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NOTE: Most essays on this site represent original theoretical work. If you find these articles interesting, inspiring or helpful, please let me know. If you refer to them, please give me and this website credit. In addition, links back to this page in blogs or from other sites are always appreciated!
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Hero For Christ
Philosophy in Popular Culture
last updated 12/26/07
Many books, movies and songs in popular culture carry hidden (or not-so-hidden) philosophical messages, both good and bad. Here is an incomplete list of some of the ones that stick out to me.
| Title | Category | Main Article | Philosophies Present |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Brothers Karamazov | Book | The Brothers Karamazov (review) | Christian Existential Humanism |
| Children of Men | Movie | Children of Men (review) | Existential Humanism |
| Friends With Money | Movie | *below | Materialism |
| NEW! The Golden Compass | Book | The Golden Compass (review) | Anti-theism |
| Goodfellas | Movie | Goodfellas (review) | Materialism |
| Harry Potter | Book/Movie | Harry Potter (review) | Existential Humanism |
| Harold and Maude | Movie | Kierkegaard's Narrative | Existential Humanism |
| High Fidelity | Book/Movie | Kierkegaard's Narrative | Existential Humanism |
| NEW! The Incredibles | Movie | The Incredibles (review) | Nietzsche's Übermensch |
| NEW! Little Miss Sunshine | Movie | *below | (see below) |
| Maus | Graphic Novel | Reconstructivist Art | Reconstructivism |
| The Moviegoer | Book | Kierkegaard's Narrative | Existential Humanism |
| The Neverending Story | Book | Reconstructivist Art | Reconstructivism |
| Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man's Chest | Movie | *below | Racism |
| The Princess Bride | Book/Movie | Reconstructivist Art | Reconstructivism |
| Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | Album | Sgt Pepper (review) | Reconstructivism |
| Star Wars | Movie | Jedi Philosophy | Taoism, Zen Buddhism, Chivalry |
Friends With Money
I had hoped, given the excellent cast and promising premise, that this film would be an intelligent satire about the dangers of wealth. Instead, I was disappointed to find a thinly veiled celebration of materialism.The film's trite agenda is made plain when Simon McBurney's character claims --without irony --that the root of a wealthy couple's seeming happiness is their money. Jennifer Aniston, the film's main character (and the only "poor" person in the film) is shown to be unhappy because of her poverty; and poor because of her bad choices and lack of focus/motivation. Thus, the film equates money, merit and happiness.
In the end (SPOILER ALERT!), the film goes out on a seeming limb by pairing the main character with a fat, slovenly, unattractive and unmotivated romantic partner. In the twist ending, however the man in question turns out to be secretly wealthy himself. Thus overall point of the film is that wealth is the only personal quality of importance.
I would rate this film an F from a philosophical point of view.
Little Miss Sunshine
It is less accurate to say that this laugh-out-loud indie hit advanced a recognizable philosophical thesis of its own than to say that it delivered a big, fat, much-needed slap in the face to the myth of the Nietzschean superman. A central theme of the movie is the way in which the father, his two children and his wife's brother are all fruitlessly pursuing personal visions of perfection. The father fancies himself a hotshot businessman and motivational speaker, the little girl wants to be a beauty queen, the uncle is the self-named foremost Proust scholar in the world, and the son is explicitly a disciple of the doctrine of the Übermensch --the superior human being who dominates those around him by sheer force of will. The pursuit of superiority is also embodied in the form of the beauty-pageant contestants --a pack of living, pint-sized Barbie Dolls --and their zealous stage-mothers.The film's counterpoint is the lecherous, creepy, drug-taking, porn-reading grandfather, who represents a joyful celebration of all the flaws and fallibilities inherent in being human. His posthumous subversion of the beauty contest reads, in context, as a liberation from the tyranny of soulless perfectionism. (see also The Incredibles)
Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man's Chest
The second "Pirates" movie was an entertaining romp, with some great action sequences, featuring the always-compelling Johnny Depp. However, the film also featured a disturbing racial subtext.Most blatantly, the film trafficked in broad racial stereotypes (which is not unusual for Bruckheimer productions), most notably by reviving the "savage cannibal tribe". This image of a group of bloodthirsty but comic primitives had long been a staple of vintage media, but had seemingly been discarded as an embarrassing relic of cultural ignorance during the 90's and early 2000's. To see it back in its place at the center of mainstream media was a bit disconcerting.
Another piece of retro racism was provided courtesy the "voodoo priestess", who was presented as a figure both sensual and disgusting.
The most telling piece of racial mummery, however, was quite a bit more subtle. It begins with the early scenes on board Captain Jack Sparrow's, which is then noticeably multi-racial. Later the scene shifts to show two groups of pirates trapped in giant nets, and attempting to escape up a cliff. One group is led by the movie's hero, Orlando Bloom ("Will") who is trapped with a set of mostly white pirates. The other group is lead by an East Indian pirate, and is more multi-racial.
Although there seems no reason that the two groups --who are, after all, shipmates --cannot cooperate, the situation soon develops into a competition, with the two groups racing each other up a cliff. Bloom's character warns the other group to quit racing ahead, but they refuse to listen. Their reward is to encounter a poisonous snake and then plummet to a nasty demise. When the next scene aboard ship is seen, the crew is markedly whiter and less multi-racial.
Overall the message seems either a warning to East Indians or a reassurance to whites that direct competition between non-whites and whites will result in disaster for the non-whites and the triumph of the whites.