Alter Ego - Revisted

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I wrote a post on January 24, 2022:  Alter Ego.  I don’t really have an alter ego or so I believe.  But there are archetypes that I definitely am intrigued with a desired or aspirational alter egos.  In that 2022 post, I related to two fictional action/adventure heroes that I would have love to be my primary or alter ego.  It was Jason Bourne of the Robert Ludlam’s series action/adventure novels and Jack Reacher of the Lee Child novels.

I read the Jason Bourne books well before the movies, starring Matt Damon, were produced.  It is the Jason Bourne of my mind that I wished I could be.  As for Jack Reacher, I saw the Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher movies before reading any of Child’s novels.  Cruise was the role model for the Reacher alter ego.  I have enjoyed the Amazon Prime Reacher series starring Alan Ritchson.  I really enjoyed this new series and look forward to more on Amazon Prime.  While Ritchson probably fits the Child character more than Tom Cruise, the Ritchson Reacher does not really resonate as an alter ego I aspire too.

I love the James Bond movies; it almost doesn’t matter who is playing 007.  I love the Errol Flynn swashbucklers, Captain Blood and Sea Hawk, as well.  The same goes for Bruce Willis in action hero movies.  Yet, I have never fancied James Bond, the seafaring Flynn characters, or the Die Hard Willis characters as potential alter egos.  I can only sum it up as a matter of style and taste.

Style and taste do change and evolve. 

Dial forward to this week and based on a few movies I have recently seen; I have two archetypes I am favoring as my preferred alter egos.  The movies?  The Bee Keeper and Shall We Dance. 

I have always liked Jason Statham.  I love his character, Adam Clay, in The Beekeeper.  He is a retired operative in a super-secret unit called Beekeepers.  Their mission is to make things right quickly and efficiency especially where law enforcement seemingly helpless.  His resourcefulness and combat skills were off the charts.  In retirement, he was a loner and, true to his former group, actually kept bees.   He came out of retirement when his only friend, his landlady, took her own life after being bilked out of her life savings in a cyber scam.  He set out to right this wrong… and no one could stop him which is a trait I love.  I would say that all of the Statham good guy roles were quite appealing from an alter ego standpoint.

The star of Shall We Dance is Richard Gere.  Again, I liked most of his movies, but I like him more in his later movies which is much more suave and way less cocky than his earlier roles.  Gere was cool and vulnerable in this role. 

I just watched another movie, Lifeguard (1978), starring Sam Elliot.  Talk about another cool character.  While he was lifeguard in this movie, he has made a career out the a cowboy sage and aging has only enhanced that image with a patina greying hair and mustache.

Of course, these film characters are perfectly scripted to be everything they are.  The scripted character comes to life, larger than life, when melded with the perfect actor for the role.  When done well, they create crazes in style, fashion, and behavior.

So, what kind of aspirational alter ego intrigues me?  It is pretty clear from the films and characters expounded on thus far:  handsome, dashing, fit, cool, and with the ability to sniff out international conspiracies and the martial skills defeat the conspiracy just as the implementation starts.  This may well be the adult version of a young fellow’s aspiration to be a cowboy or an astronaut.  Maybe it is good never to let such aspirations go but rather let them evolve and morph into the motivation that drives us in our adult lives and goals.  This seems like a sane, sober, and less glamorous approach.

There are those, and I know a few, that simply aspire to their own version of this kind of fantasy their entire lives.  Some of them are, as far as I can surmise, amongst the happiest people I know.