Outside Reading #3
One book and movie I often think of when I consider myth is Big Fish. It was a book by Daniel Wallace, that was made into a movie by Tim Burton, one of film's premiere myth-makers.
Big Fish is about a young man who has always believed his father was a liar. His father tells tall tales (forms of myth). But when his father gets very sick, the young man comes to discover that there was a grain of truth in his dad's stories.
I think this is true of all myths. They would not resonate with us if they did not contain grains of truth, or if they did not represent us.
Another aspect of Big Fish is that we are defined by our stories. That is how we relate to one another--through our long human tradition of creating stories to tell about us. We tell stories about ourselves to help show who we are--but we also create our own myths. We are often smarter, funnier, and more intelligent, or tougher, or whatever myth we want to tell about ourselves--when we tell stories. We exaggerate, creating our own myths, just like the father in Big Fish.
Big Fish is about a young man who has always believed his father was a liar. His father tells tall tales (forms of myth). But when his father gets very sick, the young man comes to discover that there was a grain of truth in his dad's stories.
I think this is true of all myths. They would not resonate with us if they did not contain grains of truth, or if they did not represent us.
Another aspect of Big Fish is that we are defined by our stories. That is how we relate to one another--through our long human tradition of creating stories to tell about us. We tell stories about ourselves to help show who we are--but we also create our own myths. We are often smarter, funnier, and more intelligent, or tougher, or whatever myth we want to tell about ourselves--when we tell stories. We exaggerate, creating our own myths, just like the father in Big Fish.
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