So, we finally got around to watching JJ Abrams' Super 8 a few nights ago, and it was really fun! I enjoyed it more than I expected. Jared enjoyed it more than he expected. It fell into that particularly robust niche of (arguably peculiarly American) storytelling: a boy reconnects with his estranged father. Their story opens with them as far from each other as they can be; by the end of it, they’re playing catch.
There’s a second, interrelated story being told, too: The kid is weird, man: awkward, geeky, likes monster movies and comic books. You know the type. And the father? You know his type, too: distant, damaged, normalized; doesn’t really know how to connect with his kid. In Super 8, the kid’s a model-making weirdo and his dad is deputy sheriff.
The story ends the same way, though: they still wind up playing catch. No matter how different they are as people, the can come together as normal fathers and sons do.
(‘Playing catch,’ I don’t need to point out, is a metaphor. Though often a literal one! In Field of Dreams, they play catch. Literally! Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? They ride off into the sunset together. Literally! You get the picture. Fathers and sons, finally seeing eye to eye.)
I’m an American. I grew up with these stories. They’re everywhere. They mean a lot to me. They resonate.
I’m also a geek. I grew up with those stories, too – how weird kids connect with their ‘normal’ authority figure parent-types. (Or normal kids and their weird parents, but that’s a slightly different kind of story.) Everyone comes to understand each other a little better. Ties are bound. These stories also mean a lot to me. They also resonate, y'know?
But you know what else I am?
Female.








Recent Comments