So, on Friday night the Wombat and I got dolled up and went down to Pointe Orlando to see Iron Man on the giant screen. It was, of course, absolutely amazing.
And then on Saturday we went to see it again, with friends, with whom we also went bowling. That was totally awesome and the movie was just as good the second time.
And, ever since then, I have been thinking deep, nerdy thoughts.
WARNING: The following is UTTERLY dorky.
See, Tony Stark is sort of the opposite of Batman. And I love Batman, don’t get me wrong. But Tony Stark is the opposite of Batman and that speaks to me more at this point in my life than all of Batman’s brooding darkness.
Because both Batman and Stark are seeking redemption. Batman has never forgiven himself for the death of his parents and he also seeks redemption for Gotham, perhaps in the hopes that if he saves the city from itself, he will also be able to save HIM from himself. He punishes himself, unconsciously, and he uses fear (and theatricality as Batman Begins puts it) to rule the streets.
Tony Stark is also seeking redemption, just another bajillionaire playboy who also happens to be a genius. But he’s a totally different kind of guy. He’s not one to keep to the shadows – Tony lives his life at full speed, wide out in the open. He has no sense of boundaries. And so when he opens his eyes and finds out what is going on, he embraces that quest to make things right with the exact same fundamental passion with which he used to grasp making weapons for the military.
Batman works in the corners, manipulating individuals. Tony finds the problem and blows that shit up.
And then he doesn’t waste his time sitting alone in his mansion feeling tormented about the past. He goes and he makes other stuff better.
This is why his struggles with alcoholism (if you haven’t read the comics, well, he winds up homeless for a while because his drinking is out of control and the theme pops up several times, throughout the various reboots) are so heartbreaking – the alcohol prevents him from being the man that he fundamentally IS.
And that is why the movie is so great. It isn’t so much a reboot as a, well, modernization. All the elements are there. Tony, cocky and completely disregarding the way everyone else just knows things are so that he can go out and make things the way he wants them to be.
I love reading/watching Batman. He’s a phenomenal detective and he is trying so hard to protect the lightness of Gotham. But I want to LIVE in Tony Stark’s world. A world with a superhero who goes and protects and shapes the world on the strength of his own intelligence and ingenuity and who is human underneath it all – Superman is human (despite his alien origins), but his crises of faith aren’t…. They just don’t seem to be a true part of his character. Superman is the ultimate optimist. Stark is an optimist but he’s also a realist and that means he has doubts (though never about his ability to figure something out) and issues and struggles. I also want to live in a world with the tech from the movie commonly available. OMG, the design board he was using. And his bedroom windows!
And, ultimately, I kind of feel like we DO live in Tony Stark’s world, we just haven’t realized it yet. That was another strength of the movie – it was very real.
So, all of this ridiculous and deep comic type thought was going on when I realized something else, something related.
See, Batman was one of my favorite comics for a very long time. I was angry and afraid and desperately unhappy 9/10 of the time, inasmuch as I allowed myself to feel ANYTHING, living with my mom and the rest of my family, because my mother’s crazy was inescapable. It permeated every aspect of my life. And to escape it, I read. I read, and I, like Batman, learned the power of secret lives. I had stories in my own head rather than a costume, of course, but I still learned that I could escape everything I was in the search for something better in the future. Batman reinforced the power of secrets.
The Iron Man comics had a different effect. I think it is telling that we call Batman, well, Batman, but Iron Man is always Tony Stark.
See, now I HAVE escaped a universe shaped by my mom’s personal and unique version of reality. Now I am shaping my own world and I am held back by my own blinders. Obviously there are still factors beyond my control but I have so much more power now. Power to be who I choose and to live how I want to live and on what terms.
Batman taught me the virtue of shadows but Tony Stark taught me to not be limited by them. Tony Stark taught me to live in the open.
I told you this was full of desperate nerdery.
All my life, because everything else was always so loud and traumatic and full of upheaval, I have wanted a quiet, little life. A life full of routine and the small comforts that tell me I am safe.
The genius of the Tony Stark character is that he makes me want to push beyond that and do something extraordinary.
Tony Stark reminds me that reaching for more is something I can do and that it is a good thing. That feeling safe is about more than enjoying that safety – it’s about using that atmosphere to try new things and attempt grand things that have not previously been imagined. When one feels safe, one is in the best place to try something amazing. And, if it fails, that’s okay. Because you have the space to try again.
I think I’ve been moving towards this more and more over the past few years but I’ve been too busy freaking out to really sit down and put it all into words. But I need to verbalize this stuff if I am going to consciously work on it, and I need to consciously work on it if I want to make it happen instead of just drifting along.
I have never felt the whole “lost potential” thing that so many smart kids go through. I am just as smart now and I was as a child and I have a load of life experience to back up that intelligence now. I am thirty years old and I finally feel as though I don’t have a thick wall between me and the life I want to make for myself – I don’t NEED that wall, because I have learned to protect myself in other ways. Getting what I want is still kind of terrifying but I think I can handle it. And I can handle not getting it, too, because there is always something else for which to strive – whether it is the original goal with a new path or some new thing not previously imagined until a lesson comes to light through failure.
And so, here I go. It is past time to get moving.