I just spent the day in Iowa watching men stare at goats. Yes, this is a common form of entertainment in Iowa, however, in this instance it came in the form of a satirical film based on parts of the real life insanity that the US government wasted tax dollars on. As for the movie… I kind of like the message in it while at the same I am terrified by it.

“Despite all the lunacy of the last century, all the absurdity of war and genocide, we believe that human beings are rational and are made to seek the truth.” ~Timothy Radcliffe

My Facebook stalkers quickly offered two questions. First a very legitimate one:  Why did you come to Iowa to watch the movie? Or was there something else here?

Well, Iowa is just across the river and is just as close as any Nebraska theaters near me. That, and Iowa allows gambling and the casino adjacent to the theater has a complete free buffet that offers far too much food for me to be tempted with as well as a Goldfish slot machine that I ALWAYS win at… so in the end I basically always get to eat too damn much and then basically get paid to do so.

They say that there are no stupid questions, only stupid people attempting to answer them when the correct response is to ridicule the questioner. Being that the second question was very much like this but asked by my own wonderful and ever-glowing mother… I feel that it is the duty of a loving child to answer… so…

“I just got home from seeing it too. What do you think was the message?” - Dearest Mom

What?  My mother is light years far more intelligent that I am. In her lifetime she has punctured the Glass Ceiling long before Sarah Palin was able to quit attempting to do the same. No, my mother has sat behind the desk placard emblazoned with the letters CEO either before or after her name… actually maybe it is under… I think the other important letters MSW are after her name. She has taught university students simply on a whim and changed the lives of so many people that have looked up to her as mentor.

So yeah… surely she should see the message in the movie The Men who Stare at Goats. I shall try to give my take on the film without any true spoilers.

In my eyes the message seems simple in that we are struggling to find ourselves again, much like when Vietnam was winding down. The Absurdity that is war, the ridiculousness of the contractors that have turned Iraq into a cash-cow amidst the reality of the horrors that now ravage the local people of Iraq. And not to mention the real life aspect of the movie in which the behemoth of American defense has become so wastefully ludicrous that at times one has to begin to wonder if its the lunatics are running the sanitarium.

I think idealistic hippie culture was born from such absurdity as a form of the humanism within us all desperately crying out… though in a child-like, naive voice. What we knew then, but are struggling to find now is that innocent naivete. Modern America seems terrified of such humanism… perhaps because of its own absurdity. The movie definitely gets the viewer to open their heart to the childlike innocence that lies within George Clooney’s character as well as Bridges character as they truly believe in a peaceful and enlightened ascend from war even though the naivete is just ridiculously silly.

Instead, we today are stuck in a long national state of denial, remorse, and the confusion that exists between those two and the realization that though history repeats itself, we have a national (if not global) learning disability preventing us from learning any lessons from the past. At least we are beginning, once again, to see the Absurdity in those past mistakes and too, our attempts to deny them. In the end… which side is more absurd? the dark side? or the light?
I believe the movie also takes a very critical stance on the drug culture of 60’s-70s, the politics that serve egos far more than rationality, and when you combine those two you get a critical review of the Absurdity of the War on Drugs that, though started with the noblest of intentions to make society better, in actuality, has dramatically taken to the “Darkside of the Force” and has done far more to hurt than to help. I would explain this far more but it would just be so wrought with spoilers that no one would want to read it without having already seen the movie.

The Star Wars themes, I believe, are  hysterically funny given that Obi-Wan-Kenobi (Ewen McGregor) is the one that keeps thinking it to be ridiculous. However, what Star Wars movies have been known to symbolize, such as a once noble attempt to do the right thing can become the foundation for the Dark Side when power and personal ego begin to divide the conscience. Again, a rather critical and quite accurate view of politics and so many of our political follies (War on Drugs, War on Terror, etc.).

The movie is hilarious for its stupidity, shocking for its reality,  and yet sad for its Existental-like take on modern society that seems to look back at the post-Vietnam cultural revolution as immature and yet has no identity of its own.