Groundhog Day: An Existential Treat for the New Year
As many people do, I’ve occasionally used January 1 as a time
to re-set, start over, and finally begin to live, in the words of Thoreau, “the
life I have imagined.” But as February approaches, and desks become
re-cluttered and gym attendance begins to wane, I’m realizing perhaps a month later
is a better fresh start date. Specifically, the second of February becomes my
target for rebirth, just like it was a quarter-century ago for a weatherman
named Phi Connors. Groundhog Day, which has become as well known for a subtly
ingenious romantic comedy starring Bill Murray as it has for the odd folk
practice of celebrating a weather-forecasting rodent, is another option for
mid-winter self-reflection and reinvention.
On the twentieth-anniversary of the quirky Harold Ramis-Danny
Rubin hit, it’s worth looking back at the film for all the existential wisdom
and advice it offers, especially in a year when people are increasingly divided
and confounded in their search for meaning and understanding amidst a world
gone somewhat crazy. In a year ripe for self-reflection and reinvention, Phil
Connor’s existential journey to a better self is a reminder of our ability to bring
meaning to our lives in world that often appears to be nothing short of absurd.
2018 seems like an apropos time for a shift toward existentialism,
what with divisive politics tearing at the fabric of society as a pop-culture
President toys with nuclear annihilation over whose button is bigger. It’s hard
to believe it’s been a quarter century since a pretentious, snide, and
self-absorbed weatherman named Phil Connors begrudgingly made his way to Punxsutawney,
Pennsylvania for the nation’s strange little tradition of waiting for an
over-sized gopher to predict the weather when seeing his shadow. The absurdity
of the tradition is matched in the film by the absurdity of Phil’s unique
dilemma, as he ends up stuck in small town Pennsylvania, reliving the same day
again and again. Groundhog’s Day itself is a bizarre little folk tradition, and
Phil’s monotonous waking up to an outdated and random but annoyingly catchy
tune – “I’ve Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher – matches the inane circumstances
that force Phil to re-evaluate everything he knows and does.
Obviously, the idea of living the same day over and over
again – especially while stuck in a small town you despise – could be seen as a
curse, and Phil certainly spends years believing that about his fate. But the
idea of reinvention and getting a second chance – or unlimited chances – for a
do-over to finally “get it right” is actually quite appealing. Phil’s initial
reaction to his bizarre predicament is predictably to use his newfound power to
indulge his basest fantasies. Given such freedom and power, who wouldn’t abuse
it? He truly indulges in life with a string of hilarious scenes of Phil smoking
indiscriminately, gulping coffee and pastries, manipulating women (“Nancy?
Nancy Taylor?”), and even robbing an armored car. Of course, ultimately the
freedom and power he truly achieves is freedom from and power over those
Neanderthal-like urges. For even unrestricted access to endless hedonism and
debauchery apparently becomes boring after a while.
Groundhog Day is truly a message film and the
existential theme is clear – you will awake tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
as the same you in the same situation for no clear reason. Everyone lives through
years, if not decades, in the same spot, doing the same job, with the same
people in an endless loop. And the only way that situation will change or mean
anything is if you change it, and you define the meaning. It’s never been a
truer example that, as Dr. Phil once told audiences, “you create your own
experience.” The issue of control in our lives is a central tenet to the
philosophy and the film – our world is a creation of our own making. Yet, in
many ways, the only thing we truly have control over is our choices, our
reactions, and our interpretation. The issue of judgment is also relevant for
Phil’s growth, for there is no correlation or causation between his actions and
his circumstance. Whether he’s good – helping the homeless man – or bad – robbing
the truck – his situation always remains the same. There is only one way out of
the prison of our own existence – and that’s to not see it as a prison.
Not entirely existential because the resolution of the film
seemingly rewards him for making “good choices,” there is a value judgment bias
in the film. At the beginning of the film Phil is narcissistic and egocentric,
and that’s the point. Everyone is. He begins the film as a TV personality who
declares “I make the weather.” Later, he shares a more melancholy realization
that he’s a deity – “Well, I’m a god, I’m not the God. I think.” It even takes
on a sweet innocence as he speculates, “Maybe God isn’t omnipotent. Maybe he’s
just been around soo long, he knows everything.” Phil appears to have achieved
immortality – but is that a blessing? He conquers death, but only because he
literally tries to die out of exhaustion and despair. He ultimately becomes
what Fitzgerald once called the “Platonic conception of himself,” or Jung just
called the fully realized individual and self. He becomes what he is meant to
be – the fully actualized self. The ideal.
The film has become more than just an entertaining rom-com,
as critics, writers, and teachers have used the story as an avenue into the
philosophy of existentialism. It first occurred to me about ten years ago while
teaching a class called Intro to College Literature, a standard unit of which
included Camus’ The Stranger, as well
as his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus.” Clearly, the existential premise has occurred
to numerous educators and writers, for this is no shortage of articles about
the existentialist brilliance of Groundhog
Day. The most obvious philosophical components of the film and story are
the absurdist nature of existence, the idea of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence,
and Camus imagining Sisyphus happy. Camus saw the story of Sisyphus as the
perfect metaphor for the human condition – stuck in a repetitive cycle which
would seem absurd to the outsider. When he “imagines Sisyphus happy,” he shifts
the paradigm from judgment and punishment to liberation and empowerment. Both
Sisyphus and Phil transition through the act of acceptance – accepting and
embracing their inescapable dilemma.
Once Phil accepts his fate, he is ironically freed from it.
Life in Punxsutawney is no longer a prison, but an opportunity. He learns to
play piano, becomes an expert ice sculptor, develops deep genuine knowledge of
the people around him, and appreciates the woman he loves for all her simple
goodness. The process takes time, and time is the one thing he has. One
enterprising film fan, Simon Gallagher, once calculated the number of days Phil
is stuck – 12,403, or approximately 33 years. That stretch of time is basically
the length of adulthood when people come into their own, finish their
education, develop careers, enter long term relationships, have kids, and look
toward retirement.
Unlike many redemption stories, there is no specific
antagonist nor any obvious guide or mentor figure leading Phil to peripeteia,
his moment of clarity. The movie never explains why Phil’s space-time continuum
glitch is, well, glitching. And it’s all the more satisfying that way. Phil’s
status and challenge is his and his alone to understand and resolve – as is the
case for all of us. If there seems to be nothing we can do about the state of
the world, perhaps the most logical choice, which is really the only choice we
ever had, is to turn back toward ourselves with a focus on making meaning of
the one thing we can, ourselves. Ultimately, the film deftly touches up 18th
century neo-classical ideas of “freedom” – not the ability to do whatever you
want, but to be free from ultimately unsatisfying and dead end of impulsiveness
and appeals to our primal nature.
Pieces of popular culture truly embed themselves in the
national consciousness at the moment they enter the lexicon. Danny Rubin’s screenplay
certainly did that, as “Groundhog Day” has become the catchphrase for
“monotony” and a drudgery-filled sense of repetitive daily life. Beyond that,
the movie has become a reliably entertaining bit of self-help for the
existentially thirsty who seek solace and understanding in the classic
redemption narrative that has captivated audiences since the time of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which Bill Murray
also explored in the Christmas classic Scrooged.
Ultimately, after all these years the weird little tale of Phil Connors remains
a refreshingly engaging romantic comedy that also happens to be an inspiring
primer on the wisdom of existentialism. Given one life to live with certain
parameters beyond our control, the best and only thing we can do is to make
that life exactly what we want it to be and imagine ourselves happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment