Post by bladestarr on Feb 3, 2006 3:39:28 GMT -5
In regards to Nancy's review... *put's on his Professor hat*, as a former Philosophy major for 5 of my 6 years at college (I switched majors at the last possible minute), I'd like to clear up a few things about this movie. This mostly won't be about your review in particular Nancy, just the movie in general.
I Heart Huckabees is NOT about existentialism, your teacher was right about that. However, his/her definition of existentialism wasn't quite right either... or maybe it just needed to be worded differently. Existentialism is the line of thought which basically suggests that Life and The Universe have no INHERENT meaning, which they have no meaning in and of themselves. However Existentialism SUGGESTS that humans can make their own meaning, and that meaning, if it ever can really exist, can only come from within. It sounded like that's what your teacher was suggesting, I just didn't like the whole 'purposelessness' thing, because it really doesn't suggest that.
The philosophy which suggests that existence is inherently without meaning and that it is POINTLESS to try to make meaning out of it (true purposelessness) is called Nihilism. That is the philosophy that is suggested by Catherine Vaubun. She was basically suggesting that life is meaningless, and to give up trying to find meaning. The end result of this is that you live to enjoy life in your own way, and you don't need to value others because you are entirely focused on your own desires. This is why she acts so coldly to everyone. The hitting yourself in the face bit is just to point out that if life has no inherent meaning, than ANY type of sensory input should be milked for all that it's worth, including pain and head rushes.
The two "Existential Detectives" on the other hand are nothing of the sort. They are basically New Age gurus in business suits that have probably studied alot of Pantheism (the belief that God is everywhere or that all things are God) and ALOT of psychology. In fact, the majority of what they suggest to their clients are common tools of psychoanalysts. Basically taking someone's life apart, finding out what is making them miserable, and then showing them why and how to not care about these unneccessary stresses in their lives. So these supposed "Existential Detectives" are not philosophers or existentialists in the slightest, they are psychologists that use New Age terminology instead of 'shrink-speak'.
I thought the movie was kind of cute, and Naomi Watts never looked hotter, but their misuse of so much philosophical terminology just ticked me off so much that most of the movie I was too distracted to annoy.
Any questions? Heh
I Heart Huckabees is NOT about existentialism, your teacher was right about that. However, his/her definition of existentialism wasn't quite right either... or maybe it just needed to be worded differently. Existentialism is the line of thought which basically suggests that Life and The Universe have no INHERENT meaning, which they have no meaning in and of themselves. However Existentialism SUGGESTS that humans can make their own meaning, and that meaning, if it ever can really exist, can only come from within. It sounded like that's what your teacher was suggesting, I just didn't like the whole 'purposelessness' thing, because it really doesn't suggest that.
The philosophy which suggests that existence is inherently without meaning and that it is POINTLESS to try to make meaning out of it (true purposelessness) is called Nihilism. That is the philosophy that is suggested by Catherine Vaubun. She was basically suggesting that life is meaningless, and to give up trying to find meaning. The end result of this is that you live to enjoy life in your own way, and you don't need to value others because you are entirely focused on your own desires. This is why she acts so coldly to everyone. The hitting yourself in the face bit is just to point out that if life has no inherent meaning, than ANY type of sensory input should be milked for all that it's worth, including pain and head rushes.
The two "Existential Detectives" on the other hand are nothing of the sort. They are basically New Age gurus in business suits that have probably studied alot of Pantheism (the belief that God is everywhere or that all things are God) and ALOT of psychology. In fact, the majority of what they suggest to their clients are common tools of psychoanalysts. Basically taking someone's life apart, finding out what is making them miserable, and then showing them why and how to not care about these unneccessary stresses in their lives. So these supposed "Existential Detectives" are not philosophers or existentialists in the slightest, they are psychologists that use New Age terminology instead of 'shrink-speak'.
I thought the movie was kind of cute, and Naomi Watts never looked hotter, but their misuse of so much philosophical terminology just ticked me off so much that most of the movie I was too distracted to annoy.
Any questions? Heh
