Coming of Age Essay, Condensed
My coming of age essay was about the 2011 animated movie Rango.
Rango starts the movie with zero identity; he literally lives in a cage making up stories where he is the valiant hero to satisfy his crushing loneliness and crisis of self. When he is thrown unceremoniously into the Mojave desert, he has to face the fact that not only is he not as brave as he thought he was, but that the real world is unforgiving, and there are very few people in the desert willing to help anyone but themselves. When he arrives at the main setting, a town called Dirt, people ask who he is and where he's from. It is then that he realizes that as he has no identity, he can spout whatever lies he wants to impress these people, and he does that exact thing.
However, when he is appointed sheriff, he has to deal with the reality of having people rely on you, as it is now his responsibility to save the entire town from dying of thirst by retrieving their water. When he fails on his mission and has to come back ashamed and empty handed, he meets Rattlesnake Jake, who is a living image of everything he told the townspeople he is. Jake mocks him for the lies he's told, and tells him "he doesn't have the nerve" to shoot him. Rango, disgraced, leaves the town and attempts to commit suicide, because if he is nobody, he doesn't matter and if he died no one would care.
Along the way, he meets the Spirit of the West, a metaphor for death, who tells him that it doesn't matter who he is, what matters is how he can help. Rango then realizes that he doesn't need to be the one people look to for help, but he can help the ones he cares about. He finds where the water went and comes back and confronts Rattlesnake Jake and, in a way, himself. At the end, Rango becomes what he wanted to be in the start not by fitting the cliche image of a valiant demon-slaying hero, but simply by wanting to help the people he had grown to care about.
When I first saw this movie come to theaters at the age of 8 (or something), I was very off put by the large, 6 foot posters of the skinny and creepy looking lizard. Thus, I refused to watch it and still haven't. However, your description is kind of making me want to watch it so I applaud you for that. As for the coming-of-age depiction, I think this is a really great example of what coming-of-age means to a lot of people: personal growth and acceptance of who you are and how you want to live. I think it's powerful because it's a message a lot of people can relate to and it's not something that I feel is often done. There's a lot of pressure to do "huge" things in this world and leave a large legacy but the relationships you leave behind and the love that you put into your actions, whether big or small, are definitely the more important part which is so well written and highlighted in your post.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to watch Rango again now that I'm older and not, you know, like 9. So I'm glad that someone chose it to be their coming of age film, as it is very fitting for it. Rango is very dark and a rich coming of age story as you've show even though it was seemingly marketed toward a younger audience. It shows that you don't need to be recognized and praised by the world to live up to what you want to be and live a meaningful life. In it seems in a way that can be relatable to a lot of people who might be struggling with themselves. P.S. Rattlesnake Jake should have decked Rango but ok.
ReplyDeleteI am ashamed to admit that I have never watched Rango, despite it playing on live TV at least 2x a week. Johnny Depp as a lizard doesn't sound particularly enticing to me. However, your analysis genuinely makes this movie sound like a masterpiece. Often I think we see the idea of one's identity morphing or growing during coming-of-age but here Rango is forced to just start from scratch. This almost makes it more interesting. His lack of knowledge and experience in... anything I view as simply an extreme version of a child's lack of knowledge/innocence of the real world.
ReplyDeleteAhh I totally forgot about that movie. But now I distinctly remember how depressing Rango's little lizard cage looked. I thought it was really interesting how the moral landed on a compromise between becoming the hero you imagine yourself as and accepting yourself as you are.
ReplyDeleteI always thought Rango was a weird movie that I would not like to watch, but once I actually watched it, I found that it was so good. The fact that this lizard who is anything but perfect (it's even shown physically: his neck is literally a zig-zag and one eye is bigger than the other) is able to make his own place instead of trying to change in order to fit another mold is very important in coming of age.
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