Top Gun: Maverick and the Nature of Duality
Might be time to start a movie review series.
There are many interpretations I have heard for the REAL story behind the Biblical Garden of Eden event.
Some interpret it through sex: the Angelina Jolie-inspired Original Sin that signifies the first time Adam got lucky, before subsequently going forth to multiply.
Some interpret it through race: that it was the original mixing of the earthly black and otherworldly white bloodlines to produce the hybrid human race currently tearing itself apart.
Some interpret it through a more generic spiritual lens: as a metaphysical, even moral descent from a previous ‘perfect’ state — of integration and coherency — into a lesser state: of fragmentation and duality.
The first two are a bit spicy for my first official DTWH movie review, so let’s go with the last take (the fact that I wrote an article about it in pre-Substack days has nothing to do with it).
What does living spiritually in a world of duality entail? Essentially (in my humble opinion) to see the absolute extremes of everything in dichotomy — the good and the bad, the light and the dark, the divine and the shadow — and to (if you seek true guru status) reconcile and integrate them into a whole.
With that in mind: what redemption can we find in the latest war-mongering-justifying, demiurge-summoning, spotlessly-executed Tom Cruise Hollywood propaganda piece?
Some, believe it or not.
Look, I’m no elitist movie snob here; I enjoy some vacuous escape from reality time too. But oh boy, was there some cheese on this Americana pizza.
Tom Cruise’s always immaculate stubble.
His moustachioed psuedo-protege, who teams up with Tom to blow up a few mysteriously raceless and nationless Bad Guys (what a cop-out move, not to antagonise a specific enemy in today’s geopolitical climate).
That cringe beach football scene with the gratuitous pec and bicep flexing to bring the ladies in and back again.
The fact that not even one of the good guys died (lol screw your spoilers). Not 1! No, old mute Val Kilmer doesn’t count — I mean in combat.
Because other people died in combat, didn’t they? At least a couple of those mysteriously raceless and nationless Bad Guys got incinerated in mid-air, and who knows how many more hapless lab-coat wearers thanks to that unarguably badass underground base explosion.
Of course, we don’t need to care about what happened to them: they are the Approved Enemy to US Exceptionalism, who have dared to go against an undoubtedly fair and reasonable NATO disarmament treaty because butter wouldn’t melt in our forked tongue mouths.
But yet…
Tom’s always impeccable stubble.
Landing it without the front wheels like a boss.
Getting pwned by moustachioed psuedo-protege for originally telling psuedo-protege not to think, but then accusing him AFTER HE JUST SAVED YOUR LIFE of not thinking.
(Side note: the core moral message of the movie — telling young Americans not to think — really feels devastatingly accurate for our current propagandised ‘Rona times).
And let’s not forget: Getting the Hot babe at the end.
Say what you want about that child-loving, Satan-worshiping cesspool: no one does The Hero’s Journey like Hollywood. And this is Peak Hero’s Journey. I know Peak Hero’s Journey, because it is the movies when my dude gets the most emotional. I used to think he enjoyed the bloodlust of all these blockbuster escapades, but thankfully it looks like he is just there for the universal spirituality that underpins them.
I recently suggested that the most convincing explanation for the Meaning of Life that I have come across is to become a more moral person. But that is a bit boring, I admit.
Perhaps The Hero’s Journey, as Joseph “Follow Your Bliss” Campbell suggested, is the ultimate life cheat code, or archetypal path. Judging by Box Office takings, it certainly does trigger something dormant inside of us — perhaps without discrimination across the human spectrum.
Hmm, maybe not completely. I’m guessing the psychopaths get their kicks in other ways. That said, they are more than happy to utilise The Hero’s Journey to spectacular CGI effect to manipulate the masses into consenting to their shamelessly obvious agenda.
Can a piece of art be inherently satanic in its intention to further enable the inherently satanic agenda of the globalist (i’ll be kind and leave The West out of it) military industrial complex, yet also be spiritually transcendent in its ability to depict The Hero’s Journey?
If you answered yes: welcome to Duality, comrades. It might soon be the only way that you will still be able to watch your favourite Hollywood movies.