The movie features young people showing courageous, altruistic, optimistic and inspiring behavior. I found in particular the part with Violet Brielle Spataro astonishing, by her optimist but also by the lies the filmmaker propagates.
The lie is founded on the fact that the superheros, among which superman, embody an ideal of optimism, courage, and that's it. That's not it. The film carries several lies.
First those traits are not exclusive to superheros; outside the circle of superheros, there is for instance Harry Potter, who is repeatedly courageous and altruistic. Many people are courageous and altruistic and inspiring, and they are not related to superheros.
Second, superheros, in comics and in Marvel movies and Warner DC movies, carry a message of "solving a problem by violence", which is one aspect of the american masculinism (cf. the Netflix documentary 'The mask you live in'). This behavior of solving a problem by violence, as well as the general pessimism in those movies (cf. all the WB anime with those superheros are actually terribly superviolent), and having this universe of superheroes accessible to younger people, and having those young people exposed to superviolence repeatedly is actually remarkably dangerous.
Third, I find the young heros in Look to the sky being actual antithesis of superheros: they solve problems with accessible means, with things that can do eg., swimming, communication, fundraising, courage, coming-out. Also, many people in the world are actually being this courageous and inspiring without any special communication (eg., girls in Athlete A are all extremely courageous by coming-out and speaking at the trial), and without any reference to anything superhero based. This is more common, this is more normal that what Look to the sky is depicting.
In sociology, fiction is used as a marker, indicator of people's utopias in different epochs. This fiction represents and imprints onto children this utopia. And this utopia has become more and more superviolent and solving problems became violence based. This part of the superheros is completely blacked-out in "Look to the sky". This violence language is so common in the USA it seem to be normal. How many times in news and fiction do we see "I was scared so I killed the black/monster regardless it was a sensitive being with a life" ?
In the end, without the "superhero" aspect, the documentary shows courage and paradigm shifts (ie., a reprogramming of the mind and emotions and expectations eg., this black who grew up in a violent environment and giving back more anger and violence changing into someone normally successful and at peace), which should be show as such, and eventually related to less superficial aspect of the culture that those depicted in this movie. References with Bob Proctor (You were born rich), Napoleon Hill (Think and grow rich), Eric Berne (What do you say after you say hello?) and other reference works would have been much welcome.
0 out of 3 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
