Super 8

Image from fivefeetflat.com

Watching Super 8 brought me back to my childhood.  It has all of the hallmarks of a 1980s kids’ movie (even though it’s set in 1979) and it follows the familiar tropes that were commonplace back then.  As a child growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s I consumed probably more than just my fair share of movies.  Our VHS copy of E.T. was definitely well watched as was our taped-from-TV versions of The Goonies, Stand By Me, NeverEnding Story and countless others along with them.  There was something so satisfying about those films, watching kids, just like me, be the heroes of their destinies, stepping in and solving the problems that their parents or other adults could not.  The additional layer of whimsy and science fiction of many of these added an element of fantasy that was so enjoyable.  These movies also had elements of real and imminent danger that the children faced and ultimately overcame.  It was, to a large degree, inspirational to know that as a kid I could still make a positive difference to my surroundings.  Many times the children faced almost certain death or other consequences for doing what they felt was right or what needed to get done and the “grown-ups” were not doing. 

Super 8 is a clear homage to that era of filmmaking and it’s no surprise that the pioneer of those films, Steven Spielberg, was heavily involved as the producer this film.  JJ Abrams, today’s auteur of sc-fi and whimsy movies and television, wrote and directed Super 8 and clearly pulled from Spielberg’s visual and thematic landscape of precocious children.  The story is about a group of middle-schoolers who, while making a student film, witness a mysterious train crash on the outskirts of their town.  From that point on strange things begin happening – people, mechanical and electronic devices mysteriously disappear, dogs begin running away, and the US Air Force descends upon the town without explaining the true nature of their presence to the local townspeople or the authorities.  When it comes to light that an alien is to blame it’s the children who are able to effectively step up to save their town.

When one of their own is taken by the alien, the kids are not satisfied with solutions the adults offer and refuse to allow them to determine their fates.  They take off on their own to remedy the situation in a way that makes sense to them.  The adults have yet to prove their competency as time and again they have failed their children.  In this world, parents are ineffectual and absent in a number of ways – they die, drink, run away, work too hard and too often – and the kids are left to fend for themselves.  Joe (Joel Courtney), the film’s central character, recently suffered the death of his mother.  His father (played by Kyle Chandler) is the deputy sheriff who spends his time and effort trying to help everyone else he doesn’t see how much his own son needs him.  This is a world where the children do not and cannot trust their parents to take care of them so they must do it themselves. The relationships between the children and their parents are interesting as just like their filmic predecessors, these kids see their parents as completely ineffectual and more of a liability than an asset to their cause/needs.  

These young protagonists also must learn that in order to better their situation, they must do the exact opposite from their parents.  Where their parents are combative they learn to be compassionate, where the adults are divisive, the kids come together to help one another.  This was also a lesson from the movies of the 1980s: The Goonies had to find the money themselves to save their homes and Elliot had to rescue E.T. from the violence the adults were imposing on him.  In the 1980s one reason for the failings of on-screen parents was due to the failings of their real life counterparts.  The 1980s saw an upsurge in both divorce rates as well as an increase in the number of both parents working full time which resulted in the concept of latch-key kids.  Children were being left to their own devices to help themselves so it is no surprise that their on-screen depictions followed in that vein.  (For a further discussion on this matter, please see http://tinyurl.com/64joyh2).  That being said, given that parents continue to get the same bad rap 30 years later, even in retrospect, it makes me wonder how far we’ve come as a society that we’re still wrestling with these issues.

An interesting distinction between this film and those which are thematically related from three decades ago is that if this movie had come out in the 1980s it would have likely been marketed towards kids.  The violence in this film is startling as I watched it, but it wasn’t gruesome or gory, and definitely nothing that would be inappropriate for kids to watch.  It was suspenseful fright, and definitely not something foreign to what children were watching 20 years ago.  Think of Mamma Patrelli from The Goonies, or “The Nothing” from The NeverEnding Story; these were creatures you did NOT want to be messing with, yet the child protagonists in the films took them on directly and overcame them.  Kids watching those movies at the time took cues and strength from these kids knowing that they were able to have the strength and fortitude to save themselves and their families.  With this film being made for adults rather than children, is it saying that this is not a lesson we want to be imparting on our children anymore?  Are they not meant to take on these adventures?  Or, perhaps as it is directed towards adults, the children are meant to make meaning for those intended viewers, not children.  It’s a nostalgia item for people like me who grew up on the genre and maybe it’s a lesson for us, who see ourselves in those kids, and need to recapture a sense of adventure and independence that might have been lost as we’ve grown up.

Another interesting layer to this film is the movie being made within the narrative.  The kids are in the middle of making their own movie to be entered in a state-wide student film competition and the director, Charles (Riley Griffiths) has decided to make a zombie movie.  A recent article by improbable.com (reprinted at http://tinyurl.com/5r6s9eg) has found that zombie movies as a genre tend to thrive in times of war and social upheaval.  The choice to use this genre as the student film is an interesting one as in 1979 there was a relative dip in popularity for zombie movies as it was after a spike during the Vietnam War and before the AIDS epidemic made its way onto the screen.  The zombie film at hand, called “The Case” could be considered both an homage to the classic zombie movies of the 1950s, but also a cue to the audience to link that era with our own of clear social and political upheaval as the since the year 2000 there has been an unprecedented spike in the genre.

Most impressively, I must say, is this film’s ability to keep its heart while navigating through a sci-fi landscape.  Despite the fact that the kids did not have the opportunity to forge an actual relationship with the alien who all the grown-ups saw as the enemy and who they were initially scared of  as they did in E.T., or The Goonies, if you’re willing to acknowledge that Sloth was the might-as-well-be-an-alien character), there was the requisite moment of tenderness when the two parties saved each other in the way in which they needed to be saved.  The kids were also allowed to be kids despite the moments of their very adult situations.  As 14ish-year-olds they were experiencing and expressing burgeoning sexuality with crushes on the cute girl in their group, they made sarcastic cracks to one another about nerdy braces or being brainy, and they rode carefree around their neighborhood on their bikes as kids should do. 

Like any sci-fi movie, this one has its share of minor plot holes, which I won’t describe so as not to give anything away.  And I very well might be biased as I am quite sentimental when it comes to the movies of my childhood, but despite that, Abrams has managed to provide nostalgia to a generation that grew up on a specific genre of films while also infusing new life into it.  The next time around I would like to see these movies once again being made for kids to empower them as they once did for an entire generation. 

PS: Don’t leave the credits begin to roll – Abrams treats the audience to the completed student film in all its schlock and awe.

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Sons of Anarchy

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My most recent “catching up on TV shows with ungodly speed” endeavor has been FX’s Sons of Anarchy.  Thanks to Netflix and some friends’ personal collections, I was able to catch up on the three seasons of this Motorcycle Club drama.  What I have found most interesting in this show is its primal and savage nature.  The men are the hunters and protectors of their clan.  They deal in shady and dangerous business of which the women in their lives, about whom they care deeply and would protect at any cost, know little about.  Rarely is there a consideration for the good of the individual, rather every action they take is considered heavily first to determine if it is good for the club overall

This was a show I knew virtually nothing about until I started watching it.  It’s amazing that with the sheer amount of media I consume, I had practically no knowledge of this show, nor had I seen much advertising about it.  It could be that I legitimately did not see anything about it, or as it wasn’t a show I thought I would enjoy I merely tuned it out and ignored all of the marketing efforts that had been put behind it. 

Nevertheless, word of mouth is a powerful tool, and I agreed to watch it.  By episode three I was hooked.  The show is about an MC in the fictional town of Charming, California.  It centers on the Redwood Original charter, made up of a colorful group of unique characters who all have their own mythologies and backgrounds.  It is officially led by its president, Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman).  I say “officially” because his wife, Gemma (Peggy Bundy, ahem, I mean Katy Sagal) is really the power behind much of the club’s doings.  At the center of the narrative, however, is Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam).  He is the son of Gemma and her first husband, and the club’s former president, John Teller.  Jax is next in line to take over as club president and become its leader, yet he questions his and the club’s role and whether they should continue on the path his father, as founder, had forged.  With his new born son and his burgeoning relationship with his recently returned high school sweetheart, Tara (Maggie Siff), he begins to question what his role in life is and should be and what he wants for his son’s future. 

With the Charming Police Department in their back pockets, the club has traditionally been virtually untouchable, allowing them to go about their dealings of gun-running and exacting revenge on those who have crossed them and who are deserving of incurring their wrath.  However, when ATF officials, led by the exceedingly unlikable June Stahl (Ally Walker), descend on the small town, their world becomes less autonomous and more reactionary as the federal agents pay close attention to their dealings in an attempt to shut down the MC and throw its members in jail.

Image from DVDsetonline.com

The club, also referred to as SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original) is a tribe, and, for all intents and purposes, a family.  They are bound by rules and mores and as such it hearkens back to what historian Richard Slotnick has dubbed, “The Savage War.”  In his essay, “Ideology and Fiction: The Role of Cooper,” Slotkin credits James Fenimore Cooper with “mythogenesis,” or being the first to establish the cultural foundational myth which was derived from history and presented in artistic form.  He argues that much of the American character today was born out of the ethos and mores of the earliest days of American civilization, and more specifically, Native American culture.  The foundational myth highlights the idea that violence is at the core of America’s earliest culture – particularly in its relationship with the Native Americans.  The motif of savagery in art is born from the indigenous population has evolved to include specific thematic elements.  Slotkin refers to the manifestations of these themes as “The Savage War.”  This concept states that Americans embody the tribal violence born from Native American culture and applies it to our most modern life situations.  Initially, “The Savage War” motifs in art began with literature and paintings, but have since evolved into the cinematic and televisual era, and, as will be shown, are especially prevalent in Sons of Anarchy.

Furthermore, in addition to the violent core, a central theme in “The Savage War” strongly relates to the notion of tribes and class values.  It was important for the Native American tribes to have specific social codes within their own clan as well as rules for interacting with outsiders.  The natives clashed with the white man and in today’s society that conflict has evolved into a clash between classes: the white upper class versus racial minorities and urban immigrant workers.  Moreover, that struggle tends to manifest itself in ways in which the lower classes try to overcome their status and reach upper class levels.  The relationships formed by the earliest Americans have stayed with our cultural ethos and has translated itself into today’s modern day society.  SAMCRO, is very much bound by these traditional values.  They clash with other motorcycle clubs – all of which are of racial minorities.  The Mayans are the Mexican motorcycle club and the One-Niners, the African-American MC and there are many a bloody interaction between the groups.  They fight viciously with one to defend their names, their turf, and their means of income .  Yet they also create alliances when they recognize the need to partner for the greater good of their own clubs.  Just as tensions between different tribes was a crucial element to the Native American experience, so to today our society continues to experience clashes between differing ethnic groups.  This reality is shown as a microcosm through the gang-wars in Sons of Anarchy.

Image from Hitfix.com

Moreover, the visual references to savagery are quite overt.  From the most outward of their appearances to the deeper internal social mores, their doings all hearken to a tribal nature.  Similar to war paint or other tribal markers, club members are identified by their "ink," or tatoos.  Emblazoned across their backs and up and down their arms are permanent markers of their allegiance to the club and an immediate signifier of that to anyone who sees it.  Their “cuts” – the leather vests they wear that bear their club name and personal rankings – are their badges and identifiers and time and again we see members risking death rather than parting with it.  Rarely alone, they drive their bikes in packs in perfect formation.  Their appearances and behaviors immediately alert to any bystander that they are a cohesive unit, not to be messed with.  This is not an idle threat either as during the span of the show those who have crossed them definitely have felt the consequences.

Furthermore, Slotkin suggests that Cooper’s paradigm of the foundational myth contains three specific character types associated with the savage war: the captive, the hunter and the savage.  Cooper multiplied these character types and that variety allowed for a range of interrelations between the characters, such as alliance, sexual/romantic/marriage, and antagonism.  The point of these relationships is exemplified by the manner in which they are resolved by the end of the work.  This is also true in Sons of Anarchy as there are quite a few character types and all rotate in and out of those roles.  Men who in one scene portray vicious traits are a few scenes later vulnerable and helpless.  Women play significant roles of both caretakers of the men they love, keeping house and caring for the children.  They also know that their roles have the potential to step beyond that and ultimately they control much of the club’s protection and safety from outsiders. 

Image from JaxandTara.tumblr.com

Jax’s struggle with his role in the club and the club’s role in society is interesting as it fits into this model.  He wishes a better life for his son and his family, just as his father had futilely wished for him.  The inability to break the cycle highlights just how ingrained the tribal mentality is to society and how difficult it is to break free from it.  Further Jax must ask himself if he really does want to leave this life behind, for with all of its sordidness also comes a sense of security, community and family that otherwise he would be without.

                        

Taking place in California adds another layer to the comparison to “The Savage War.”  California has traditionally been considered the final frontier in American exploration as it was where pioneers looked for a better life and more opportunities.  From the earliest days of American exploration through to today with Silicon Valley, offering scores of opportunities for tech savvy individuals, California is a symbol for exploration and success for the future.  Perhaps its use in this show is a comment that despite all of the aspirations we as a nation has had for our future, we are unable to escape our past as it is rooted so deeply into our consciousness.

At its heart, Sons of Anarchy is a show about a family trying to maintain its way of life and keep itself safe.  It’s a nontraditional family in the nuclear sense, however as a tribe protecting itself it is one of the oldest stories our country knows.  This iteration is merely a retelling of this tale, yet through storytelling devices such as plot, character development, and location it has given it a fresh take for the 21^st Century.  

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