When watching the last few minutes to Casablanca, I realized that the coolness that comes from Rick is generated by his sacrifices. Faced with the decision to either support Victor's cause or run the bar in isolation, Rick chooses to sacrifice his life of luxury to do what he sees as right. The character Spock from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan also makes a sacrifice because it is the right thing to do. Throughout the movie, the antagonist Khan follows the opposite standpoint on sacrifice that Spock does. Khan's sole purpose in life is to get revenge on Captain Kirk for abandoning Khan's crew on a barren planet, and Khan is willing to kill any amount of people, including his own crew, to get what he wants. Ultimately, Khan only cares about himself and getting his own revenge. Conversely, Spock realizes that the most logical philosophy of life is that the needs of the group are always greater than the needs of individual people. This philosophy comes to the test when Spock chooses to sacrifice his life to save the Enterprise. The way that Spock is able to give up his life for the good of the crew is incredibly cool because most people are not willing to go that far for the good of other people.Another person who generates coolness from sacrifices is House. Although I've already shown House to be a dissident, he is also willing to sacrifice himself for others. For example, in the latter part of the fourth season of House, House's best friend Wilson starts dating Amber, a woman who House dubs "Cutthroat Bitch". In the minds of his colleagues, Amber is dragging Wilson away from House, leading House to resent Amber, but in House's mind, Amber is leading Wilson into a horrible relationship that will end in a broken heart for Wilson. In the penultimate episode of the season, it is revealed that Amber is close to death because of a bus crash. Even though saving Amber would mean Wilson becoming less of a friend, House decides that Wilson is in love with Amber, and that letting her die would make Wilson heartbroken. In addition, to save Amber, House must risk his own life by performing multiple dangerous operations in an attempt to access memories about the bus crash. In the end, House's strongest attempts are failures, and as a result, Amber dies. However, even though he was unsuccessful, House was willing to sacrifice his life just for the happiness of his best friend. It is this kind of act that truly defines sacrificial coolness.
Is there a point when sacrifice isn't cool? You see Rick's sacrifice to give it all away as an aspect of cool, yet one could argue that it wasn't much of a sacrifice at all because he was so detached to all of the people there, including most of his employees.
ReplyDeleteAlso, House's Head/Wilson's Heart are the best episodes in the entire House series.
Good entry.
Is Spook really that cool? Yeah, he doesn't have that emotion thing that we often have to avoid to be cool, but without that sort of conflict can just being emotionless be cool?
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