Dear Readers,
I was very pleasantly surprised by your reaction to last week’s piece about homeschooling. It was an experiment, but it’s clear many of you are very interested in challenging groupthink in education.
So I will return to the topic soon, and I’ll most likely address the question of socialization.
Today’s piece indirectly addresses part of the reason why I think homeschooling offers so much promise when it comes to socialization.
Thanks for making Shiny Herd a part of your Tuesday.
Warm regards,
Ted
My wife and I are independent filmmakers, and we have a love/hate relationship with our industry.
Sometimes it swings toward a loathe/hate relationship. Our work often bleeds into our leisure time, and scrolling through Netflix often feels like we’re being pulled toward Idiocracy.
Hey look, Is It Cake? scored a second season!
But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.
Yes, we enjoy cranking the indiemeter up to levels that would make most mortals switch to Friends or fall asleep. Anyone up for a talky Turkish drama? It’s only 3 hours and 17 minutes long. (All kidding aside, if you’re into that kind of thing, I do recommend Winter Sleep. And while we’re talking Turkey, check out the brilliant series Ethos).
Sure we can do snobby, and yes we started our film production company a dozen years ago to make important ideas entertaining, but we’re not afraid to get down and dirty on movie night. We are, after all, quite familiar with David Spade’s body of work.
My wife jokes that she’s currently doing penance for her past life when she made horror films, American Pie movies, and directed Joseph Gordon Levitt in an intergenerational gay incest Off broadway drama. (Actually, I suppose that last one counts as high art.)
But, if I’m being honest, we do struggle to enjoy many popular films. There are plenty of reasons why. Lazy writing, logic problems, Ben Affleck.
But purpose often looms large. What is the movie about?
Filmmakers can make mistakes in either direction. Some movies are as heavy handed as freshman orientation at Oberlin, while others don’t seem to be about much of anything. Oh look, those tourists in a cabin got killed by a crazy guy because, uh, because he’s crazy.
It’s OK to just enjoy a scare or a laugh but isn’t it so much better when that scare or laugh comes with something more? Perhaps the film spurs you to consider an issue from a different point of view. Maybe the protagonist overcomes a challenge that will help you be a little more courageous next time you face something similar. I bet your favorite movie is one that appeals to your higher self.
But sometimes everything comes together. You get a popular movie that has something to say, and says it in a way that isn't heavy handed or hackneyed. Enter Yes Man starring Jim Carrey and Zoe Deschanel.
Netflix robots suggested we watch it this weekend. The movie came out in 2008 and banked over $200 million at the box office, but we had never seen it (indie snobs avoiding popular fare again).
Not only was the movie not hackneyed, but it told an important story in an entertaining way. So naturally Rotten Tomatoes hated it, but that’s a rant for another day.
Anyhow, Jim Carrey plays hapless Carl. Carl’s wife left him, he’s treading water at his crummy bank job, and the only thing he puts effort into is avoiding social commitments. And c’mon, sometimes there’s no better feeling in the world than avoiding a social commitment. John Mulaney says canceling plans feels as good as heroin, and he should know.
But overdoing it with social isolation will make you miserable, and Carl is miserable. Yet he keeps saying no, even to the point of nearly losing all his friends who grow frustrated with his hermit ways.
Finally, one day he agrees to attend a culty self help seminar where the guru’s schtick is advising his followers to say yes to every offer presented to them. Carl gets pressured into a “covenant with the universe” to do just that.
A homeless man tests Carl’s resolve right away. After the seminar, he asks Carl for a ride to a park across town. The new Carl says yes.
Then the homeless man asks to use Carl’s phone during the drive, and Carl obliges. Carl finally reaches the man’s destination, drops him off, and gives him all his cash—he did ask, after all, and what else could a yes man do?
Once he’s alone in his car again, Carl runs out of gas and discovers his cell phone battery is on empty as well. Since he can’t call AAA, he makes the long trek to a gas station. This yes man stuff doesn’t seem to be working!
But, wouldn’t you know it, a young lady zooms up to gas up her motor scooter. They meet, and eventually fall in love. Don’t blame me for failing to provide a spoiler alert. That turn of events was very predictable, and it’s one area where I might agree with the grumps at Rotten Tomatoes.
But I don’t tune into a Jim Carrey movie for Hitchcockian plot twists. Frankly, I also don’t tune in for timely lessons about happiness and antifragility, and yet that’s what the film delivers. The new up-for-anything Carl is a joy to behold. You see it all over his face. I usually prefer subtlety, but this is an area where Carrey’s over-the-top physical humor adds to the film’s punch.
Wide-eyed grinny “yes man” Carl is nothing like the cowering “no man” Carl of old. The look is born from action. There’s nothing he can’t do or won’t do. He says yes to clubbing and to sunrise jogging on the same day. He organizes his friend’s fiancé’s bridal shower and takes his lady love on a spontaneous flight to Lincoln, Nebraska. Why were you shocked at the destination? Now who’s the snob!
As silly as it may sound, Yes Man is the kind of movie that can change a man.
Truth be told I probably would have never devoted a couple hours of my life to the film had it not been for a friend of mine. Aryaan Misra may be a brown Gen Zer from Delhi, but, in some important ways, he looks like yes man Carl. He has the same twinkle in his eye. He exudes openness and antifragility.
When I saw the Yes Man movie poster on Netflix, I remembered what Aryaan had told me about the movie and its impact on him. It inspired him to go on his own yes man journey.
He started a podcast that is now one of India’s most popular, he traveled through the non-touristy parts of Africa alone, and he makes a habit of standing against powerful forces of all kinds. He addresses that last point on camera in The Coddling of the American Mind, the soon-to-be-released feature documentary my wife and I made, which is based on The New York Times bestselling book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
Yes Man had a big impact on Aryaan, but I don’t want to overstate it. The yes man philosophy didn’t transform him like it transformed Carl. Aryaan was already uncommonly brave before he watched the movie. And Lukianoff and Haidt’s book had a bigger impact on him than Yes Man.
But in some surprising ways, the cerebral book and the goofy movie tell the same story.
Avoiding the things that make us anxious leads to misery. But if we run toward anxiety, we just might find happiness.
Ted Balaker is a filmmaker, and former network newser and think tanker. His recent work includes Little Pink House starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and a soon-to-be-released feature documentary based on the bestselling book, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
Have to check it out!
Underrated movie, and an underrated principle to abide by