Filed under: Uncategorized
The film Easy Rider expresses rebellion as a facet of cool. By opposing the status quo, or “The Man”, people are able to speak for movements larger than themselves and ultimately take part in some larger social organization. While Easy Rider focuses on the 1960s counter-culture movement other items of pop culture indicate that rebelling against the powers that be is cool as well.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a novel that also explores the idea of Cool Rebellion. In this novel McMurphy essentially provides the inmates of an insane asylum with inspiration to overthrow the oppressive control of Nurse Ratched and try to lead their own individual lives. Written by Ken Kesey, who also had roots in the counter-culture movement, this novel is an exploration of the human condition in captivity. McMruphy is so cool because he tries to disrupt the normal proceedings of the mental institute. Since the reader typically sees prisons and asylums as oppressive institutions we feel that someone rebelling against them is leading a charge of self autonomy. We don’t want to see people locked up so when someone tries to change that we instinctively like them. This novel, however, provides insight into what happens to the rebellious leaders. McMurphy eventually receives a lobotomy and is forced into a docile state just like the people he was trying to invigorate. The narrator of the novel, Chief Bromden, kills him in his sleep so that everyone will remember him as a hero. Kesey is arguing that eventually the leaders of social movements that defy the status quo are going to be stopped. Something seen in the end of Easy Rider as well.
One of the more popular recent films that advertise rebellion as a hub of 
cool is V for Vendetta. This film, based on a graphic novel, details the struggle of an individual to continue on the plot of Guy Fawkes to blow up Parliament. Through this somewhat complex plot the viewer finds out that V was physically damaged in a government experiment and he hopes to extract his revenge by destroying the very symbol of the oppressive British government. While V’s impressive rhetoric and appearance is cool his intense violence really is not. The entire movie felt like a contradiction since he was using violence to retaliate against violence. Either way, this film promotes rebellion as cool down to the very core. His mask is cool, his speeches are cool, even his underground home is pretty cool. The viewer recognizes that the government depicted is incredibly conservative and dangerous so we want someone to overturn that and make things safer for the average person. In this case we view the revolutionary as this savior, thus we think he is cool.
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
I like that you reached out to a great book of the times to talk about rebellion.
Do all of the leaders of rebellions end up being destroyed, or just the cool ones? I wonder if being killed for your rebellion rather than living to see it carried out is actually cooler? After all, who is cooler George Washington or RFK?
Comment by fjohn March 18, 2009 @ 10:48 am