In my discussion with students yesterday about broadening the concept of who gets to be a hero in on-line games, I ended up invoking two movies: “Saving Private Ryan” and “Lars and the Real Girl”.
Thinking about it afterward, I was struck by the fact that I could make exactly the same thematic point by referring to such wildly different films. Of the students in that discussion, the men in the room had seen “Saving Private Ryan”, and the women had seen “Lars and the Real Girl”. Maybe this is demographically significant. Or maybe we should just make more war movies with Ryan Gosling, so everybody can be happy.
I invoked “Saving Private Ryan” as an example of a war movie that aims to honor the unknown heroes, the grunts. Robert Rodat’s screenplay reminds us that a war is fought through a million unheralded acts of heroism. It was the very smallness of these men within the larger conflict, the fact that they knew full well that nobody was even paying attention, that made their bravery and self-sacrifice so moving.
“Lars and the Real Girl” makes a similar point in a very different way. Nancy Oliver’s screenplay deliberately focuses on the most unlikely of heroes — a young man who falls in love with a blow-up sex doll, seeming to believe she is a real person. Rather than simply play the situation for laughs, the story accepts the situation at face value, and goes with it. As odd as it may seem (if you haven’t seen the movie), it’s a tale of heroism. The heroism comes not from saving the world, or slaying dragons, but from a simple yet profound journey from self-protective fantasy toward reality.
So there you have it. Two movies as different as can be, but that’s the point. The same underlying twist on the hero’s journey propels them both: If you want a hero’s journey to be moving, go small. Splashy acts of heroism are easy. Small acts of heroism are hard.