If I Only Had a Heart

Iron Man is Marvel’s latest shot at scoring an all-important Summer blockbuster hit that laughs all the way to the bank. Let’s see now, does it have all the ingredients?

• Big explosions? Check.
• Super-powered hero? Uh-huh.
• Snappy dialogue? Yep.
• Moral dilemmas based on hidden origins? Tick.
• Bad guys who respond well to being thumped?  Of course.
• Good guy who turns out to be bad guy? Naturally.

However, clichés apart, this fantasy film does score surprisingly well as a ‘thinking’ entertainment for several reasons.

Firstly, it’s based much more on the original comic books than some other recent offerings. Modern ‘graphic novels’ often carry a great deal more moral complexity and psychological depth than is often assumed. At the start of the film, the millionaire protagonist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) proclaims his brutal philosophy as an arms manufacturer at the top of his game:

They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only need to fire once. That's how Dad did it, that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far.

Iron Man’s updated storyline features the contemporary conflict in Afghanistan rather than the Vietnam War of the original, but this works well due to the parallels between both these situations, and the (unmentioned) war in Iraq. The first part of the film is rooted only too realistically in a place where armed conflict oppresses the weak and benefits the rich and powerful. Later, with more than a hint of Nicolas Cage’s arms dealer in Lord of War, Stark finds himself trapped in the consequences of his profiteering. After being kidnapped from a sales demonstration in Afghanistan, he begins to see the true fruits of his trade, and is shocked into uttering new thoughts at a press conference:

Stark: I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero-accountability.
Reporter: Mr. Stark, what happened over there?
Stark: I had my eyes opened. I came to realize that I had more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries.

As he sees the fruits of his industry menacing both the soldiers of his own country and the lives of innocent villagers, he tries to make amends, but finds it all to be much more complicated since there are others who stand to profit from the conflict, as he himself had done. As techno-fantasies go, this one, thankfully, doesn’t proclaim any easy answers.

Secondly, this film scores because of some cracking dialogue:

Stark: My old man had a philosophy. Peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy.
Christine Everheart (Leslie Bibb): That's a great line, coming from a guy selling the sticks.
Stark: My father helped defeat Nazis. He worked on the Manhattan Project. A lot of people, including your professors at Brown, would call that being a hero.
Everheart: And a lot of people would also call that war-profiteering.

Stark: Why are you trying to hustle me out of here?
'Pepper' Potts (Gwynneth Paltrow): Your flight was scheduled to leave an hour and a half ago.
Stark: That's funny. I thought, with it being my plane and all, that it would just wait for me to get there. I mean, doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose of having your own plane if it departs before you arrive?

Thirdly, in the spirit of Wile E. Coyote, there are genuine laughs to be had at Stark’s painful attempts to create a working exo-suit that doesn’t send him smacking into walls and ceilings (were the legendary Acme ‘Earthquake pills’ sitting on a shelf, just off-camera?). ‘Dummy’, his robot helper, is especially keen to use a fire extinguisher whenever possible.

However, as in so many American superhero movies, there is a gaping hole in the moral scheme. For all his inventiveness, Stark cannot escape the truth that much of his world is built on an industry that profits from selling weapons, and that no invention in the world is going to change the hearts of those who engage in this sort of commerce. Tony Stark’s artificially supported heart is a bizarre symbol of the technology that has the capacity to both heal and destroy, but usually supports the latter. His new heart’s miniature reactor powers the exo-suit that grants him new super-powers, but what can this do, apart from create yet another super-soldier for new battles? The answer is never clear. Like other technologists, Stark’s answer to global threats is to simply create a bigger club with which to hit the other guy. For all his apparent moral turnabout, the ultimate arms manufacturer still trades in violence. His new sense of direction involves even more techno-porn as he creates shiny things with awesome power, and it’s not quite clear how the new Tony Stark is intending to make this new technology do a greater work than the old.

Iron Man brings back strange memories of another film with a metal man bemoaning his lack of compassion. In The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man tells Dorothy his dream about finally being complete as he sings that, if only he had a heart he would be emotional, tender and gentle, and able to engage with love and art. Finally, of course, the Tin Man is given a heart, but it wasn’t really needed. He had one anyway, and showed it in his care for Dorothy. Tony Stark is, in some ways, on a similar road as he experiences a moral crisis after facing the consequences of his profession. The Iron Man is the Tin Man’s shadow, showing no trace of real human emotion until his biological heart is irreparably damaged. Only then, as he grasps the scale of human frailty, does he perversely start valuing human life while his own heart is kept functioning by a machine.

The heart is a powerful metaphor. The root of our passions has traditionally been placed in that thumping internal organ which increases its beat as our feelings are roused. For millennia, poets have used images of the heart to illustrate passion and compassion. ‘Above all else,’ warns the author of the Book of Proverbs, ‘guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life’ (Proverbs 4.23, NIV). In a similar vein, Jesus said that, ‘A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart’ (Luke 6.45, NLT). The heart here is seen here as the emotional centre, the root of personality. Interestingly, a ‘good heart’ is viewed as something to yearn for, to cultivate. There is a recognition that our personalities are not fixed, that people can change if they choose, and that corruption and redemption are not purely environmental or genetic, but the results of a series of moral choices.  In the same way that we are told now to ‘look after our hearts’ through taking appropriate diet and exercise, the ancients urged us to look after the source of our passions and our sense of compassion.

But what if that metaphorical heart is damaged, wounded by circumstances, broken by abuse? How can we learn to feel rightly again? One of the ancient prophets proclaimed a promise from God to his people: ‘I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart’ (Ezekiel 11.19, NLT).   There are many promises of a new heart and a new spirit in the Bible, waiting for those who realise their weakness and turn back to God. As an acid test of our own humanity, Jesus declared that, ‘Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be’ (Luke 12.34, NLT).

Both the Tin Man and the Iron Man know their inner weaknesses, and consciously search for an answer. Do we?

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