I recently spent a similar smoke-filled several hours with a wise male friend, though the protagonist of the film we watched was not a posh club-wielder but rather Ryan Reynolds in a computer-generated unitard.
The formulaic movie scoots along at a predictable pace, so to make things more exciting, we sought outlandish ideologies within its mechanics. These are our findings.
I. Military Propaganda
First off the bat, the Green Lanterns are members of an elite intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. You can read them as sort of super-cops, but more obviously as soldiers. When our pal Ryan, AKA Hal Jordan, is first assigned his post as a Green Lantern by a "dying purple alien," he is told that this is a great honour and a noble pursuit in life. In the earlier parts of the movie we see screw-up Jordan bumbling around with slutty girls and fighter jets, lacking a direction in life but with chutzpah to spare. Along come the Green Lanterns and though he may not be cut from the cloth they desire, his new position in the Corps gives his life meaning and determination. Of course, you never see him huddled in a ball suffering from PTSD after battling Parallax (the amorphous, tentacled villian), much less suffering from survivor's guilt after all those people get their souls sucked from their bodies when Parallax hits the downtown core in the climax. But he does use his Green Lantern powers--using the power of will to create forms from energy--to imagine into being cool machine guns, roadsters, more fighter jets and at the very height of tension, a giant green fist!
Now that's willpower. The object of the game in Green Lantern is to conquer fear--it is said that only truly fearless individuals are chosen to be Green Lanterns. Parallax was created when a wise elder tried to harness the power of fear, and it overtook him. The connections to the culture of fear present in America with its simultaneous WARS on drugs and terrorism are glaring to me personally. Parallax gets ya if you let even the tiniest iota of fear take precedence over your will, and then the soul-slurping begins and he gets bigger and more powerful. It's earnest that Jordan's epiphany turns out to be the whole courage-means-admitting-you're-afraid-and-doing-it-anyway-we-all-get-scared-sometimes-but-don't-let-it-beat-you! He literally punches fear in the face, which is kind of awesome. Sub in terror for fear in these instances, and you get a really good feeling about the direction of all this Arab War stuff.
II. Anti-Intellectualism
Ok, so Parallax = bad guy. But the mortal villain in this tale is Hector Hammond, a dweeby scientist with a disappointed senator dad. He examines the purple alien and is infected by the residue of the blast from Parallax that killed him. We're aware that the senator dad is a dick, but his assertion that the world needs more doers, not thinkers, is likely close to home for nerdy types. Hector is only allowed to examine the alien because of his father's connections, implying perhaps that he is a second-rate scientist, but perhaps that good thoughts alone are not enough to secure a prestigious government position. You need to be proactive, and you gotta be hooked up. Evil is planted within Hector upon his first truly radical scientific achievement, and I can't help but notice that each time his transformation worsens, he is twiddling a microscope or swiveling amongst banks of computer screens, as if the more he studies himself, the worse his condition. One of the symptoms is that he is able to read thoughts, and gets some pretty lousy telepathic feedback. The sniveling academic can only resent his intuitiveness.
And as we have seen in many other blockbusters, giving ultimate power to a scientist, really any intellectual at all, can only mean bad news.
III. Conservative Sexuality
My favourite. The one I came up with all on my own. Sadly, I have yet to receive sincere support for this notion.
One of my first thoughts when Jordan donned that green energy imagination suit was, "Sweet! You could put on condoms with your MIND!" Not to mention ascribe to these telepathic prophylactics your precise preferred measurements and thinness. The suit does seem to act like a sort of protective agent, allowing him to penetrate the outer reaches of space, taking him to unknown worlds. Of course, to say it fits like a glove is an understatement. He is supposed to "protect" the universe.
Then there's that ring! Which is bound up in all sorts of oaths and promises involving duty, responsibility and virtue. I won't even spell that one out.
So in this framework Parallax is ascribed the characteristics of STDs: many-limbed, confusing, harmful, scary, contagious. He gets uglier and bigger the longer he goes untreated. He must be obliterated.
In the end, Jordan is able to beat Parallax using willpower and resistance. But that's not enough. At the climax of their power struggle, it is the vocalization of the promise that Jordan has made which secures his victory.
Of course, afterwards he's limp and beaten and a stylish dude yanks him in with ropes.
AMY
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