The Wrong Movie

Wanting to emulate a hero or heroine from a movie, a person will sometimes use a situation that superficially connects to a scene from that movie to try to play the part in real life.

The employee rewatches the movie and is taken by a heroic scene where an employee challenges the CEO openly in a news briefing.

Christians,

Sometimes, a person is drawn to a heroic scene from a movie, conversation, or book and they want to find a way to enact that scene as the hero/heroine.  Wanting to do that isn’t necessarily bad in itself and can even be a good thing, but it can also go far into the wrong direction.  That can happen in the following scenario.  When they see a situation that even seems similar to the movie, etc. on a superficial level, they’ll try to play the part of the hero/heroine for attention and emotional gratification—as if they are acting in a movie for fans on some level.  Without thinking too hard or carefully about whether or not the situation is the right match, they’ll also use another person or people as the unwilling actresses/actors in the scene they are acting out, which is where the behavior becomes very harmful.

For example, consider a CEO who is firing a team of people who were caught red-handed giving away valuable company secrets.  One employee on another team with the same company has a conversation with a few coworkers who relate this situation to a movie where a CEO fires a number of people for corporate greed to redirect the cash flow from the salaries of the fired workers into her own hands.  The employee rewatches the movie and is taken by a heroic scene where an employee challenges the CEO openly in a news briefing. 

Later on when the employee is invited to a real news briefing with the CEO, he gets up and accusingly questions the CEO about whether or not he was firing an entire team because he wanted their paychecks for himself.  All the cameras turn to him.  This terribly embarrasses the CEO, who actually hadn’t even considered someone might say that because it was so far removed from why he had done it.