Does it seem like a stretch to try to relate yourself to a movie serial killer? Maybe, but then again maybe not. In any case it’s getting closer to Halloween this year and in vein of the thought of dressing up as whatever we want for a night, trying to connect ourselves to a man who does whatever or rather kills whomever he wants all the time might just be a fun exercise.
To begin try thinking of Michael Myers as a god on earth. We’re really starting off blasphemous with this blog. In all seriousness, according to the movies he stars in Michael appears to be utterly unstoppable against all odds. He is a moving shape, a figure that resembles a man that doesn’t speak, in fact makes no noise nearly at all times and also never detracts from his goals. He is an unbreakable force which eventually attains whatever he wants. What he wants just happens to involve mass murder.
What more could a person want in their lives then to be unhindered in progress toward their goals? If more people had half the tenacity and stick-to-itiveness for rushing towards their objectives which Michael possesses, a whole lot more would get done in life. Michael can be shown being bashed in the head or shot in one scene, violently put down, yet in the next few moments he’s back up again trying to kill. What a trooper and certainly a man we can learn something about perseverance from.
Understanding the significance of Michael’s mask is another important step to relating to him. He has to don his mask at all times. In his films, he’s never really shown with it off except as a child. We’re all especially vulnerable as children, just as Michael certainly was, yet as an adult he consciously chose to put on a white, expressionless latex mask which he would wear for all eternity. Just considering how much of a pain to breathe in that thing it must be since there’s no open airways but two small holes for his nostrils, there’s got to be a very good reason he never removes his mask.
Does he keep it on for anonymity? No, he came from a psych ward so his identity was known before he set off on his murderous rampage. Neither does he wear it for any sort of physical comfort as was already mentioned. Michael wears his mask for the same reason people put on a face every morning before they go out into the world, to be safer and put at an advantage. To one degree or another when we’re not alone or with anyone we are extremely close to, we wear a bit of a mask. It’s not always for fun nor might we even realize we are wearing one. Often only in hindsight do we realize that how we were acting in a given situation really didn’t reflect how we truly felt. So why did we act that way then?
We wear our masks for same reason Michael wears his. Over the years he’s become good at what he does. If wearing a mask helps him to kill by nearly scaring his victims to death before he reaches them, what reason would he have not to wear it? If putting on a bit of a faux mask ourselves aids us in appearing to be better at our jobs than we really are, a bit more attractive to a potential lover whom we wish to keep or a bit more confident in the face of peers and family then what reasonable excuse could anyone have to not wear their own made up mask? Michael’s is just external whereas ours may be harder to identify since they aren’t always perceivable.
His white mask aiding him, the killer from the Halloween franchise also never reveals any true emotion. Much further removed from showing emotion, the audience never even hears him speak. As far as the original film lore goes, as a child after killing his own sister with a kitchen knife Michael is shown in a sort of trance-like state. Here he doesn’t speak, sheds no tears and doesn’t appear to hold one shred of regret for his actions. Could any of these human traits actually be desirable to aspire to? In the right circumstances, certainly.
In a sports contest of any kind there is never a time where it is advantageous to show weakness. You have to be tough to be the best at your chosen sport, and even if you are not toughest you have to successfully convince your opponents that you are in order to win. In another scenario as an onlooker to a terrible accident where someone is injured, the best way to react is without hesitation and encouraging any victims that they are okay and that everything is going to be alright. That would require a great deal of self-removal from emotions like panic. Perhaps you might fall out of love with a significant other, or lose a good friend or family member and that relationship seems realistically impossible to fix. There will come a time in that case where your logic must overcome your emotions and you convince yourself to finally overcome that heartache.
Mr. Myers would be an excellent athlete, first responder (if he wasn’t always the one harming people) and be great at healing from relationship woes. Being a sociopath as he is, or in other words having complete disregard for others, would be helpful in all these situations. In any case luckily us normal people only have to learn to feign disregard for others after suffering through the turmoil of emotion it takes to get to that point.
Despite it being difficult to emulate him, this particularly infamous slasher on Halloween night from the hack and slash genre of movies is someone from whom everyone can learn something. Michael exudes the type of manly ‘I got this’ attitude that turns men green with jealousy and which the ladies flock to. If we only paid more attention to him than that portion we normally pay to someone who appears only to kill for our entertainment, we would have much to gain. A truly unbiased study on how to better relate to Mr. Myers ends up yielding not only tips on how to best filet a victim with a kitchen knife, but also on how to overall greatly improve oneself.
GojiraJaeger 