“I just MAKE plans. I don’t stick to them!”
So, the other night, I ended up having a themed movie night without even realizing it.
First off, I watched “Glengarry Glen Ross”. If you’ve never seen it, it’s essentially about a group of guys trying to make a living in the real estate game. But the underlying gist of it is that they don’t make men like they used to. Rather, there are no “men” in the world anymore. Back in the day, a salesman had his gimmick, and he could turn a buck, and provide for his family. He knew his job because he WAS his job. A man was his job. But by the time of this movie, that concept was outdated. Those men were dinosaurs because the world no longer responded to their sales techniques, while they, in turn, never really adapted to the changing world. The basic question of the movie is “Where have all the men gone?”
Next, I followed it up with “TAPS”. If you’ve never seen that, it’s about the closing of Bunker Hill Academy so that they can use the land to build condominiums. The cadets rebel against this idea and decide to take the school by force until their demands are met, and the school is allowed to stay open. But under all of this, there’s still the question of “What is a man?” and “What is a soldier?” These cadets thought their mission was fueled by a sense of duty and honor, but these were concepts that the world no longer seemed to understand. While they were taught to glorify war and that death in battle was noble, they came to find that even career soldiers had fear. The main goal of war is to stay alive not to die a noble death. Their idea of “manhood” was obscelete, as they found out at the end of the movie.
Then, for some strange reason, I decided to watch Season 1 of “Thundercats”. Sure, Lion-O was a grown man, but that was only physical. Because they were in suspended animation, his bdy aged, but his mind didn’t. So, he’s a grown man with a 12 yr-old mind. So, in essence, the show is about him finding himself as he develops into a man. Lion-O must fully understand what it means to be both an adult AND the lord of the Thundercats.
So, subconsciously, I guess I’m struggling with the whole concept of “what does it mean to be a man?” All of these media projected different opinions on the topic, but none of them provided an answers. In any respect, it was still an interesting and coincidental study…
