 Whatever happened to the American dream, asks Night Owl. What happened? It came true. You're looking at it. This line in Watchmen is probably one of the most heart-wrenching and reality-shattering statements in the media in the last 10 years. But what makes it even more scary is just how truthfully it's aged in the present day. Welcome back, everyone. Today we're taking a look at Watchmen. You know that crazy dark superhero movie with the cool masked guy and the questionable taste in nudity? Yeah, that one. Even though the movie is about like three hours long, it's pretty darn good. But while you might be expecting us to talk about the enlightenment and detachment of Dr. Manhattan and his whole glowy godhood and energy manipulation thing, there's something much more relevant to our current collective consciousness and experience that has subtly presented the unsettling reality of the American dream and what that can tell us about the beliefs and ethos of our own society. At its heart, Watchmen is a dark take on the superhero genre that was made with the intention of showing us what superheroes could be like in the real world, one where the government is still in control and spirituality or superpowers are weaponized and used, not only as a commercial to sell magazines and poses for the press, but also as weapons to win wars, carry out assassinations, and cement Western superiority. You know, when we first sat down to brainstorm this script, we looked for something happy and bright to write about, but Watchmen just isn't a bright or happy story, and despite it being set in an alternate reality where superheroes are used in place of super weapons, it reveals some pretty interesting insights into our own world. One of the more in-your-face things is something that we've touched on before, the commercialization of spirituality, and hey, Dr. Manhattan being employed by the government to build energy reactors based off of his own god energy seems to fit right in there, but really, we've never looked into the core of where that whole thing comes from, the ethos and ideals of American society itself that makes this mindset possible. When you talk about the American ethos, the American dream always comes up. It's like that weird fake bedrock, kind of like a game of whack-a-mole that comes back every few years in a politician's speech. But what actually is it? Well, if you ask politicians or real estate agents, the usual slogan is something like, the dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone with the opportunity for each according to their ability or achievement. Fancy sales talk aside, the basic idea behind the American dream is liberty of an individual that no matter who you are or what your background is, you deserve to be free. Now, if American history is anything to go by, that didn't work out too well, did it? In fact, if we take modern stats seriously, with less than 5% of the world population, the US uses one third of the world's paper, a quarter of all the world's oil, 23% of the coal, 27% of the aluminum, and 19% of the copper. In other words, not only is the dream more of a pipe dream that's rooted in American exceptionalism, the idea that American history is unique and different from the rest of the world seems to be a mentality like standing on a flat screen TV to reach for the stars. Even the governor of Virginia said in 1774, we will forever imagine the lands further off are still better than those upon which we are already settled. If we attained a paradise, we would move on if we heard of a better place farther west. Some people could argue that the whole mentality of greed and consumerism in American culture is rooted in the old frontier world and the idea of manifest destiny, the belief that the American settlers had a God-given destiny to expand and take new land just because it was there and they could. So how does all this relate to Watchmen? In the Watchmen world, America won the Vietnam War by using Dr. Manhattan to be super OP. In other words, following their ethos to a T, they found a way to buy out and weaponize someone who had attained enlightenment. Now perhaps there's a discussion that since Manhattan becomes so detached and far removed from the physical reality because of his transcendence, he can't see that he's being manipulated to further America's collective ego and greed. Maybe it's because his personal goals and aspirations are just so far out there and incomprehensible to us that he just doesn't care, something that we should be cautious of when walking our own path of enlightenment, to not become so detached that we forget to help others. Although his superhuman intelligence could benefit all of humanity through new technology or an understanding of the universe, the government's first impulse is to use him as a weapon to dominate its opponents and keep him locked up. They even give him the name Manhattan after the atomic bomb. During the comedian's funeral though, Night Owl has a flashback to the time when they were both called in to crowd control some riots in a major city. After appealing for peace and getting nowhere, Blake jumps down and becomes the living embodiment of that Danny DeVito meme. By the way, I started blasting. Bang! Bang! Now I don't see so good, so I missed. Then they ran away. I ran after them. Okay. Bang! Try to shoot them in the back. And start shooting up random rioters and being downright brutal. All this sparks the famous line from earlier about the American Dream. But what does Blake actually mean? Well, if the main idea of the Dream is personal liberty, we can see the full extent of what that can lead to if it's left to run wild. Complete anarchy in the streets. Everyone in the crowd has made a choice. They had their liberty and used it by rioting. What the comedian means here is that when you give people too much liberty, the results are sometimes pretty bad. There are few people who will make it. Sure, those who are capable of governing themselves or those of you who put the shopping cart back in the storage place rather than leaving it in the parking lot. But for most of the population, the American Dream doesn't mean success and glory. It ultimately ends up meaning poverty and chaos. In other words, without a consciousness shift to move away from the mindset of fear and competition, unrestrained freedom at the level of consciousness we're currently at today will only lead to riots and chaos, something that is especially challenging for us in this present moment. If every single person lives with a mentality of do whatever I want and step on others to get ahead, like the American Dream seems to subliminally purport, this generally goes against the structure of an ordered society, something that is echoed in the greater plot as Ozymandias sacrifices millions in order to restore order to the world and turn it back from the chaos of nuclear Armageddon. But is that right? The comedian could also be talking about himself and his ability to freely shoot protesters. After all, we should remember he is the cop in this scenario. See, the American Dream came mostly about in the 1950s when tensions in the Cold War were pretty... icy? And America had all of these World War II factories churning out random stuff, but with no World War II to go to, so all these assets got diverted to making materialistic things like fridges, TVs, fast food joints, and 50s diners. Ah, yeah. Hey. The byproduct of this, though, was the creation of a system of spiritual entrapment and materialism that made people value safety and security over personal freedom. In other words, 1950s America had it all, which also meant that they had this fear of losing it all. This led people to seeking fulfillment in commercialism and weapons to feel safe, rather than searching inwards for true knowing. In Watchmen, this is kind of echoed by the formation of the Minutemen, a group of special individuals who helped to police the places the government couldn't, or perhaps the use of Dr. Manhattan's spiritual connection to God as a power source. All of the violence from the rioters then is simply a reaction to the empty promises made by the government that vigilantes would protect them. But for us, it brings an awareness of just how much our governments have that sell them something mentality. If they're not selling a physical product, they're commercializing thoughts and feelings to sell them back to us. Is it just me, or does it seem like our society is designed for consumers to consume themselves? It's like they say, if you can't see the product, you are the product. In the movie, the American government not only gathers power over its enemies, but also over its own people. At a party of high-ranking government dudes, politicians laugh when the comedian implies that he was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the suppression of the Watergate scandal. And next thing you know, Nixon amends the Constitution to stay in office longer. Despite being set in an alternate reality, the tactics used by the government are underhanded, secretive, and strikingly similar to our world today. Further, although Blake is an attempted rapist and a murderer, don't you think he kind of embodies the American spirit just a little bit? His hero costume has a star on one shoulder and stripes on the other. He's basically a walking American flag. And the fact that such a murderous, crazy figure is heralded as the embodiment of American values is something to think about. He's even employed by the government. What does this say about the values that America is founded on? Though of course, on the other side, we also have Captain America, unrelated and less dark than this story that portrays the other side of the American dream. Tall, muscular, super OP and crazy vanilla. But that's a conversation for another time. To quote Dr. Manhattan again, it's the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying. Man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace. So what's the deal here? Is America corrupt and founded on just poor values and prejudice? In theory and writing, no. The ideals are noble for sure. That everyone should be free and able to get as far as they want in life by their own hard work. But in practice, it just doesn't translate well with our current level of consciousness and awareness. Just take a look at what's going on outside in the streets right now, and you can see for yourself the results of the American nightmare. I think the characters are all representations of different ways of wrestling with God-like powers and morality. They all kind of fill a void that lacks spirituality or religion and try to renew a sense of purpose, direction, and morals on a purely physical front. Each of them can act as a moral template for us. Do you want to do whatever you want, like the comedian? Punish those who deserve it like Rorschach? Save the world from destruction but sacrifice morality like Ozymandias? Or just transcend it and see the strings that control us but not be able to do anything about it, like Dr. Manhattan? Spiritually speaking, each of these characters or archetypes are incomplete. Taken together, they offer examples of what happens if you focus too much on one aspect of life and even Manhattan embodies the idea of too much detachment from our human nature and shows the consequences of it. The fact that he believes something as simple as love is a miracle when he finds out the truth about Silkspector's father is a good example of that. The whole scene is a huge turning point for Laurie, one that explains so much of who she is as a character but it's actually more important for Dr. Manhattan. All of his philosophical lecturing, scientific rationalism and detachment gets put aside in the face of love. It gets sidelined by something seemingly so simple that the majority of humans experience it with very little effort but ironically, love and emotion is so complex that science and medicine still can't explain it. Dr. Manhattan changing his heart so drastically when confronted with the reality of love is one of the most beautiful parts of this movie without a doubt. The takeaway from Watchmen then is to be conscious of what parts of yourself you pay attention to and how that can manifest in our lives. Even further though, it presents a pretty scary look at the values and spiritual ethos of American society that seems kind of depressing at first but the ending itself with Rorschach's journal being found in the newspaper house ready to be published and spread the truth to the world leaves us with a message of hope that once the truth finally breaks through it can silence the lies and pave the way for a new dream. And with that, we'll see you next time. Toodles!