Rebels with a Cause

Throughout the film Easy Rider we were subjected to a barrage of the 1960’s counterculture lifestyle. The movie gave us insight as to how those championing the counterculture lived, as well as some of the values that they embraced during that era. More importantly though the film described the idea of rebellion. Rebellion is very significant throughout history. Many times the development of new nations are due to rebellion. Our existence as the United States of America is due to our rebellion. However, the film also showed the hate and discrimination that spawns because of rebellion in order to suppress what has come to rise against the accepted lifestyle of the moment.

One of my favorite movies that has to do with rebellion is 300. Although at first it doesn’t so much seem to be a movie about rebellion as much as a movie about conquer. The Spartans are standing against Xerxes and the Persians in order to secure their way of life, as opposed to becoming assimilated into the Persian culture as so many other groups of the time had accepted. They choose to rebel and not let their lives become controlled in spite of a magnitude of difference between their own militia of 300 Spartan warriors, as compared to a Persian army composed of well over 100,000 warriors. They demonstrated a defiance and attitude that had yet to be encountered by the others the Persians had set out to destroy. The resilience is significant because it ultimately led to a much larger army than the original 300 Spartan warriors who initiated the downfall of the Persians. By acting as a beacon to guide and magnify the intensity of their struggle the Spartans convinced others that the price of their freedom was far greater than the price of death. No matter what the cost the Spartans would not live a caged life, and it is apparent throughout the movie that with the right motivation a small group can become a large majority.

Another movie that involves a far different type of rebellion is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. This is definitely the more common type of rebellion. The high school cool guy decides to skip a day of school, and from there all hell breaks lose. However, at the end of the day everything turns out just fine. The reason Ferris is cool is because he embodies an emotion that every person has encountered at one point or another during their life. It is just inevitable that school will not always be your top priority or your favorite thing to do. Consequently, every person identifies and roots for the kid who defies the natural boundaries put forward by our daily lives in order to be free for a day, even though it’s only something as insignificant as skipping class. Although this type of cool is far less substantial than the previous example of cool because it lacks meaning and purpose, it is still significant because it’s the same sort of “damn the man” attitude just enacted on a much smaller scale.