Bobby

Last night I watched the movie by Emilio Estevez (Emeeeeeeeeeeeelioooooooo!) "Bobby". It is about the days leading up to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

It is important to note that this movie is *not* about John F. Kennedy. Nope, this is about his little brother.

So I didn't really know anything about lil' bro until I watched this movie, but I must say, he is a captivating personality. My friend F told me that while the Republicans point to Reagan as the ultimate representation of the conservative mindset in action, Robert was the embodiment of the Democratic or liberal persuasion.

The movie was really well done, in my opinion. It was somewhat in the vein of Crash, with seemingly unrelated parallel story lines all converging (I know parallel lines can't converge) in the final scene.

While the movie was well done, or maybe because, it really messed me up. I don't know what it is about movies like this, where there is such a charismatic personality, or not even that positive - a personality that is empathetic but flawed, who is trying to do good and is stopped by palpable forces of hatred, but I just get all worked up.

It was the same thing with American History X. I see this hate, this hate that we (I am extrapolating here) can put in the back of our minds or let our eyes hop over in real life, and the hate like slaps me in the face and then goes on to kill all of the good and noble and beautiful things in the movie. Like when that kid got his brains blown across the bathroom wall in AHX. I mean what was that for anyway? What did that accomplish? It was over nothing, proved nothing, and the kid had made this huge turn and had so much potential.

That is what I saw and heard in Bobby. I saw this man, who in 1968, embodied so much that was good and right and beautiful about the civil rights movement, and yet had the backing of the powerful (whites). He had reconciliation on the mind in a way that strikes me as more progressive than many that are on the front lines of civil rights today.

It made me so angry that he was killed.

It made me so angry that we are still fighting the same kind of hate and division that existed in 1968.

I really liked Lawrence Fishburne's line in the movie though. He is talking about these two Mexican immigrants, one who is riddled with hate, who bemoans the unfair treatment, and says "No one is going to look at you and say I want some of what he's got" and then the other who is humble and good natured but yearns for fullness, saying, "You sir are a King. King Arthur was not always a king. But he had nobility. You sir are the Once and future king."

Who will I be?

Who will you be?

Who will we be?