As we arrive back at Aries again, it
is time to talk about the male hero.
Last year in Aries, I discussed two movies about female heroines in The Hunger Games and Whale Rider. Both our heroines, Katniss and Paikea, are
great examples of emerging female leaders.
And that leads us to the question: who are the new male leaders?
Aries is the scout of the zodiac,
searching out the new and untried, leading the way for the rest of the
tribe. Since Aries is the sign that
begins at the Spring Equinox, it marks a new beginning, a new season of life.
That’s what a hero symbolizes
too. A hero arises out of the tribal
unit of collective consciousness to correct an imbalance, heal out-worn beliefs
and initiate new fertility and ideas, all to bring new energy and life back to
the group. Today, we see this happening
all over the world: people taking a stand to correct the imbalances in Western
society. The archetypal hero’s journey
was described by mythologist Joseph Campbell in his book, Hero with a Thousand Faces.
The hero’s journey also describes how a person brings his ego
into a more balanced state with his spiritual Self. When we get stuck in old ego-patterns of
behavior, there is no new psychological growth.
Our lives are also stuck and become lifeless. That’s when we find
ourselves being called to the task of individuation, what Carl Jung described
as a process of psychological integration, having for its goal the development of
the individual personality. In general,
it is the process by which individual beings are formed, as a being distinct
from the general level of psychological awareness. For a man, this entails meeting his shadow
and more importantly, working with his anima,
the feminine aspect of his soul.
One of the messages of our Aries’
movie, Oz, the Great and Powerful is
that when there is an imbalance within the individual psyche or in the
collective, nature itself works to correct it and bring it into balance. The
great imbalance of the patriarchy is its disregard of Feminine Spirit and women.
Unfortunately, men have been taught this
lesson too well and often still do not honor and respect women and the gifts of
feminine Spirit. Another message is that
when you believe in someone or something, anything is possible. These are two lessons our hero needs to
learn.
Our less-than-heroic hero, Oscar Diggs or Oz as he styles
himself, sets out on his own hero’s journey to rectify that imbalance within
himself. Oscar has to face his anima and integrate the
feminine aspects of his psyche: his sensuality, his imagination and intuition,
his ability to connect and love. He does
this by facing his dis-connection, his rage, his need to be powerful in all the
wrong ways. This is the new and real hero’s journey that
men have to go on now.
Oscar (James Franco) is an
egotistical small-time carnival magician with a great thirst for power and
glory. He uses women and men without a
thought about their feelings. He treats his helper Frank (Zach Braff) like a
servant, refusing to consider him a friend.
He treats women even worse; he makes them feel special by giving them a cheap
music box that he says belonged to his grandmother, a powerful warrioress. He lies to and charms women into thinking
they’re special without committing to them and their needs. He uses them.
Oscar relates
to his ‘warrioress’ grandmother when it comes to women—his emotions are at war. He wants to play the romantic hero, but in
truth he doesn’t have what it takes to be that hero. Since he uses his heroic, magical persona to
have his way with women, it begins to crack when he is brought face to face
with the truth. Then he runs away.
This don Juan
attitude speaks to a need in Oscar that he won’t acknowledge—he needs to feel
loved and appreciated by all the women he seduces. But it’s never enough and so
he has to go on to another conquest. But it's also because he has a tender heart and doesn't know how to express it like a man. He can't admit that he hurts people's feelings, because he doesn't want to feel bad. So he'd rather ignore it. He’s an emotional cripple, just like the young
crippled girl who believes that he is a real miracle worker and can heal her.
Oscar is caught off-guard by her desperate
plea and doesn’t know what to do. He is
confronted with his own inadequacy and lies for a moment. But even then he can’t admit it to himself:
he berates his helper Frank for not getting him out of the situation sooner.
Oscar’s attitude is: I’m not responsible to handle my own issues—it’s
up to someone else to take care of those unpleasant situations for me. Is there anyone out there who has experienced
this attitude in the men in their lives?
Don’t feel bad guys! That’s what
patriarchy wanted to teach you. That you
were entitled. But now that you know
that’s what they brainwashed you into believing, it’s time to let that paradigm
go and find a different story, one where we are responsible for ourselves, our
people and our world.
He doesn’t want to bear the responsibility of his own life, even
when there is someone special who does love and appreciate him. Annie is an old friend who he really cares
about. She comes to Oscar to tell him
that someone has asked her to marry him.
She wants Oscar to commit to her as it is obvious she has committed to
him, but in a truthful moment, Oscar realizes that he’s not good enough for
her. He doesn’t believe in himself.
Annie does though. She tells him that he can be a good man if he
wants to be. But he tells her that he
doesn’t want to be a good man, he wants to be a great man. Someone special and important. Someone who doesn’t have the time to commit
to love. Love is work, and Oscar would
rather lie and scheme than do the hard work of loving someone. What he thinks he wants is power, money and
glory. Sounds like good solid
patriarchal values to me!
So of course, it all comes back on
him. The father of one of the carnival
girls discovers that Oz has seduced his daughter and goes after him. As Oz makes his escape in his hot-air
balloon, he turns to find a tornado sweeping through the countryside and is
swept away into it! His past has caught
up with him.
A Tornado are mighty forces of nature, swirling winds that can
devastate and destroy in seconds. In the
Bible they’re called a whirlwind, which is a vehicle of divinity. This spiraling energy symbolizes a descent
and ascent, a vehicle for carrying souls to another dimension.
And that’s exactly what it does to
Oscar. Let me backtrack for a moment and
mention the beautiful production values of this film and also how well it
weaves the old Wizard of Oz imagery
into itself. Just as Dorothy and Toto
are whirled away to the Land of Oz by another tornado, Oscar must consciously
face this divine manifestation of destruction.
He proclaims in terror, “I can change! I promise to change!” When he is finally released by the tornado, he
gratefully says, ‘Thank you’, so we see that he does have a generous heart
buried beneath his self-satisfied persona.
And isn’t it interesting that he gets
whirled away to the Land of Oz. His own private domain. This is the world of his unconscious, filled
with wonder and beauty, magic and marvels.
And witches! This is the story
going on inside him. He lives in his
imagination. This is the land he gets tested in.
When he finally comes down to earth,
he leaves behind Oscar and becomes Oz, the great and powerful. He arrives in a
magnificent land of colorful flowers and magical beasts. Unfortunately, he
reverts to his old programing as soon as he meets his first witch, Theodora the
Good (Mila Kunis). When she mistakes him
for a long—awaited redeemer, he lies about being the wizard and sets out to
seduce her. And oh, is she lovely! She really believes that he is the great wizard
that the old king, who was killed by the wicked witch, predicted would come and
save the land of Oz. The old king
symbolizes the old value system. Perhaps
he symbolizes Oscar’s father, who was a farmer—farmers know the laws of nature
better than most. But Oscar long ago
rejected his father’s simple life, preferring the dream of riches and glory to
hard work.
Psychologically, there is a feminine
consciousness that works with patriarchy to keep it in power. Because patriarchy refuses to give power to the
feminine components of the psyche, it gets twisted and turns into the negative
mother complex—the old stereotype of the witch who destroys life rather than
gives birth to it. There is a very
strong negative mother complex at work in our world today because of this
disregard for Feminine Spirit—the consciousness of the soul. A negative mother complex ensures that we
don’t feel secure, or loved or worthy of a good life. And so we strive ever harder to achieve the
power we think we need to get that good life.
That’s the patriarchal lie we all live in.
Theodora and Oz set out for the
Emerald City—surely a symbol of the Self, green and glowing with life. On the way Oz rescues a cute little flying
monkey named Finley, who swears he will serve Oz forever. Puffed up with his own importance, Oz treats
Finley just as he treated Frank—as a servant.
At the Emerald City, Theodora brings
Oz to the throne room, telling him that he’ll be King, with her as his
Queen. Oz doesn’t have the courage to
challenge her assumptions of his love and devotion, just as he did with all his
other women. He lets them think what
they will, though it’s not his truth. In
the throne room, he meets Theodora’s sister, Evanora (Rachel Weisz), who was
the old King’s advisor, and as we soon learn, his murderer. She has blamed the king’s daughter, Glinda
(Michelle Williams), for his death and seeks to kill her and take power in Oz.
Evanora symbolizes this negative feminine power that wants to
take all power to itself, as a mirror reflection of patriarchy’s will to domination
and power. So here is Oz, confronted
with his power-hungry negative feminine energy—an energy that will pay him off
with all the gold in Oz if he will kill off her enemy—Glinda the good witch,
daughter of the King and the living image of Annie! Before he meets Glinda, Oz is seduced by the
prospect of being King of Oz. He is willing
to take the word of Evanora because Theodora also naively believes her sister’s
lies about Glinda, who is, after all, the Good Witch.
Men in the grip of the negative mother complex often get
seduced by power and money into giving up being good. They think that money will buy them love, but
it never does. So they go for power and
glory instead.
Theodora is the balance point
between the goodness of Glinda and the evil of Evanora. She wants to believe Oz loves her and will
make her his Queen and she wants to believe that he will convince Glinda to
change her ways and repent. She says she
only wants peace. But peace at what
cost? Theodora symbolizes the naïve
feminine energy in men, the need to tell lies to keep the peace, the attempt to
cover over the rage and despair that the negative mother fills them with. Theodora represents the wanting to be good without doing
what needs to be done to actually be good.
You can see this in Oscar when he seduces his ladies—he really thinks
he’s treating them well, even when he lies to them and leaves them heartbroken.
The change begins in Oz when he sets
off with Findley to destroy Glinda and comes upon the ruins of the Teapot
Village, destroyed by the flying monkeys of the Wicked Witch. There Oz saves the crippled little China Girl. She is the mirror image of the crippled girl
who believed that Oz could heal her.
China Girl is a wonderful character, full of spunk and emotions and
courage. But her legs are broken—she has
not standpoint. As an image of Oz’s anima, she represents his tender
emotional life which was probably crippled in childhood. She is the goodness and courage he can’t
recognize in himself. But he is very
tender with her and glues her legs back on.
Her healing begins his transformation.
He wants to send her back to the Emerald City while he and Finley go to
destroy Glinda’s power, but she insists and manipulates him into taking her
along.
When
Oz finally meets up with Glinda, he realizes that she is the good witch, the power of love and
life. With great compassion, she tells
him “I’ve waited so long to meet you.”
When a man finally connects with his positive anima, he connects with
his soul. She has waited to be
recognized and validated. And now he
begins to see and trust her, even though he still doesn’t believe or trust in
himself.
When Evanora sees Oz befriend Glinda in her crystal ball, she
realizes she has lost her power over him and sends her troops to kill
them. When Theodora sees them in the
ball, she understands that Oz never really loved her. Evanora seduces her into accepting a magical
apple that shrivels her heart and turns her into the caricature of the
green-skinned evil witch that patriarchy offers us. She becomes the Wicked Witch of the West! Now the two sisters are united in their goal:
they have to bring down Oz and Glinda if they want to rule the land of Oz.
When Theodora turns into the green-skinned witch of male
fantasy, it marks a turning point in Oscar’s psyche. The feeling part of him which makes believe
he’s good is finally exposed for what it is—a strong, selfish urge to have what
he wants, no matter the cost. This is
the part of the anima which is contaminated by the shadow in men. The will to power that is often disguised as
the oh, so helpful and loving man, who says he wants peace but really wants
what he wants when he wants it.
Meanwhile, while Glinda tells Oz, Finley and China Girl about
her father, the king, the sisters send their army and flying monkeys to kill
them. The negative, aggressive unconscious male energy tied to the witchy
aspect of a man’s pyshce wants to do away with the truth and with goodness. So Glinda has to use her magic to help them
escape, since Oz doesn’t have any real magic.
The ego never does! Glinda
creates a fog to stop their enemies while they run away – because sometimes you
just have to run away from bad feelings so they don’t overwhelm you.
When they finally get trapped on a cliff, Glinda once again
must act. And so she jumps! And Findley and China Girl jump, which leaves
Oz alone on the cliff—until he has no choice but to jump! The male ego has to
learn to trust his true anima, his soul.
He has to take a leap of faith.
The three travelers find themselves wrapped in Glinda’s magic bubbles
and go with her to her magical kingdom.
Oz still isn’t sure that he’s good enough to get through the magical
barrier that guards her kingdom but when he succeeds, he begins to have more
confidence in himself and his truth, even though it isn’t very good. When a man finally accepts the possibility of
goodness and strength in himself, he can admit the truth about himself.
When all the people of Munchkinland hail Oz as the great
wizard, he admits to Glinda that he really isn’t the wizard. But she already knows that. She tells him that he is weak, selfish,
egotistical and a fibber, but he’s the wizard that came to her so he’ll have to
do. She tells him that he needs to
inspire her people so that they’ll believe they can triumph in these desperate
times. When a man connects to his
‘good’ anima, he gets to see himself.
But he also learns to accept himself.
We all have to accept who and what we are before we can really make any
changes in our lives. Glinda names Oz as
both liar and wizard, for he is both.
Unfortunately, Glinda’s people are not soldiers and they are
not allowed to kill. The soul anima works through love and
creativity, not through fighting and death.
They are just regular people who will fight the wicked witches for their
freedom. They represent the energy men
have to gather and focus toward the task of becoming conscious. There are tinkers who are inventors, farmers
and townspeople and munchkins. Not a
formidable army.
And then Theodora breaks through the magical barrier and
confronts Oz with what he’s done by his carelessness of her feelings—he’s
turned her to the ‘dark side’. When we
start to become aware of who we are and what we’ve done, the dark feelings come
and attack us. This is when a man needs
to develop compassion for himself and for his past deeds. Men are just as twisted by patriarchal rules
and goals as women are. But they hide it
better.
And this is the moment when a man wants to run away instead
of confronting these uncomfortable feelings. Happily, little China Girl asks him what kind
of wizard he’d like to be. She tells him
the old Wizard King would grant wishes if they were good and noble. She tells him she’d ask for her family
back. And he has to admit he isn’t that
kind of wizard. He tells her there are
no wizards where he comes from, but then tells her about Thomas Edison, a great
inventor (though they should have used Tesla!) who creates magic with just a
few simple things. She tells him that he
is a wizard like Edison, and her belief gives him the idea of how they can
defeat the witchy sisters without killing anyone.
This is the image of the new hero: the great innovator and
inventor who can find ways to overcome violence and defeat it with ingenuity
and love.
He uses his head and inspires Glinda’s people to create
illusions which trick the evil sisters and their minions. When Oz and Glinda’s army attacks the Emerald
City, her magic tricks the evil monkeys into attacking their scarecrow army in
the poppy fields and puts the beasts to sleep.
Using your head does that! The
monkey mind and brute force can be put to rest when we use our minds.
When Glinda is captured, the China Girl saves her magic wand
from Evanora. The magic wand symbolizes
the ability to focus creativity and power. The China Girl sneaks it to her in
the Emerald City where the evil sisters hold her captive. It is Oscar’s innocent and determined feminine
energy that works with his soul to defeat the evil sisters, the negative mother
complex which makes him feel he isn’t good enough for love.
At the moment of the witches seeming triumph, Oz plays on
everyone’s belief that he’s a trickster and a coward and makes the sisters
think they’ve destroyed him. He plays
dead, which is often an appropriate action to take when overwhelmed with the
last blast of the negative mother complex.
But then Oscar uses his illusions to terrify them into thinking he’s
more powerful dead than alive. When a man wants to connect with his soul, his
anima, he has to break free of the forces that keep him loveless and
insecure. He has to step into his
greatness through his goodness! When he
accepts and even uses his shadow side, he can defeat the negative feelings he
has and banish them.
Oz, the great and powerful, delivers a victory to the people
of Oz and brings them their freedom.
This is the new hero’s gift to himself and his people. Men cannot be truly free until they release
themselves from the power of the negative feminine and chose to be good rather
than powerful.
As in the old Wizard of
Oz, Oscar gives each of his helpers a gift.
He gives the tinker a ‘thingamabob’ which fixes anything, because makers
can always come up with solutions. He
gives the grumpy herald of Oz a smiley face, because happiness is more
important than dignity. And he gives
Finley something he never gave anyone else—his friendship. As for China Girl, he gives her a new
family. And he gives Glinda—but you’ll
have to go see the movie for that!
I hope men go see this movie.
They need to open up to their imaginations, because that’s where all the
real action always takes place.
From the Bard’s Grove,
Cathy
