We Are Who We Choose To Be
Spider-Man, The Green Goblin and Meditations
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Heroes don’t have a monopoly on truth. Villains can and often do say “true” things. The trick with bad guys…like Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars)….Scar (The Lion King)….Claude Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) or the Green Goblin (Spider-Man) is that they tend to deploy the truth in an effort to deceive or manipulate.
This weekend we had family movie night, and somehow the original Spider-Man starring Toby Macquire rose to the top of the list. It’s such a charming movie for a franchise (Marvel) that has gone so far down the rabbit hole of snark and self-deprecation. Spider-Man of 2002 took itself very seriously. That’s why it worked. We were different people back then, I think.
The most well-cited quote from Spider-Man is that of Uncle Ben, who tells Peter Parker….. “with great power comes great responsibility”.
Fact check: True
But what about the villain? The Green Goblin, or Norman Osborn beneath the mask, spends the movie trying to get Spider-Man to walk away from the path of heroism. He chides Spider-Man for his self-sacrifice at the hands of a city that will eventually hate him. What do you owe these lesser people? Goblin was right, of course. New York City turns on Spider-Man at the first whiff of trouble. This is the same fact the Joker tried to tempt Batman with in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.
At the end of the movie, the Green Goblin creates a “trolly problem” scenario for Spider-Man. He holds up Spider-Man’s love atop a bridge, Mary Jane Watson, and a cable car full of schoolchildren.
“We are who we choose to be” Goblin bellows in the night, letting go of both Mary Jane and the cable car. They fall into darkness. Spider-Man makes a choice.
What I never picked up on in this scene is that Osborn (Goblin) is just venting about his own choice to become a monster. Earlier in the movie, Osborn was fired from his company, Oscorp.
“I started this company…..YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I SACRIFICED?”
Soon after, he murders the men and women who fired him.
Osborn is not motivated by doing right things for their own sake. He embodies resentment and scorn. We know that he was mostly an absentee father while building Oscorp, and he literally put his body on the line to test a new chemical product for a military contract that would keep Oscorp in business. Sure, he is a creature of raw ambition and greed, but let’s give Osborn some credit…he did make real sacrifices in his life.
The problem is…Norman wanted somebody to say, “Thank you”.
That’s what Spider-Man is all about. Obligation and duty.
Goblin drops the cable car and Mary Jane, and Spider-Man chooses first to go after Mary Jane. She is the beating of his heart. Spider-Man grabs her and then rejects Goblin’s false choice. He gives the moment his all and swings under the bridge to also catch the cable car, saving the children in the nick of time. Spider-Man does the impossible.
We are who we choose to be…..Spider-Man chose to be a hero. He was offered other routes. He could have lined his pockets taking photos of himself for the Daily Bugle, and he could have teamed up with Green Goblin for some kind of ambiguous plan wherein they become kings of New York.
Goblin’s master plan was a little vague….
Spider-Man chooses to suffer for others. He suffers under the weight of the cable car. He suffers in battle against Goblin. He suffers by rejecting romance with Mary Jane at the end of the movie, and living a solitary life in order to keep her safe.
And no one is going to say thank you.
Doing the right things may have heavy costs for each of us. Marcus Aurelius reminded himself of this and wrote in his journal that what mattered was this…..
“That you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored.”
“When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top—credit for the good deed or a favor in return?”
The Green Goblin was right. We are who we choose to be. Osborn felt anger at a thankless world, and chose to feed that feeling. Spider-Man felt this way too, but he chose the path of grace. That’s why he’s Spider-Man.
Have a great week! Make right choices. They add up.