, his flock, were dead. He most certainly was a rare breed.
Thinking back to my short-lived pursuit of joining the army, I wanted to believe I was a sheepdog. When I read about the horrific things happening over seas, my blood boiled and my heart beat sped up, and I knew that I needed to be out there, protecting my sheep and fighting those wolves. I believed I was that rare breed.
Only, a week later, I “came to my senses” and now, here I am, a college English major pursuing a career completely different from the one I was so adamant to follow that single week my junior year. But I’ve realized something. I’m not a sheep. I’m not a wolf. I am a sheepdog. I know so because even though I’m not going to fight wolves as a soldier on the front lines, I will be fighting something. When I watch the news for three straight hours as reporters cover the bloody shooting in a movie theatre, my heart rate speeds up. When I hear on the radio, as I’m driving home from school, that five and six-year olds will never be able to drive themselves home because they were killed in their classrooms, my fists clench and my blood heats up. Standing on the sidelines isn’t an option.
But my heart breaks because I feel stuck. I’m glued to the television screen sitting in my comfortable home on a comfortable couch watching as these awful events are retold. And then I grow angry with myself because I’m not doing anything but being a couch potato while people are living out their worst memories. Chris Kyle didn’t stay on the couch. And not just Bradley Cooper’s Kyle from the film, but the real life hero Chris Kyle. If he didn’t stay on the couch, why did I?
This mental battle restarts every time the news zeroes in on social injustices or sickening violence. And every time, I demand: how can I help?
in the beginning of the film, Chris Kyle’s father takes him out hunting, and Kyle kills a dear. His father praises him saying he has a gift; it is this gift that makes him one of the most heroic sheepdogs in American military history. But I’m not gifted with the ability to be a sniper, and I’m not gifted with the drive to fight for my country on the front lines.
But that doesn’t mean I have to give up being a sheepdog. You see, sheepdogs come in different kinds of shape, colors, and sizes, and they may have different things they are gifted with that helps them protect the flock. Some may be strong, some may be fast, and some may be cunning and smart. But they all arrive at the end goal of protecting their sheep from the wolves. Their different means and abilities help them do so.
My gifts will help me reach my full potential of becoming a sheepdog. I don’t know what that looks like right now, and that is okay. Chris Kyle may not have known how he would become a sheep dog as his father explained the metaphor over their meal one day, and that was okay too. What mattered was that he knew who he was, and he knew what that meant for his future. He used his gift to enhance the sheepdog he already was, and his overpowering need to protect the sheep led him on a legendary path.
As for me, my overpowering need to protect the sheep in my life will lead me to… somewhere.
– image from liveforfilms.com
The Truth Is... 