Ego-Ideal

Yes, Daniel finally has a concrete role-model.

Tonight, we re-saw (yes, re-saw - two trips to the cinema for this one) the movie "Twisted" - Disney's feminist post-Freudian re-telling of "Rapunzel." The hero, of sorts, was "Flynn Rider," a lost grown-up orphan who steals the princess's crown from the castle and is at large for most of the film. Of course, at the end, he redeems himself, causes Rapunzel to be returned to her rightful parents (the king and queen), marries her, and lives happily ever after with her, but none of this is the point. What's important is that he's a rogue criminal, wanted dead or alive, and travels in circles with even lower-life creatures than himself, whom we meet over the course of the movie. It's especially important because it was while we were discussing this earlier, completely unwholesome aspect of his career, after the movie, that Daniel volunteered:

"I kind of wish I could be that character - Flynn Rider."

Everyone should have a role model.

(January 22, 2011)

Follow-up:

Daniel was recounting one of Flynn Rider's moments of vice-ridden virtue later that night, and in the middle of it he said something like "-- what's her name again?" It turned out, although he remembered Flynn Rider's first and last names, he couldn't actually remember that of Rapunzel, the ostensible protagonist of the film...