Hear Me Roar

Hear Me Roar

There is a little movie out there that has some great stars in it, but only ever did less than $50 million in box office receipts, so was not widely seen. It is called Secondhand Lions and starred Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, Haley Joel Osment and Kyra Sedgwick. It was written and directed by an obscure Tim McCanlies who’s only other claim to fame was the Iron Giant animated film. The film is one in a long line of coming-of-age stories where young Walter (Haley) gets dropped off at the Texas ranch of Garth (Caine) and Hub (Duvall), who are two eccentric old-timers with lots of tall tales of exploits from their youth, lots of fire in their bellies (especially for traveling salesmen) and a mysterious hidden fortune of gold. In other words, it has all the makings of a grand and epic story

What it also has in it is a lion that the old guys buy through a mail-order house. The lion is old and somewhat toothless, but scary nonetheless to all but his young pal Walter. It’s a quirky story that drifts along with a melange of subplots having to do with growing up with a vagabond mother (Hope Davis does this better in Hearts in Atlantis and Cher better yet in Mermaids than Kyra does), dealing with a curmudgeonly oldster (who can outdo Henry Fonda’s On Golden Pond) and the hidden treasure that is ubiquitously out there in all stories for us to strive towards and keep in balance with the things other than money that mean more in life.

We are all old lions sooner or later. And despite becoming toothless in our dotage, we can all still roar right up until the end. Why do we roar? Because we can and because it reminds us that we are alive and vital. They say that lions are the kings of the jungle and the savannah. That is hard to prove from the You-Tube videos that show rhinoceros fighting hippopotamus and cobras fighting mongoose. I like to think that lions are above all that. The movies like Out of Africa and The Ghost and the Darkness are the images of lions that I favor. They are impressive beasts with a bearing that gives them a regal air about them. I am certain that if I were to come face-to-face with one, I would be hard-pressed to stay conscious and rational. I do not do well with large mammals (or fish or amphibians or probably birds for that matter). Being a large mammal myself, I always feel that I must come across as a natural threat to larger beasts. There is no way they could know that I am a gentle and non-violent giant that means them no harm. They roar at me nonetheless and louder still.

Today I am watching a Gerard Butler 2020 release called Greenland. It is a classic extinction level event movie about a rogue and unexpected comet that hits the earth with little or no warning. Butler is a husband and father that manages under duress to get his wife and son from Atlanta to Greenland in less than 48 hours to a set of underground bunkers where they can ride out the event and be among the surviving humans who are left to repopulate the world. His lions roar is for the survival of his son and wife at all costs. He is selfless in doing what needs to be done in this dystopic world in the making. Most end-of-the-world stories focus much more on the baser instincts of man where all men are cast into the categories of good or evil, caring or selfish. The every-man-for-himself set-up of any apocalyptic story is the ultimate crucible for determining which side you are on. When the end of the world is coming, human kindness gets its most energized stress test.

I finish the movie and as the ash settles on the ash heap that is the remains of the civilized world, the doors of the bunker open (nine months after the cataclysm), and the first thing they see are several birds flying around as though its business as usual. There is salvation for mankind and all indiscretions are forgotten. The slate is clean and there are far fewer people on the earth to compete for the scarce resources. This is the silver lining to any apocalypse, the morning after.

This is all leading me to ask of myself whether we are having a morning after event in our Republic or whether there is toxic radiation still outside the doors waiting to infect us all over and over again. There is an inordinate amount of reporting that tells us that despite the new president and new administration, which are decidedly hopeful, the GOP is hardly feeling contrite about the destruction to the fabric of our society and democracy that they have allowed to be perpetrated by Donald Trump and his minions over the last four years. The few Republicans who have shown their contrition are on the run and being hounded by the jackals of the Party with some of them actively recanting their post-insurrection statements in the hopes of getting out from the crosshairs of the aggressors. We are at the verge of a second impeachment trial where the justification for conviction is irrefutable, but not so assured, unfortunately. It is unclear at the moment whether we are looking at post-apocalyptic clear skies or radiation-tainted horizons.

This is a Quixotic moment for the world. When one thinks about Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha, we think of an ordinary man, who Cervantes tells us is retired and makes the mistake of studying the world around him to the point of becoming oppressed by “man’s murderous ways toward man.” Because of that, he chooses in his “madness” to become a knight-errant who goes forth into the world to right all wrongs. Where his destiny calls, he goes, leaving his fortune to whichever way the wind blows. He concludes that no matter what, it is onward to glory he goes. This is the original story of rationality born of irrationality. Extreme reality is the world inhabited by our Republican brethren. But thank God there are those of us who, like Don Quixote and the King of Hearts (think Alan Bates during WWI) who choose the path of righteous irrationality and humanity over the groveling for their daily bread or lower taxes. These are the true lions of life.

We who choose the path of irrationality are often the aging lions that used to roar with power and now just roar at the moon. I am driven to mix many metaphors in my search for answers to the dilemmas of the day. What this old lion knows is that nothing matters more than people, all people. We are accused of sitting on the high ground in our former glory and letting our aura guide us through our indulgent leanings. That’s what liberals like me do, right? Well, I would sooner have you hear me roar at the heavens than to be muffled by excess rationality.