"They Live" Fight Scene

Fighting to "Save" Someone

I finally watched the movie “They Live.” I’ve seen the memes a million times. I understood the reference. I hope you do too, even if you’ve never seen it before.

By the way, have you seen the actual movie or are you aware of it through the memes only?

If you haven’t been spoiled through the memes, then you probably live under a rock. So sorry, if this somehow spoils it for you, but the glasses let the wearer see aliens pretending to be humans.

Now that that’s over, let’s get into why I bring this up.

The Fight Scene

I usually re-watch older shows and movies and don’t get to laugh as much because I usually know all the jokes when I watch stuff now. The newer movies, in general suck. I’ve written about why that is.

I don’t think I was supposed to laugh at this scene. If you’ve seen it, you can let me know if that’s normal. But I couldn’t stop from laughing at them.

He’s just trying to help this guy by getting him to put on the glasses right? He’s really viewing himself as a “savior” and his friend as a “victim” of ignorance.

If you had to ask yourself, what would be my take on this clip, you’d have to come to that conclusion, right? I wrote about “Truthers” who get too aggressive before as well.

It’s a movie. Of course, there is drama. But there is no way I would force my beliefs onto someone else in the way he does in that fight scene. He will not let it go. And I imagine people watching it really want him to win. They want him to force his views (glasses) onto someone else to “save” him. But, he does it by beating him up.

It reminds me of this quote I’m always sharing on Notes. So many times people think they’re “saving” others while actually harming them. You don’t want to walk around with a “savior mentality.” If you’re new to my Substack, please don’t confuse that with never helping people. I wrote to help people when they ask for help.

Notice that the friend in They Live does NOT want help and if you’ve seen the movie you can consider his outcome. Was it worth it for him to know? That’s up to you to decide.

So even if we were surrounded by aliens keeping us under a spell I wouldn’t force my views on others. I’ve learned that you cannot prove anything to anyone. Motivated Reasoning keeps us from changing people’s minds. In the movie, they are sunglasses that can change a perspective.

But if this was reality, not a movie, someone who didn’t want to know the truth would challenge the idea about the glasses and argue that someone was using augmented reality through the glasses to mess with what he saw. They will reach for any kind of excuse to not believe it (if they do not want to).

Motivated Reasoning Keeps Us From Changing Minds

So, no. I wouldn’t bother. And neither did Jesus, by the way. He only talked clearly to those who truly wanted help. He talked in parables when cornered by others or left the scene. It’s no use talking to people who don’t want to believe you. It’s a waste of energy that could be better spent with people who already agree with your perspective and want help or to help the cause.

They needed time after that fight to rest up. They were not at their best afterward either.

Edit: This was a good video discussion on how we don’t want to get too obsessed (such as the main character does in the movie), if you don’t mind being spoiled or have already seen the movie.

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