Identity Movie

Happy Tuesday - 

Let’s talk movies.  Not just “what’s your favorite movie?” but “what’s your identity movie?”  Yep - what’s the movie that captures, in some strange way, the way you see yourself, the way you understand the world…  I could go on, but part of the thing about your identity movie is you may *feel* the connection and not be able to fully explain it.  But it shines a light nonetheless.

So: I’m a movie fan(atic)--I have been since I was kid, Saturday and Sunday afternoon black & white classics, weekday afternoon “4:00 Movies”, and late night cult classics that meant I sometimes had to literally hold my eyes open to finish the film before I fell asleep.  

Somewhere in those years, I saw Billy Jack, and I was hooked.  The sense that there are good people in even the most violent conflict (see Do The Right Thing) and that there are moments in our national conflicts that require us to be involved—these were laid deep within me right then.  Don’t get me wrong – there’s a lot about the film that’s hopelessly out of date, plus Billy is half Native American and writer/director/actor Laughlin is not, etc.  

And yet - there’s something there that is part of my desire to do good in the world, to put my values on the line; the central conflict involves a school, for example, and the idea that our ways of education need to allow for everyone to be themselves—sure, hippie-speak, but also a flash-forward to our social-emotional learning priorities and our cultural leaning toward accepting kids’ identities as they experience them.  And with another part of the cultural conversation being ‘what to do about / for men’, and one of the answers being that a real man should protect those who need protecting as a place to start…Billy doesn’t seem like such an anachronism.  

And…what’s the point?  Well, perhaps it’s mostly a parlor game.  And perhaps I feel just as strongly about Arrival and Boyhood.  

But / and perhaps art can continually hold up a mirror for us to reflect upon—and windows into those closest to us to gaze through and wonder.

Let me know what *your* identity movie is!