The 2011 indie hit film Sucker Punch first came to my attention 3 years after its release. It came highly recommended by an aspiring actress of mine. The synopsis of the film was enough to keep me intrigued to check it out. The cast wasn’t anything to laugh at either. Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Abbie Cornish, Oscar Issac, and Jon Hamm. If you’re not familiar with the overall gist of the film, the title may confuse you. The film basically follows Babydoll (Emily Browning), suffering abuse from her stepfather, as she attempts to use her creativity and imagination to escape a mental institution. Despite its very low Rotten Tomatoes rating (currently sitting at 33%), the film left viewers with a meaningful question. At the end of the day, even in death, are we ever truly free?
The short answer? No. For the long answer, it’s more complicated than that. All day long we are drawn into battles within ourselves in an attempt to break free. Based on your own environment, finding peace of mind is easier said than done.
As humans, we are endlessly trapped in the vicious cycles of what may be considered essential to survival. We are a slave to social media. The age of social media has deluded our very psyche and forced us to turn a blind eye to all around us. Instead of the art, we gauge our online persona with little indicators of our place on the social ladder. Thanks to our vast hunger for connection and collective understanding, we may have fallen into a rabbit hole even Alice couldn’t escape. Absolute freedom can’t be achieved in our current climate with so many depending on the glam of social media.
The constant watchful eye of big brother brings another powerful dynamic in our quest for absolute freedom. It was foretold in dystopian books like 1984 how damaging the government can be. On the backs of their citizens, governments wage war in the pursuit of greed cloaked in the form of patriotism and world peace. With big brother still in play, we can never be completely free. In the physical sense, big brother controls and tracks too much of what we do. The outside and online world aren’t the only barriers humans face when seeking absolute freedom.
The human mind is most of the most complex things in the world. Our emotions, thoughts, and methods will continue to play heavily in our life. We are, by nature, an expressive race. How we view the world around us and interact with it speaks to our soul. For us to achieve everlasting absolute, we would have to cast out the one thing that makes us human. There will always be humans who will seek to control. Some will reach out to the void of their mind as a way to cope. It’s only over time do we see the truth that many fear. Only by becoming less human can we truly find absolute freedom.
