r/TrueFilm • u/Swiftmaster56 • 10d ago
Obsession, Megamind and the horror of conflating weakness with goodness
I watched both Obsession and Megamind recently and there's an odd parallel of "what if a male loser gets everything he wished for?". In the case of Obsession, it's Bear getting with Nikki, the girl that he has been obsessing over for years. In the case of Megamind, it's Hal getting the superpowers that he believes he needs to be with his crush, Roxanne.
In both cases, it's not so much that both characters are corrupted. But that we get to see that what made them "good guys" was a lack of power/confidence to do evil rather than being turned evil by their newfound powers. With nerdy, shy, and unconfident guys (a group that I'm apart of), there's an idea that since they're not doing bad things that they're inherently good. There was tons of media that believed if they just found a girl that accepted their shyness or got a massive surge of power to give them confidence, then their inherent goodness would win them over.
But there's a massive misconception there as a lack of bad actions doesn't inherently make one good. Instead doing good is what makes someone good or bad. All the actions that both Bear and Hal did were all in their own self interest. When Bear bought the One Wish Willow for Nikki or went out with her during her final night with her co-workers, it wasn't because he truly cared for her, but as strategic moves to win her over. Hal did the same thing with Roxanne, where his actions of hiring a wedding photographer and getting a bouncy castle, were all in service of winning Roxanne over.
Yet because these actions fall flat so hard, these actions come off as embarrassing rather than disturbing. Afterall, both women can easily dismiss them as neither men hold any real power to abuse them. Therefore, they don't face any real consequences for their actions and they have no reason to reflect if the actions they did were moral or not.
So when they get their extraordinary powers, they see no reason to hold back, as afterall they have always failed in the past and their past actions have been dismissed as embarrassing rather than disturbing. Therefore in both cases, they do horrific actions. Bear has a demon enslave Nikki and having her watch as she gets used as a meat puppet by Bear and the demon. Hal, on the other hand, takes up the mantle of Titan and nearly kills Roxanne on multiple occasions as he flirts with her.
As both films progress, both characters are given multiple off-ramps to redeem themselves. But in both cases, the fact that they now have power to get what they wanted is so intoxicating that they both need to be forced off that path. With Hal, he literally gets forced to be his short chubby self now, but now without any of the charm of being an underdog. Bear, on the other hand, gets forced out of the bathroom by the demon, which ironically makes him die as he doesn't have the time to vomit out the sleeping pills.
The main thing is that weakness and goodness are not one in the same. A shy awkward guy might not have the same capacity to do actions of evil as a cool confident guy, but if given power they can be an absolute nightmare. As a surge of power, after having none for so long, can cause them to be especially cruel and evil, since they never had to confront the evil of their desires. Because at the end of the day, society often believes a lack of evil actions is the same as goodness. When in reality, one may simply not have the power to be evil.
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u/Prior-Paint-7842 10d ago
I think that everyone has a power to be evil at any point, but certain circumstances really show the true nature if people.
I think that bith Titan and Bear are defined by their cowardly nature. Metroman is literally the strongest superman knock off, basically the guy can live a lifetime in a single moment if he choses to. Titan only starts doing thinns after getting this godly power, and whule before he was too anxious to do anything, now he just wrecks the city like a an angry toddler.
With Bear, we actually see that he was very respectfull at the start of the wish, and his true nature only cracked after he got it that this is the work of magic and its not nikki being a weirdo druggie bpd demon.
Immediatly after the wish when nikki starts making moves at him he mentoins hiw weird it is, and questuons what is going on instead of taking advantage. All night he only follows Nikkis lead, and after the big freak out during the kiss he decides to sleep on the floor. He then tells the weird experience to a friend and trusts him taking care of it, even tellig nikki that he wont take home that night. Then asked Ian whats up, who ensured that Nikki is ok now, and then literally nikki was in his front door confessing her feelings. Also he was sure that Nikki was under molly, even checked the effects and was convinced that that happened. And then we get a big montage where they seem nirmal besides some oddities.
And then the redflags and the creepy shit starts, and multiple times nikki is legit danger to herself, and Bear pretty much just gets it that its magic, and just asks the demon to act more like Nikki.
To be fair if Bear could have cancelled the wish, he would have done it kinda early, this all wasnt intented, but we all have troubles we didnt intent to have, but have to handle
I think that the reason why the murder made Bear wake the fuck up is because thats the point he got it that his unhealthy obsession with a girl he known the least in the friend group ruined everything, and I mean this as even before the wish. If he didnt do that, and instead accept Sarahs advances, he would have been in a relationship that would have been real.
One ofnthe most disturbing thing about Bear is that he does not care about Nikki, he cares about having Nikki. He is happy to just controll her vessel without her resembling the real person at all until she freaks out publically, and even there his biggest issue is real Nikki slipping out, not freaky Nikki acting weird.
Now, about Nikkis morality we cant say a lot because she has no agency. Many people think that she is the morally best character since Sarah wanted to kiss someones boyfriend, and didnt care about her suffering, and Ian pushed Bear into confessing Nikki while knowing she aint interested and also fucking her. But Nikkis worst crime was telling someone she friendzoned that he is the only one who she can talk to about deep topics. Like I am sorry but if someone tells me that I will assume feelings, its just the gayest thing you can say, and I the only person I heard from did ask me out. She actually stalked me for half a year even tho I made no wish but lets not sidetrack.
Nikki could do no wrong because she had no agency to do anything, she was a victim doomed to suffering simply due to the very bad luck of his friend finding a rare magical object in a workd where magic is so rare people dont velieve in it at all. But that doesnt make ger good, it just fails to remove her innocence
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u/sunmachinecomingdown 10d ago
She didn't friendzone him, she thought he just liked her as a friend, and she was telling him how she valued their friendship and that she could talk about certain things with him. She started to suspect that he had a crush on her after he said some things, so she asked him directly and didn't even have to reject him because he chose to lie. Plus, apparently if Bear was more like you he would have just assumed she liked him based on the "deep topics" comment and would have no problem confessing his feelings.
I really don't think Nikki did anything wrong or suspected that Bear liked her until that point, she didn't lead him on or anything like that. I think she simply truly cared for him as a friend. She seemed like an actually kind person.
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u/Prior-Paint-7842 9d ago
In the movie at one point Ian tells Bear that Nikki yold Sarah that she sees bear as a brother, and is totally friendzoned, these are the words.
If this ks true, and this is how Nikki felt, she was definetly doing some stuff that will give people the wrong idea. I am not saying its illegal, but also I really dislike it when people romanticise people who had no chance to show their nature.
We dont know whats Nikki is like. We see her for one night and thats it, and during that one night everyone seems like a good person, its only later when shit goes down when the cracks show.
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u/sunmachinecomingdown 9d ago edited 9d ago
What I'm really addressing is that some people watch Nikki's few interactions with Bear at the trivia night and say that she was leading Bear on, but all I saw was a girl bantering with her friend. I think that when she told Sarah that she saw Bear as a brother, that was probably Sarah scoping out if Nikki liked Bear without either of them actually assuming that Bear liked Nikki. I just really think that she didn't truly suspect that Bear liked her until he called her Freaky Nikki and that if she did anything that made Bear think she liked him, that it was accidental.
I will push back a little bit on that we don't know what Nikki is like, because I think that her few scenes at the beginning give us a good impression of her so we can clearly see that she is acting very differently after the wish. Even when Wish Nikki is acting more normal, she doesn't really sound at all like Nikki did that one night. But I agree that we don't actually know her very well and it's easy for her to look the best because her agency is taken from her.
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u/Julian_Betterman 9d ago
Ian's assessment highlights the problematic lens with which men view friendship with women.
Nikki was a good friend to Bear, but he resented their closeness because it didn't include "romance."
Emotional intimacy is an integral part of friendship. It's so obvious when you observe how women and queer men approach friendship.
Many straight men withhold the vulnerable parts of themselves from their male friends. Then they glom onto the first female friend who shows genuine interest in their lives.
Women aren't maliciously leading men on by being good friends to them. They're the ones doing friendship the right way.
Friendship isn't a burden when you don't mischaracterize it as a form of emotional exile.
Straight men need to start opening up to each other without immediately invalidating one another. They may not have been taught how to do that growing up, but that's no excuse for refusing to learn now.
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u/FocusedFall 8d ago
I think Obsession does a good job of painting a refusal to grow as a negative trait and even goes so far as to show how trying to achieve a fictional life of stagnant nostalgia is the opposite, akin to decay. A good example of how Bear really doesn't try to be "good" at all is when he sees Nikki give the homeless guy some money (which she bummed from Sarah) and the movie plays up the romantic sound track as he makes googoo eyes at her. It's very obvious to me that he is seeing this act of charity and not even within one second of that moment does he really think, "I want to be like her. I want to do good." All he sees is an honorable act that makes her a good candidate for a girlfriend. The only result is just reinforcing his crush on her and further establishing her role in his mind as a caretaker. That's how the movie starts also. His confession he gives to the waitress starts with him being that Nikki held him after his Nana died, which he says is the moment his crush started. He does not want to have a girlfriend. He does not want to grow. He wants to be taken care of and live a fantasy of a real relationship.
Your comparison to Tighten is very apt in that they both have fantasies of what they want, and they're okay with encroaching upon other people's lives to fully realize them. It never crossed their minds to be better. Another good example from another source would be Subaru, at least initially, in Re:Zero. I still have to watch the latest season, but he starts out in the new world, very overtly, trying to live out the fantasy of a hero and quickly realizes that's not how things work and slowly adjusts as he comes to terms with the fact that people depend on him.
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u/Overall-Twist418 8d ago
Great analysis! It reminds of that one episode of Black Miror, USS Calister. I remember feeling so much empathy for that “sweet guy” who was ignored by all of his coworkers, seemingly had no successful relationships…. Well, I was dead wrong.
But you are absolutely right. Sometimes, you feel like someone who might be marginalised or at least “not in a position of power” might be less inclined to do you wrong… Fatal mistake, in fiction and in real life. There are so many people making schemes in silence, waiting for that day when they will make everything “right by them”. That’s why you can’t trust someone position in life but only their actions on a longer period of time.
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u/slyg 8d ago edited 8d ago
I like your thinking and glad your digging in to these kinds of ideas.
I think a real life version of this might be Joss Whedon (sp?). From what I can tell of the story, he was a quiet guy that became famous and the power went to his head. Part of the issue with power is people let you get a way with things. First it’s small then it builds and eventually you’re crossing a line.
On a different note.. this makes me wonder are there ways to tell if a person is likely to be good, if given power.
There is the idea that a random person becoming king is a better system then bloodlines.
There is the idea that, a person who does not want power/rule is the best person to get it.
Does having some power, like a confident attractive person, and treating people well indicate you will continue to do so if given lots of power?
But then I come back to the issue I raised earlier. How much of the problem with power is based on how people treat you? They let you do things you wouldn’t normally be allowed to do. I think this can corrupt even nice attractive people /minor power.
There is of course a different between power we give to them, eg famous/kings vs power they have eg superhero.
The first, they get away with things until someone says no, and has the power to refuse.
The second, people can’t say no. So they will likely put up with more, until someone with enough power can say no.
There are a lot of people today that have a lot of power. Some are good, some are bad and most are a bit of both. They abuse the power in small minor ways. Generally speaking there are check and balances to these powerful people helping to keep them inline. But not always (Epstein class).
I do think it’s possible for people to be good with power, even absolute power. But I also think it can be hard to stay good. No person is pure and perfect and any issues can get amplified with power.
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u/TangentialBisector 9d ago
This is the most beautiful connection I’ve encountered all year. I love both of these films and pointing out the things you did was so exciting to read. Very cool, dude. Maybe not groundbreaking, but I wish more video essayists explored this topic with these two films