Both The Day After Tomorrow and Children of Men (2006) illustrate similar visions of the new eco-hero. In both films, heroic roles are filled not by tragic pioneers or even bumbling comic heroes, but by fathers seeking to save their own children or children they adopt as their own from an environment that humanity has made toxic in multiple ways. In The Day After Tomorrow Jack Hall attempts not only to save the world from global warming but to save his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) from a flooded and frozen New York City library. In Children of Men, Theo Faron (Clive Owen) agrees to help an activist group transport Kee (Claire-Hope Ashite) and her soon-to-be-born child to a group of benevolent scientists on the coast, saving the only surviving baby in a dying world. In fact, in the film’s opening, crowds of people mourn the loss of the youngest living person, a teenager murdered by a fan.
This new breed of eco-hero fails to fit in categories of tragic or comic heroes as defined by either Aristotle or Joseph W. Meeker. Meeker expands Aristotle’s categories to include the natural world in his eco-critical approach to Classic literature. Meeker’s tragic heroes in the natural world are the ecological pioneers, “the loners of the natural world, the tragic heroes who sacrifice themselves in satisfaction of mysterious inner commands which they alone can hear” (“The Comic Mode” 161). His comic heroes build community. Meeker argues that once ecosystems mature, heroic solitary pioneers become not only unnecessary but also subordinate to the group. In a mature or climax ecosystem, “it is the community itself that really matters, and it is likely to be an extremely durable community so long as balance is maintained among its many elements” (Meeker “The Comic Mode” 163). Comic heroes emerge from these climax ecosystems.
Jack Hall and Theo Faron serve the community while maintaining solitary quests, however. In Children of Men, Theo transports Kee to a haven at sea to save her child and, ultimately, the world. But Theo chooses to act because his ex-wife, Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore), reminds him of the loving family life they shared when his own son lived. In Children of Men, both mother (Julian) and father (Theo) die during the undertaking, but our last glimpse of life in the movie shows us Kee and her baby floating in a boat while a ship in the distance comes closer to save her. The focus is local rather than global in this well-shot film, with long takes emphasizing the individualized perspective of the hero and his acts.
Yet neither of these heroes act like pioneers attempting to conquer an opponent, even if that opponent is the environment or an ecological disaster. They don’t fight against the disaster but against the forces that caused it. And they fight most intensely not for all those affected by the disaster—as do most eco-heroes—but only for sons, friends, and a helpless child. The new eco-hero is not a tragic pioneer, who sacrifices him or herself for a species. Nor is this hero a comic hero, who bumbles and succeeds only communally. This hero acts alone, but only at a local level, not seeking control of a landscape or species but seeking to save new and renewed relationships, just as Theo saves Kee. It is up to Kee to save the world.
@Heleninwords tells me: “Look at how it goes to us,” she said, I believe.
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