The Iron Giant: You Are Who You Choose To Be
Xenophobia, free will, death & loss, war & violence. Brad Bird’s animated classic proves children’s movies don’t have to pander
What if a gun had a soul? What if a gun didn’t want to kill? What if a weapon of mass destruction resisted the one thing it was designed to do? These are the questions Brad Bird posed in The Iron Giant (1999), and 25 years later after its release, the animated classic is more relevant than ever. It’s an intense movie with serious themes for a child, and yet it delivers its message with such poignant candor that kids can understand it and adults can resonate with it. The Iron Giant is about identity at its core, about choosing who you want to be, but it’s also about violence, mortality, xenophobia, and friendship.
Set during the Cold War, The Iron Giant opens with a shot of recently-launched Sputnik, and wastes no time establishing the paranoia and American exceptionalism prevalent at the time. During a storm, a fisherman off the coast happens upon the giant, fresh off falling from the sky, and instantly begins boasting about it to the townspeople of Rockwell, Maine, at the local diner. Rumors begin swirling, soon followed by fear when farmers discover massive bites of tractors, cars, silos, and other metal objects. The protagonist Hogarth’s classmates speculate that the Giant was “probably sent by foreign enemies to take over the country” and they should “bomb it to smithereens before it does.”
“...a FOREIGN satellite, Hogarth, and all that that implies ... we don’t know what it is or what it can do. I don’t feel safe, Hogarth. Do you?”
Hogarth is different, though, because he’s already had a run-in with the Giant and recongizes his good nature. Exploring the woods after discovering his missing TV antenna, Hogarth sees the Iron Giant electrocute himself while trying to feed off the metal in a powerplant. Sympathizing for the Giant, he saves him by shutting the plant off, sparking (no pun intended) a friendship that becomes the heart of the film.
Hogarth teaches the Giant about life, death, empathy, and morality, but recongizes the need to keep him hidden, as people will only see a massive metal monster. The electrocution incident proves crucial, as it rewired his instincts and buried the Giant’s violent purpose deep within, allowing him to grow and learn with Hogarth’s help. We see the Giant’s destructive design during a harrowing dream sequence which indicates that there are hundreds or more of its kind used to conquer planets.
Hogarth protects the Giant from suspicious eyes of the townspeople, but Government agent Kent Mansley—the antagonist of the film and a human embodiment of the paranoia and suspicion of the Cold War era—begins a relentless hunt for the Iron Giant, at one point yelling, “the Russians, the Chinese, the Martians, Canadians, I don’t care! All I know is we didn’t builld it, and that’s reason enough to assume the worst and blow it to kingdom come.”
The xenophobia of the towspeople and Mansley certainly resonates today in the way (some) white Americans treat “the other”, be it Muslims, immigrants, ‘enemy’ nations, or people of different races, religions, or political beliefs within the country. The way the town of Rockwell reacts to the Iron Giant mirrors the way America acts when it sees something it doesn’t understand—with fear and suspicion. The Iron Giant teaches us to focus on our common humanity rather than anything that may divide us, a lesson we would do well to learn in the age of inflammatory social media algortihms and political extremism.
SPOILER SECTION
A turning point for the Iron Giant comes when Hogarth points a toy gun at him, which activates the suppressed defense mechanism, turning his eyes a sinister red and shooting a laser beam towards Hogarth, nearly killing him. The Giant runs away, terrified and confused by his actions, but ends up close to town where he sees two boys dangling from a ledge, about to fall. The Giant’s inner goodness becomes clear to the townspeople as he saves the boys from their fall, but at this moment Kent Mansley and the US Army rear their ugly heads and launch all their firepower at him. This again triggers the Giant’s destructive instinct, and he begins to obliterate the Army, whose firepower doesn’t so much as dent his metal armor.
It is Hogarth who halts the Giant’s destruction, reminding him that “you are who you choose to be.” But immediately after the Giant returns to its docile resting state, good ole Kent Mansley overrides his commanding general and orders an atomic strike on the Giant. Knowing that everyone is about to die, the Iron Giant completes his heroic character arc as he launches himself into the sky to intercept the atom bomb. In a scene that will leave even the most stoic misty-eyed, the Giant ultimately sacrifices himself to save lives, rejecting the death and destruction inherent in his purpose, choosing instead to be “Superman”.
END SPOILERS
“I think people connect to the idea that we all have dark and light sides within ourselves and that our lives are defined by which side we act on. We all have the power to affect those around us and that can be either a destructive or an uplifting thing.”
I love the Iron Giant, and it goes far beyond nostalgia. You are who you choose to be.
It’s not about choosing your career or lifepath, many do not have choice in that matter. But it’s about choosing the type of person you want to be. Do you want to be kind and empathetic towards those that are different from you? Or do you want to judge them, to insult their intelligence, to blame the world’s problems on those types of people.
The Iron Giant delivers a message so simple that a child can understand it, yet so universal and timeless that an adult can resonate with it. In an interview with Apple, Brad Bird was asked about the line, “You are who you choose to be,” and how it differs from “Be yourself,” and he said: “You don’t know who yourself is, though.” Choosing who to be, rather than just being yourself, is a more tangible and resonant message.
In this way, Brad Bird made a timeless film about identity. Finding your identity and molding yourself into who you want to be. That doesn’t mean trying to be someone you’re not, which is where things get nebulous. But rather, it’s about finding the underlying goodness in oneself and amplifying it. It’s about finding the light in the darkest of times, never compromising on one’s morals. Easier said than done, and identity isn’t just something that falls into your lap. My posts on Spirited Away and A Remarkable New Identity go deep into the topics of identity, so I won’t belabor the point. But it seems that every great film I’ve watched or book I’ve read lately has dealt with it identity some form.
I watched an excellent video from Cinema Therapy (right), where a licensed therapist and movie lover relate The Iron Giant to how humans can defy expectations and override the trauma they’ve experienced.
“What he does when he perceives a threat, when he sees other weapons is he becomes a weapon. Hogarth shakes him out of it. Connection to something beautiful (Hogarth’s friendship) that overrides his programming and shakes him out of it.
“Maybe you’ve been traumatized so you turn into someone who traumatizes others, or you feel weak and powerless. Maybe you’ve made choices in the past that you deeply regret, and feel shame or guilt over … Today represents a clean start.”
“ I think that more often you should be trying to appeal to the child in everyone and get to that feeling of wonder and excitement that you have when you’re a child. But if you live right, you can keep that part of yourself alive and well until you die.”
