The Moral Visions of I Heart Huckabees

Mariana Lepecki

IB TOK—Hunt

Film Blog

20/10/2013

The Morals of I Heart Huckabees

Through many layers of philosophical disputes and inner conflicts as well as multiple instances of  outrageous images, the film I Heart Huckabees portrays an interesting, albeit quite confusing, moral vision.

At a cursory glance, you can find multiple moral issues (if you are using its colloquial definition that considers “moral” to be “the good choice” and “immoral” to be “the bad choice”). For example, the context of the story is the early 2000s in an suburban American town that holds a civilian dispute between the right to preserve forested areas (or, as it called in the movie, “open spaces”) and the right to cut them down so that a new department store unit (from the “Huckabees” chain) can be built on it. The fact that Albert (the protagonist) is the founder of the “Open Spaces Coalition” and is desperately trying to prevent Huckabees executives from approving this deforestation, and that Brad (the antagonist) is the shallow, greedy, business executive that doesn’t care about the environment and only thinks about his image, suggests that the film is denouncing corporate greed and is voicing out a plea to help save the environment.

Nevertheless, if you just stick with this fairly simple, almost stereotypical, ethical conflict in order to avoid a philosophical headache, you are neglecting the core of the movie itself. This environmental dispute is only the setting for a much more complex journey of self discovery that the majority of the characters in the story go through. That’s why you must shift from the colloquial definition of “moral” to the more philosophically appropriate one (that defines a “moral choice” as the decision between right and wrong) in order to comprehend the main moral vision of the work. Albert, though a vociferous “nature lover,” is deeply struggling to understand himself, getting caught up in silly coincidences (such as seeing the same “african man” three times in a row). This confusion is symbolically represented with the first shot of the movie, where an initial blurry setting is gradually phased out as Albert’s monologue begins: “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m doing the best that I can. I know that’s all I can ask of myself. Is that good enough? Is my work doing any good?” This blurry shot is quite significant, for it can represent an artistic decision to visually display Albert’s confusion towards his purpose and identity.

Albert then seeks two existentialist detectives, Bernard Jaffe and Vivian Jaffe, in hopes to find answers to his questions. It is there that they teach him about the concept of universal interconnectivity that states that we are all connected (or as Albert defined it: “everything is the same, even if it’s different”). Bernard then places Albert in a large zip bag and tells him to forget everything in hopes to find tranquility so that he can deconstruct himself. Ironically, the opposite happens, for Albert ends up thinking about his own frustrations and becomes even more confused, which shows how he’s having trouble understanding this existentialist theory.

He is then introduced to Tommy, his assigned “other,” a firefighter who passionately denounces the use of petroleum and who is also one of the Jaffe’s clients.  However, he has been inspired by the work of a darker existentialist philosopher, Catarine, that believes that we are not connected and that life is essentially meaningless because of the pain that it holds. This presents an interesting and underlying dispute in the film, for it displays the clash between two extreme existential philosophies due to their opposing definitions of human existence.

This clash is represented by Albert and Tommy’s choice to shift to the “darker side” and to follow Catherine’s theories. She teaches them about the serenity of “pure being,” that can be humorously achieved by hitting a ball on your head until you feel numb (which could reflect a possible critique of the film of those that do ridiculous things in order to undergo a “philosophical self discovery”). Nevertheless, they are also taught that it is inevitable that they will be drawn away from this pure state of being because human drama is inescapable and will always bring pain, showing how life is meaningless. So who is right? Are we all connected, or are we all disconnected? How do we choose between the spectrum that divides the “meaningful” from the “meaningless?”

In my opinion, the dénouement of the story provides a possible answer to this question, revealing one the film’s moral visions. It takes place when Catherine tells Albert to set Brad’s house on fire as revenge for stealing his job as the leader of his Coalition and for becoming a client of the Jaffes just to irritate the protagonist even further. Brad, seeing his house on fire, forcefully sees his identity deconstructed, for not only is the symbol of his material success destroyed, but he is also fired from Huckabees. This in turn leads Albert, who was watching Brad’s reaction to the fire, to suddenly realize the truth of his own existence. As he states: “[The fire] bond[ed] me to Brad in the insanity of pain until I saw that I’m Brad and he’s me,” which demonstrates how he has combined the two existentialist philosophies, for he understands the Jaffe’s concept of the connectivity, but also sees how the basis of this connection is Catherine’s idea of pain as the core of human existence.

The movie ends with Albert and Tommy synthesizing these ideas with the following dialogue:

Albert: Well the interconnection thing is definitely for real.

Tommy: It is! I didn’t think it was.

Albert: I can’t believe it, it’s so fantastic!

Tommy: But it’s also nothing special.

Albert: Yeah because it grows from the manure of human trouble. You see, the

detectives, they just wanted to gloss right over that. But in fact, no manure, no magic.

The final shot of the film once again ends blurredly, having the two characters gradually become out of focus as the detectives, who were watching them, conclude that their cases have been closed. This blurry shot, though parallel to the first one, doesn’t reflect confusion due to lack of understanding, but confusion in the sense that there is no definite philosophy that can explain human existence. Rather, our self-evident truths can be found subjectively by mixing different beliefs in order to better understand ourselves. As it can be noted with Albert and Tommy’s realization, there moral decision between philosophies that takes place during a “self discovery” (the distinction between what is a “good” or “correct” philosophy) can vary depending on each person. Ironically, the moral vision of the movie could be that there is no set moral code (at least not for every individual).

Does this mean that art should be moral? Well, looking at it from a utilitarian perspective, it shouldn’t present a definite moral code in order that would only please a select number of people that agree with such code. But if it presents an encompassing view on morality, like I Heart Huckabees does, it satisfies the “Greatest Happiness Principle,” for it provides the viewer with the power to decide where he stands in the existentialist spectrum (thus theoretically satisfying a greater amount of people).

But I recognize that it is fallacious for me to argue this, since I am basing my argument on one moral belief. If I take into consideration Kahn’s “Categorical Imperative,” for example, then this constructive view isn’t truly moral, for there needs to be a fixed moral code for everyone to follow. Thus, in order to answer this question, I decided to base my argument on the generally accepted premise that moral decisions are made in order to obtain “happiness,” as well as the humanitarian premise (evidenced through the existence of mirror neurons and the concept of Ubuntu that I mentioned in my last blog) that humans are made to co-exist, therefore suggesting that collective “happiness” prevails over individual “happiness.” This, in turn, demonstrates how art should not be moral, for it is impossible to satisfy all of the moral beliefs present in the group of viewers/expectators/readers of that art.