Saving the World, One Cartoon at a Time
A Giant Resolve This is a common contention even among well-meaning colleagues and family. We are told that ideas of peace are poetic and romantic, but not practical, as though concrete reality is anything other than what we choose to create for ourselves, collectively. As a beautiful and entertaining expression of this truth, The Iron Giant (1999) ranks among the best.
Based on a 1968 children's book, The Iron Man, by English poet laureate Ted Hughes, The Iron Giant is as relevant today as it was when it was first released (coincidentally or intentionally) on August 6, the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Caught up in the paranoia of the times, with technology presumed to be the salvation or destruction of society, the film is a cogent, endearing reflection on our capacity for choice. We shape our own destiny through awareness, effort and sacrifice.
Beyond certain independent short films and features, themes of peace also find their way into otherwise mainstream, commercial fare. A favorite example of the spirit of hope, and the prospect of a future based on respect for life, can be seen in the work of Brad Bird. Even in the recently released Ratatouille (2007), there is a scene where Remy and his father are debating the age-old antagonism between humans and rats. Standing beneath the rain-swept window display of a vermin extermination business, Remy argues that the world doesn't have to be this way. His father contends that it's just nature, and one can't change it for the better. Remy counters that change is nature, especially the part we can influence. As Remy walks into the night, his father calls out, "Where are you going?" Remy answers, "With any luck, forward."
Like the Giant, we may feel as though we are just now waking from the nightmarish dream of our history. What are our origins? What abilities do we have? How did we arrive here in our present circumstances? Much to the chagrin of certain groups, the film dares to suggest that guns kill, and speculates that souls, which go on forever, are in all living things. The boy protagonist, Hogarth, consoles the Giant by telling him that everything dies. It's okay to die, he says, but it's not okay to kill. Hogarth trusts in his fierce and fearsome friend to use his powers only for good. On more than one occasion, the movie counsels, "You are who you choose to be."
The line separating good from evil runs through every human heart, and there is a struggle, a holy war, in which each of us, and each generation, may choose to fight or acquiesce. Our potential to help and to harm is of equal measure. In the film, the Giant made the difficult and heroic decision not to be a gun, curtailing his defensive reaction to reciprocate the fear, anger and violence visited upon him. The beatnik artist Dean urges the military general to live up to the same ideal: "If you shoot now, the whole thing starts all over again." So the cycle goes, round and round. The Giant becomes the proverbial superman, or Ubermensch, a proper moral being who fulfills his greatest potential. The wisdom and strength to heal - the possibility to repair the brokenness within ourselves and among our relations - is no mean feat. If peacework were easy, if loving our so-called enemies were easy, the world would already be a better place.
Give Peace a Chance At the Hiroshima Peace Park, there is a clock that measures how long it has been since the last nuclear bomb test. It is surprising and sobering how we live so forgetfully on the brink of such madness. May we do everything with our talent, skill and reason to foster peace, and to diminish the use of outrageous, glorified violence in resolving conflict.
Greg Singer is an animation welfare advocate, eating in Los Angeles. Special thanks to the Hiroshima International Animation Festival for their wonderful work.
Despite our quarrels and criticisms, within any community we celebrate and mourn as one family. The stage of human events, filled with sound and fury, is small enough that respect and tolerance are no longer luxuries, but necessities. In our interpersonal and international affairs, it is a simple arithmetic: United we stand, divided we fail. What brings us together, and promotes kindness, is good. What separates and demeans us, less so.
Printer-friendly version
Post new comment