On Friday night, after enjoying a
leisurely dinner with my household sisters, I trekked over to “Disney Friday”
(an event created freshman year by one of my friends, which, as you may guess,
involves watching a Disney movie on Friday). I had been invited to watch Big Hero 6. I saw a preview for
this movie several months back, and I thought it looked weird. And somewhat
dumb. I wanted to watch it, but was not too sure about how good the movie would be. But, my friends were showing it, and I wanted to hang out with them (and
watch it), so I scurried through the chilly night air towards Trinity Hall. The
enthusiasm and joy of my friends was contagious, and I could not help but be
excited for this movie. I didn’t know the plot, I had no clue what to expect
(except a gigantic marshmallow-looking thing that I remembered from the preview),
and I didn’t even know if I would like this movie.
Well.
I laughed crazy hard. I nearly cried. The epic soundtrack resonated in my
heart. And I was blown away by the beautiful exhibition of sacrificial love in
this movie.
This
movie hits you hard. It is hilarious and uplifting, but it gets raw and real, forcing
you to watch things that hurt so bad—because you see the good, the bad, and the
ugly in fourteen-year-old Hiro’s life, and you can realize,“hey, I go through these same things, in slightly different ways.”
This movie helps you to look not just at Hiro’s life, but at your own life, and
to see how hope, redemption, healing, and sacrificial love can always shine a
bright light into the darkness of suffering.
If
you haven’t seen the movie, please—go watch it. It is well worth your time. It
has a bit of darkness that took me back to Up,
so if you have young children, you may want to be sensitive to this fact. There
are also a couple of sexual references in dialogue, but it overall is a very
clean, wholesome film. And hey, if you screen it before showing the movie to
your kids, you have an excuse to watch it twice! So leave this post behind,
watch the movie, and come back later if you so desire.
If
you have seen the movie, then feel
free to continue reading.
SPOILERS
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SO MANY SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Healing. So Hiro doesn’t
have parents (because hey, this is a Disney movie, and since when do they let a
main character have both parents for an entire film?), and then he loses
Tadashi, his brother. He shuts out the world, his aunt, and a college career
(and the nerds from college!) and doesn’t want to tell Baymax of his deep pain.
Before Hiro has worked through his sorrow, grieved, and started to heal, he
acts out of vengeance, rage, and deep pain. He has no mercy for Callaghan, and
certainly no love or justice. But Hiro ultimately sees the importance of
admitting the deep pain and loss that he has experienced. It isn’t until he has
let himself grieve and admit his need for healing that he can be healed. Then,
when Hiro has begun to heal, he can find true peace and properly battle
Callaghan out of true justice and mercy. The true strength that Hiro finds when
he has more peace in the midst of the craziness of life totally reminds me of
something cool that I read the other day. So, for Lent this year, I’m praying
through this epic little book that a friend of mine gave to me a couple weeks back:
Searching for and Maintaining Peace, by
Fr. Jacques Phillippe. And there’s some coolness that Fr. Phillippe speaks
about regarding the interior peace that we must strive for:
Community. Yes, Baymax is
a robot. But he’s awesome—and he helps Hiro experience community. Baymax shows
us that things get rough in life, and when we go through suffering, we should
surround ourselves with a community of love, instead of isolating ourselves.
Let’s pause and take a quick look at St. John Paul II’s words (I bolded some text for added emphasis):
“In itself human suffering constitutes as it
were a specific "world" which exists together with man,
which appears in him and passes, and sometimes does not pass, but which
consolidates itself and becomes deeply rooted in him. This world of suffering,
divided into many, very many subjects, exists as
it were "in dispersion". Every
individual, through personal suffering, constitutes not only a small part of
that a world", but at the same time" that world" is present in
him as a finite and unrepeatable entity. Parallel with this, however, is the
interhuman and social dimension. The world of suffering possesses as it were
its own solidarity. People who suffer become similar
to one another through the analogy of their situation, the trial of their
destiny, or through their need for understanding and care, and perhaps above
all through the persistent question of the meaning of suffering. Thus, although
the world of suffering exists "in dispersion", at the same time it contains within itself a singular challenge to communion and solidarity. We shall also try to follow
this appeal in the present reflection.”
(St.
John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris #8)
Big Hero 6 continues to
show us the communion and solidarity in a world of suffering. Baymax contacts
Hiro’s nerdy friends, and we see that with them—and Baymax—Hiro is able to heal
and reorient his life.
The witness of sacrificial love. As the movie
begins, we see Hiro in the bot fighting rink. Hiro, acting like any typical
genius teenager might, goes to the bot fights and makes money, adding to his
own personal glory. On the other hand,
we begin to see Tadashi’s self-sacrifice as we meet Baymax: the healer robot
that Tadashi has spent many hours creating, in order to help other people. Hiro
sees how amazing (and weird) Tadashi’s life, work, workplace, and friends are,
and due to the witness of Tadashi, he is encouraged to seek more in life than
bot fighting. Tadashi is a witness of what sacrificial love is: he works to
help other people, and he ultimately gives up his life for Callaghan. Later on,
we see how Tadashi’s sacrifice was for Callaghan seems to be in vain, since
Callaghan started the fire (and survived). But
the witness of Tadashi’s sacrifice remains.
Hiro,
following in the footsteps of his brother, ultimately grows in this sacrificial
love himself. Risking everything, he dives into the portal to save Abigail.
Yes, she’s the daughter of the villain, but Hiro and Baymax recognize her
dignity and worth, and give all that they have to save her. When they try to
get out, not only does Baymax offer up himself to send Hiro and Abigail out,
but Hiro makes a huge sacrifice as well. He has to accept the sacrifice of
Baymax, knowing that he has lost yet another close friend. How many times have we experienced something like this in our own
lives? We’ve already gone through so much suffering, lost so much, and then—BAM.
We lose something or someone very dear to us. And we’re left wondering what we’ve
done to deserve this.
“But in
order to perceive the true answer to the "why" of suffering, we must
look to the revelation of divine love, the ultimate source of the meaning of
everything that exists. Love is also the richest source of the meaning of
suffering, which always remains a mystery: we are conscious of the
insufficiency and inadequacy of our explanations. Christ causes us to enter
into the mystery and to discover the "why" of suffering, as far as we
are capable of grasping the sublimity of divine love. In order to discover the
profound meaning of suffering, following the revealed word of God, we must open
ourselves wide to the human subject in his manifold potentiality. We must above
all accept the light of Revelation not only insofar as it expresses the
transcendent order of justice but also insofar as it illuminates this order
with Love, as the definitive source of everything that exists. Love is: also
the fullest source of the answer to the question of the meaning of suffering.
This answer has been given by God to man in the Cross of Jesus Christ.”
(St. John
Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, #13).
There is hope in death. We see Hiro
setting up his new life after losing Baymax, and we’re trying to pull ourselves
together. He’s just a robot, we try
to remind ourselves. Obviously, the
sacrifice was the most admirable thing. But this is so, so, lame. But we
try to wipe our eyes and take joy in the fact that Hiro has accepted his many
losses and is starting out his life anew and with purpose. And then we have
that glimmer of hope, which bubbles up into deep joy, peace, and elation: Hiro
discovers the identity chip of Baymax. Plus, it’s a Disney movie, so of course
they wouldn’t kill off the cute, giant, marshmallow character. In all
seriousness, we can remember that just as Hiro discovers this new life and hope
after all of the sorrow and death, so too, shall we. God is continually
blessing our lives, and desires to bring us to the fullness of joy.
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