My jumping off point today is a story that’s generating a lot of heated debate right now, the movie “Don’t Look Up.”
I’m going to make some references to this movie, but this podcast is not about it, per se. So, if you haven’t seen the movie, no worries. And if you have, and are perhaps tired of or already feel deeply embroiled in the conversation that it has catalyzed, I hope to take you in a somewhat different direction.
We’re going to wander with the Trickster and see what he/she can tell us about the process of cultural change….
Transcript of Trickster lessons and “Don’t Look Up”
Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and why myth matters to your life today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle.
My jumping off point today is a story that’s generating a lot of heated debate right now. What I’m talking about is the movie, written and directed by Adam McKay, called Don’t Look Up.” I’m going to make some references to this movie, but this podcast is not about it, per se. So, if you haven’t seen the movie, no worries. And if you have, and are perhaps tired of or already feel deeply embroiled in the conversation that it has catalyzed, I hope to take you in a somewhat different direction.
For those of you who are not familiar with the movie, “Don’t Look Up” is a black comedy. It’s a satire of our current cultural moment, and our inability to come together to deal with important issues, specifically, climate change. The plot of the movie involves the discovery of a huge comet that is racing towards planet Earth.
This comet is discovered by a graduate student in astronomy, and her professor, and the two of them, being convinced that this comet will destroy the Earth, attempt to organize a response that will save us. Along the way, McKay takes aim at a number of our institutions, and ultimately out all of us. The question at the heart of the story is this: what will it take for us to overcome our denial of our impending death, and work together to save ourselves and our home? The planet we call Earth?
Excellent question. And the view of our situation presented in Don’t Look Up” has stirred up a lot of emotion and pointed criticism. Lots of people love the movie. Lots of people find truth in it. Lots of people hate the movie. Lots of people feel that it has serious limitations. “Don’t Look Up” is a flashpoint for some very strong emotions, and there’s very strong feeling in the movie itself. And that interests me.
As a mythologist, I think about the stories that we tell and in particular, our old stories, the cannon, so to speak. These are stories about change. They are stories that describe the process of change, and also point to a variety of outcomes. One of the things that distinguishes this reality of change in myths, is that the change is radical. It’s about transformation.
I talked about this last summer in the context of the Greek myth of the Trickster Hermes, and I’m going to refer back to that podcast. If you haven’t heard it, or if you’d like to listen to it again, it was an episode in the last season. Season 3, in July. I will be posting a link to that on my website.
There’s a lot to mine in the reviews of “Don’t Look Up,” and I’m not a movie reviewer. I’m not going to comment on how the film was shot, for example. I want to pick up a thread that runs through a lot of the negative reviews of the film, specifically, that it doesn’t add to the conversation. It doesn’t take us any place new. Our need for something new, a new insight or direction seems obvious, given the urgency of climate change. And a sense of urgency is behind the anger in and around the movie.
The need for something new is a call to turn to myths of the Trickster. Myths of the Trickster, because these myths shed light on the process of cultural change. Myths of the Trickster are about shifts in meaning. They are myths about how meaning is made, myths that reveal our stuckness. And this is the Trickster’s connection to culture building, to world creation. The Trickster, as the figure most closely associated with language, symbol formation, truth, and lying, shows us the complexities involved in making those changes. He also shows us that this process underlines all of our cultural ideas.
There are two primary lessons, I think, in the myths of the Trickster. One is that changes in meaning have to come first. Until the meaning of something changes, we don’t change the rules, and we don’t change how we act. And changes in meaning reveal complexity. They reveal the complexity of our situation. And so, when we’re in a situation that has become too well codified… when we have taken a complex meaning and turned it into an “either-or,” it means one thing and so there are only two sides… we are in need of the corrective offered by the Trickster.
In the case of climate change and “Don’t Look Up,” we’re presented with two groups of people. Two options. One, you believe science and so you support actions to destroy the comet, or two, you don’t believe science, you ignore the existence of the comet, i.e. “you don’t look up.”
The problem with the either-or formulation is that it’s a black and white approach that tends to result in opposition, in the creation of two camps. Both sides of which feel free to define the other in simple terms. It’s easy to be content with this, if vindication is your goal. But what about situations like ours today, when there’s so much, everything, at stake?
I liked Don’t Look Up” very much. I thought it was funny. And I found truth in it. And honestly, the fact that the movie was made, and that those truths were shared, at least among some of us watching the movie, made me feel for a time, less alone. And yet, there’s more. We need much more.
When I think about the Trickster in this context, I think about Hermes, and I also think about Eshu, who is a figure in Yoruban mythology. There’s a famous story about Eshu (and this is a motif that shows up in similar stories in other cultures), about two blind men. These two blind men live in a hut together on the edge of a small river. The rest of the town has placed them there, in order for them to be safe, and to make it easy for them to take care of themselves, and also for the village to keep track of them. Since they’re blind, they can’t do all of the things that everyone in the village does.
Anyway, these two men have a very simple routine of taking turns to go and get water from the river. A rope has been rigged up that goes from the hut down to the riverbank. Every morning, one of them takes their pot and follows the rope down to get water, and then bring it back. And in the meantime, the other man cooks their meal.
Now, one day Eshu comes along, and he moves the rope. So, the man who goes to get water follows the rope and when he gets to the end, there’s no water. He’s flabbergasted by this. He can’t figure out how this could happen. But ultimately, he goes back to his companion.
When the companion asks him for the water, he says, “You’re not going to believe this, but there wasn’t any.” Well, they go back and forth about this, and the other man can’t fathom the possibility that there was no water. So, he has to go and check this out for himself.
In the meantime, Eshu moves the rope. So, when the second man goes, he finds water. And when he comes back, he’s extremely angry at his friend. The two of them get into a big argument. They proceed to attach all kinds of motivations to each other, and they cast aspersions on each other’s character. The one thing that they don’t do in this story is examine the puzzle presented to them in their situation. They don’t look at their context, they merely accuse each other. And this continues, until Eshu makes himself known to the two men, at which point then they have to laugh.
They have to laugh. And they also have to take note of how quickly they were compelled to turn on each other, when they were in fact, friends. Friends who needed and depended on each other, and loved each other.
You may feel that the science of climate change has presented us with a very clear cut picture, reduce the amount of carbon that our way of life releases into the atmosphere and live, or don’t do this and die. It seems clear cut to me. And yet, how do we proceed? How many of us are doing all that we can to meet the challenge? If each of us is currently a member of one of the opposing camps, believer or non-believer, maybe we begin with unpacking the meanings and discovering the nuances attached to each of these positions.
The problem of over-simplifying and defining the other has been us with us from the beginning of this debate. Environmentalists who see themselves as concerned and willing to accept the laws of ecology are also “tree huggers.” That is, people who care more about the earth than they do about people. And there is a nihilistic and misanthropic thread in some environmentalism that’s apparent in the position—“well, we’ll kill ourselves off but the earth will continue and so life in some form.”
Believers in science are people who accept facts, whereas people who don’t believe in science, place their faith in something intangible, and suspect, and maybe something completely bankrupt, which involves a series of value judgments about that vision.
The idea that caring about climate change means that you care about children, about the future, about human beings, about all of the above…none of this seems to take root. None of this seems to motivate us. On the one hand, this seems crazy. On the other hand, the long chain of dots that need to be connected, a chain of dots that lead to death, one of our greatest existential problems, to say the least, is hardly surprising. And there I am, again, posing one or the other two hands, but what about the third, and the fourth?
What does a turn to the Trickster have to offer?
A few minutes ago, I said that the Trickster is connected with language, with our need to create symbols. Tricksters personify the changes in human culture, in our cultural constructs. They. remind us of the primary role that meaning plays in our view of the world. That we make a world out of our meanings. And meanings, meanings are complex themselves, because meanings contain the sense of value and identity, and they lead to the establishment of rules and our behavior. So, the process of cultural change that is described in myths of the tricksters show us that if we want to change the rules, change our behavior, we first need a shift in meaning.
As I also said, they remind us that this is complex, that we need to appreciate interlocking concepts and be able to hold multiple views, even if they appear contradictory.
The Trickster is called “trickster” because he or she plays tricks. Lies are told, rules are bent or broken, established boundaries are crossed. These acts in trickster stories may lead to the emergence of something new. The Greek myth of Hermes is an example of such a story. Hermes gives new meaning to a series of things in that story, and something new takes place.
They may also lead to a renewed appreciation for the existing rules. The test a trickster poses to the established order can reveal its value and inspire its protection. This is often the function of trickster stories. They build the community’s commitment to their existing cultural norms. In this instance, the Trickster is a fool. His foolishness may take place in the story. For example, he lays a trap, only to be caught in it himself. Usually, tricksters fail by misreading the situation, maybe attacking an enemy where there is none or putting himself in danger.
One of my favorite stories in this category involves a Native American trickster Coyote. Coyote is wandering along and he’s been traveling for a while, he’s hungry and he’s thirsty. So, he stops at a creek and when he bends down to get a drink of water, he sees some berries in the water. He really, really, really wants those berries so, he jumps in.
But when he gets into the water, there’s no berries. He gets out and he’s kind of frustrated by this and decides to jump back and go after those berries again, which he does. And he tries to go deeper and get closer to the bottom, but he still can’t find the damn berries. Now, Coyote is starting to get more than a little frustrated. He decides that the problem must be that he just hasn’t gotten far enough into the water to reach the berries. So, he ties some rocks onto his feet and jumps back in again.
Weighed down, he goes straight to the bottom. There are no berries. He is having a hard time getting back up to the surface. While he’s there under the water, he looks up, and what does he see, but the berries are now up above him. They’re up above him. He manages to get the rocks off and he comes back up to the surface and climbs out and looks up. He sees that the berries are hanging from a branch in a bush above the water. Well, Coyote eats some berries and then he kicks the bush for thwarting him, for good measure.
Now, the whole thing is ridiculous and it’s supposed to be. The point is, how are you like Coyote? When have you done something similar? Do you have the self-awareness to accept your own ridiculous errors and foolishness? And there’s one more move to make. Can you accept this foolishness, the absurdity of some of your decisions, as part of life? As part of being human?
Many of us live in cultures with a very strong attachment to perfection, this need to be perfect. The belief that it’s possible can lead to a personal need to feel superior. And it also feeds guilt. Guilt over mistakes that could otherwise be accepted as part of life, can feed denial. If you believe that you should be perfect, and if you have a hard time accepting that you’re not, well, that makes seeing and rectifying past mistakes all the more difficult.
Laughter is a big part of Trickster stories; in the stories themselves and in our response to them. Tricksters help us see the value of humor, of seeing humor in the story, even if what’s at stake is not a joke. In the Greek myth of Hermes, Hermes commits a crime. He steals Apollo’s cattle and Apollo is very angry about this. When the two appear in front of Zeus and Zeus asks, “Hermes, did you steal the cattle?,” Hermes lies. Hermes lies to Zeus, the all-powerful god, the god who’s in charge.
He has the audacity to lie and what does Zeus do? Zeus laughs. He laughs. And his laughter makes way for a reconciliation between Apollo and Hermes that leads to the emergence of something new.
In The Sacred Hoop, Paula Gunn Allen observes that humor has an integrating effect. It makes the unthinkable tolerable because it creates a breathing space in which you can take stock of your situation. Allan is speaking of the function of humor in Native American literature, and yet I wonder if this isn’t true for all of us. It seems that people in touch with their hardship have a greater appreciation for humor.
I think there’s a relative absence of humor in our dominant culture, and I wonder about that because hardship is certainly still all around. But we often pretend otherwise, don’t we, if we can, and look the other way, because somehow our hardship is a personal failing, and a sign of weakness, and not an enduring fact of life. Which takes me back to my earlier comment about perfection, and our expectations of life, and of ourselves and of each other.
In his fine book about the Trickster, Trickster Makes the World, Lewis Hyde writes that humor, the word “humor,” comes from the Latin root having to do with dampness and moisture. Humor is a type of fluidity. Lewis Hyde says “it oils the joint where contradictions meet.” It allows us to hold those multiple perspectives, to take something seriously and hold it lightly at the same time.
To get angry is to be trapped in the fight as it’s been constructed. As it’s been constructed, as a dualism or set of opposites. It’s important to remember that it is a construct. We can reshape our view of the situation by changing the meanings of the terms, and perhaps find some new possibilities. As Hyde writes, ” […] a touch of humor or levity, then, is one mark by which we know that a creative spirit is working in the force field of contradictions, and has kept his poise […].” Kept his poise. Hasn’t fallen into one or the other of the opposing sides.
Before I leave you today, I want to suggest a little thought experiment, which is to investigate your position as a member of the human community alive now, part of this debate about climate change and our proper response. What is your place in this debate, and what does it mean? What it means to you, not why you hold that position, but what it signifies. You might find that it’s connected to a web of signification, that there are lots of other terms that you want to investigate. Earth, for example, other, self, need, sacrifice, heroism, resource future…
I encourage you to move beyond the obvious. Let yourself answer the question “What this means is…” over and over and over again, until it takes you into new territory, and you discover something new.
I want to extend a big welcome to new subscribers, Lorie, Annie and Connie. Thank you so much for subscribing for email announcements about the podcast and my other programs. And thank you to the patrons and supporters of this podcast, whose financial contributions keep it all going? In particular, thank you to Portia for becoming a Myth Matters patron on Patreon. Thank you, Portia. And special thanks to longtime patrons, Sarah and Fred.
If you’re new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website, where you will find information about Myth Matters, a variety of ways to subscribe to this podcast, and also information about the other work that I do with people, to use stories to gain insight into life. If you are finding something of value here in Myth Matters, and can afford $5 or $10 a month to sustain this podcast, I hope that you’ll join me on Patreon too.
I invite you to email me if you have comments or questions about today’s episode. I’m especially curious to hear your thoughts about “Don’t Look Up” and suggestions about other movies or artworks that you feel are part of our important conversation about climate change.
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself. And until next time, happy mythmaking and keep the mystery in your life. alive.
Useful links:
Myth Matters Season 3: Meaning is magic: the trickster Hermes and radical change (July 7, 2021)
