I finally saw the movie Pay It Forward on video tonight. Hollywood took a simple but powerful concept and made it work on film. You do something good for three people – not just leaving an extra 2% tip or dropping your McDonald’s change into the charity box at the drivethrough, but something that can change lives. The concept is that these people then give, or pay it forward, to three other people, and so on, and so on. Think of it as if God started an MLM pyramid scam, or what you might get if you crossed the Boy Scouts with Amway.
Such a beautifully simple plan, and Hollywood – the same Hollywood that brought us Highlander 2 and Dude, Who Stole My Script – showed us how it could work.
Movie spoiler coming up here, so go watch the movie and come back in a couple hours.
Okay, so let’s ignore the fact that the main character dies a terribly unfair death by stabbing at the end of the film – hey, I give Hollywood credit, I didn’t say they were the Pope. The Pay It Forward idea makes a lot of sense. There’s no big obstacle that would keep it from working. You don’t pay into the plan with $250 and then sucker in your friends. You don’t send chain letters threatening severe gastrointestinal distress (you didn’t get one of those?) if you break the chain. All you have to do is care – and maybe, just maybe miss an episode of Friends and go out and actually do something.
The irony that I’m getting at is the idea, however logical and pathetically simple it is to comprehend, would never work in real life. Why? Because in real life – our religious, ethical, Save the Whales real life – most people don’t measure up to the flickering man-made illusion of the movie. In real life we’re looking forward to another tub of popcorn and bottomless Coke waiting for Pay It Forward 2, the sequel.
We go to the movies for escapism and watch what we should be doing in real life – so we can go home and not worry about it.
Twisted.