The term archetype crops up a fair bit. It is a term that has found its way into common speech over the last 50 years and originates with the the Swiss Analytical Psychologist, Carl Jung who described it, mostly, as a functioning as a self portrait of an instinct. (CW8 Para 277) Further to this, he stated that they are in continuous dramatic flux (Man and His Symbols p.20) and that this flux is a dynamic process that maps over the environments we inhabit as persistently themed images – each of which is inseparable from the narratives they both operate in, and contain.

Looking to the Stars

One illustration of this contained in the accompanying video in the symbols of Mars and Venus and the themes each contains, and the principles that can arise as a result of their combination. In this regard archetypal images can operate as a sort of protolanguage. Used as an allegorical or metaphorical frame they can be layered over our experience of life as a means to analyse situations and make sense of the world.

Dangers can arise, as with the use of any symbol, when the image of the symbol itself is considered a quantity whose validity supersedes that of the subject or object it is representing.

Heros and Villians

Take Batman for example.

In the film Batman Begins (2005) The notion that Bruce Wayne could derive great power from adopting a symbol leads him to become Batman – which is interesting in terms of Bruce Waynes psychology for a start because the bat represented the greatest fear he had to overcome. He becomes his fear, he overcomes it and then he becomes it. He himself then becomes a symbol, a figure to be feared – if you are on the wrong side of the law. The very prospect of meeting the caped crusader is enough to instil fear into the hearts of all but the most persistent of Batman’s foes.

This is one level of the power of symbol.

At another we can look at what Batman becomes. At first we can imagine what he means to the citizens of Gotham City. For some he would be a role model.

The same is no less true of those who view the fiction as a work of fiction. Some will invest in the plot, some appreciate the artistry of the medium of film and the performance of the actor perhaps. Some will invest in the backdrop and design of the world he inhabits. After all who would Batman be without Gotham City? Some will invest in what Batman does, in what he represents, some will leave the cinema imagining themselves the hero of the story. Some perhaps the villain. Of those some will even invest in costumes and go to conventions, playing the part to the external world. Others will internalise the quality and live out various aspects of the fiction of Batman on the inside.

Who We Become

The value of story then, and the archetypal images they contain, are in the expression of the instinctual drives that underpin them. This can be through the resolution of challenge in the face of what appears to be insurmountable challenges, which often involves a component of personal development in the form of facing some limitation or fear. This is commonly referred to as the Heroes Journey. Or, the story can take us down other routes, to tragedy, or comedy. Each, at some level, inspiring or inciting an emotional response related to an instinctual drive.

Story, in this way, can inspire people to activate parts of themselves in ways that can cause them to live out fuller expressions of their potential. It is a form of hypnosis because it invites the audience to internally personalise the images of archetypal forces and processes contained int he story. In this way the activation of the archetypes and the images they inspire are internalised in a more personal way.

By feeling the issues, realised through the model of living the story provides, the audience has an opportunity to vicariously experience the challenges or issues in a way that is not physically threatening. They model the emotional responses and engage with the principle instincts behind them.

Pre Imagined Image

Cultures though out history have attempted to represent this archetypal images through art and sculpture too, fixing in a moment the elements of the archetypal image, often coded into the context and artefacts associated to them. Cinema allows a way of expressing these archetypal images in real time where a collective can all focus on the same representation. While this will inspire different emotional response across a range, the image is no longer a private one.

One of the dangers of this is that such images can get introjected. Because they are not constructed within us, because we can see them as moving image collectively and take them as ‘real’ the internal dynamic of them shifts. They can become a thing in their own right, and image that can get adopted and even emulated.

Where oral tradition invited the audience to construct the image in their imagination, cinema fires it like an arrow into the collective unconscious.

The Point Being

The point being, that when a person takes a symbol such as Batman, and then introjects the image – in other words projects it into themselves – their identification with that image can become something problematic.

The identification with an iconic image in this way is not in itself a negative thing in and of itself. To identify with a quality of strength or resilience or resolve – whatever that symbol is expressing – can be a good thing when it operates as a representation to be contrasted against our own individual expression. The issues arrises when the subject assumes the mantle of the character and imagines themselves in that role.

At one level there is a mechanistic analysis of cause and effect. At another, a processing of something beneath the surface. A complex arrangement of processes that are playing out in a way that attracts, that offers something to aspire to – at some level – often qualities that are associated with an enhanced capacity to survive and thriven the world in ways that are meaningful to the individual. Or where the story represents a process of overcoming challenges that echo, if only at a symbolic level, the challenges faced by the viewer.

The Play of Instinct

A healthy place to be then is to remember that you are not Batman. Even if you are Batman, maybe you could sider investing some of your billions into so sort of community outreach program, or start up loans to small businesses in order to reinvigorate local economy in the more impoverished areas of Gotham City? It’s been shown that the greatest ally in fighting crime is to reduce the economic disparity in communities. Maybe you could use your connections and expert engineers at Wayne Industries to redirect resources and imagination into creating solutions for say, I don’t know, water gathering and treatment for those parts of the world who have no fresh water too?

Just riffing with you Bruce, Just riffing.

Conclusion

It is not just the explicit expression of the archetypal image or the symbols that carry elements of them that we do well to filter before assuming any meaningful association to them, but also the implicit assumption of what evils might be culturally normalised. All too often it is these images that get fired off into the unconscious with out a second thought, and while we are focusing on cartoon villains the real evil continues to get away with murder.

Book A Consultation with Clive
Join The Creative Instinct Course
©Live Creative on social media:
Youtube | Facebook | Instagram