Wanted and the new American hero

For phase 2 of our make-your-own 2-for-1 movie special, we saw the new Angelina Jolie action film, Wanted. I had read some pretty good reviews of the flick, and I'm sort of a sucker for the stylish super-hero genre, so I was game. Overall, I enjoyed the film.

The film's protagonist is a sallow, beaten-down accountant, who is miserable with his life. He hates his job, where he is constantly berated and belittled by his obnoxious, obese boss. He lives with his girlfriend, who cheats on him with his "best friend" and, like his boss, nags and belittles him constantly. He suffers from anxiety attacks, in which, under the stress of his various troubles, his heart begins to pound and his vision to blur, and he takes a regular regimen of prescription medications to deal with this problem. As the film presents this scenario, we hear the Nine Inch Nails classic "Every Day is Exactly the Same," which fits the theme of tedium and the overall tone of the film perfectly. (Honestly, my reintroduction to this song was one of the best things about watching this movie.)

Turns out, our protagonist is the son of one of the world's greatest assassins, but he never knew it, because his father had abandoned him in order to protect him from the life he had lead. His "panic attacks" are actually the result of an innate ability to channel enormous doses of adrenaline, allowing him to perform feats of super-human strength, speed, and focus. When a rival assassin tries to kill him, the secret team of killers of which his father was a part intervenes. They bring him to their fortress and train him in the arts of assassin-hood.

The initial crescendo of the film takes place after the protagonist, who initially resists his destiny, makes the decision to abandon the life that he so loathes and join the team of assassins. In a dramatic series of events, he stands up to the terrible boss, humiliating her in front of the rest of the office; he smashes the "best friend's" face with his ergonomic therapeutic keyboard; he releases a satisfied and relieved sigh as he hops into an exotic sports car with Angelina Jolie, as she whisks him away to the assassin's layer. While the remainder of the film is dedicated to his training in the ways of the assassin and various other plot elements, his escape from his mundane life sets the tone for the film. It encapsulates who he is as a hero, and defines why we, as an American audience, identify with him.

The tone of Wanted reflects a rising disdain among Americans for the trappings of contemporary life. The sources of our protagonist's patheticness--his meaningless corporate job, his emasculation, his dependence on prescription medication to control his emotions--are those that more and more Americans have come to experience and question. The rise in the use of computer and information technology has led more of us into jobs that require little more than sitting in a cubicle and typing data into a computer; more often than not, we have little to no individual stake in the work that we are doing. Spending our days engaged in such a sterile occupation, we lose our sexuality, or virility, our masculinity (and I use this term not in the sense of being male, but of being driven, virile, physical). We have come to resent the prescription medicines that we take to dull the sadness and the anxiety that our modern lives have hoisted upon us.

So our heroes are the ones who spit in the face of all of this. Like the protagonist in Wanted, we long to reclaim a destiny that we feel has been taken from us by these trappings. Perhaps the popularity of this film and others like it signals some backlash against corporatization, medicalization, and the repression of sexuality?