You have heard someone say these words before: “rebel without a cause.” You know it pertains to something in entertainment, and you guess it means some anti-authority behaviors expressed for reasons that are unclear. Right?
I mean some of you know more than that, it just depends on…well lots of things that do not matter to me or anyone reading.
The film by this name starred the young, handsome, and petulant James Dean as a disgruntled youth. I watched some of the movie and am still not certain why Dean’s character was so angry. But this is the beauty of the 1950s as a symbol, in one of its many permutations, that has captured the hearts and fashions of multiple generations. Even now, the 1950s might spark the mental picture of Dean, Marlon Brando, or someone else hip and brooding.
You need to understand that television was once my only outlet to anything beyond my imagination. Growing up, one mostly accepts what permeates his small world, and that culture and those beliefs are supplied almost entirely by parents and other respected elders.
I enjoyed lots of things on television for reasons unknown at the time. It was those words, “rebel without a cause,” that I obviously recall even until the present day. Why? I think they are important to you, and me, and I want to explore the idea of rebellion in the following sentences and paragraphs. This includes one sentence paragraphs too (I was led to believe this is good to do for those reading on the phone).
I was lots of characters in the moving pictures that featured in my head. Without a doubt, I was a cowboy toting pistols and a mean streak reminiscent of Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson. I believe Chuck Norris guest starred in my mind theater, sometimes.
To summarize, I could be anything except for the thing I was supposed to be in real life—and I did not know what that was, anyway.
Seriously, I had no clue. The roles I sensed were approved of, that I must be destined to play, also seemed boring, perplexing, and laborious. They also created lots of anxiety, but I was yet too young to know anything about the word.
A cowboy or a rebel certainly must be brave, as this was clear to me. A rebel does not even have to work hard at being fearless, so that “Who are you looking at?” vibe must magically animate a person’s soul after the purchase of a leather jacket. Or, maybe rebels are just born that way, I thought.
In the gray monotony of my life, no one would have confused me with James Dean or Clint Eastwood. It is not a stretch to say that fearfulness, nervousness, and self-doubt were more applicable terms for those days, the entire teenage fiasco, and then many years of adulthood. Many of you can relate how, for those reasons, rebellion was so attractive then. That has not changed too much.
One cannot tear down every strong attachment that dwells within, and I am not sure trying to do that is a good thing. No, I believe in authenticity, but I do not allude to the near-meaningless authenticity that is thrown (by some) around carelessly these days.
One must be a rebel, either yesterday, today, or tomorrow. This applies to every person who wishes to be healthy in mind and spirit while occupying some state of being we can rightfully call authentic. Choose a different word if that one suits you better.
It is preposterous to avoid rebellion in a world that is asking for that very thing all the time. The mechanisms of power are never allocated to the fair and righteous. We are an over-populated world where loneliness has never been more of a problem. We swear allegiances to symbols but never to each other as members of the one human race. So many false teachings and assumptions are thrown upon the young, each person must spend a lifetime removing them.
I could go on and on, and not just about the big-picture wrongs. Every person out there has a minor revolution to begin, and you probably feel you are the only one who sees it.
Now to come down from my high-horse, I think rebelling a little in life is the right of every individual and a rite of passage. It is natural. Now, going against the grain does not have to lead to life-altering consequences. No one has to get hurt.
Change the color of your hair, get a piercing or three, don’t do what everyone expects, and definitely get a real or fake leather jacket. I only did this last thing, and that was because wearing it was rebellious in my private thoughts but not to any other living organism.
Dear reader, you can think of endless ways to pursue rebellion. You might upset some people who love you, but that is alright. They will get over it, and for everyone else, who cares?
There were many realities that halted all opportunities for rebellion, in my life. There is no reason to list them all. To try to explain without rambling all over the place, I was locked inside my own mind certain that I knew nothing about living. There was little out there for me except the promise of extreme anxiety.
Still, I was hyper-aware of folks who acted more like I wanted to but couldn’t. Television and movies were the only vehicles that delivered anything abnormal. I reasoned that the cowboy pastiche was not realistic for me even in a super-pretend, dream world. The 1950s greasy, wrench and comb, slicked, smell of burning rubber, engine and speed, thing, was too everything not me.
So, I fell for the image of and the images from, artists. All kinds of art and the people who were involved with it became a kind of very restrained, secret passion. I think I can include actors, musicians (especially), directors, writers, and whatever you called those who created comic book drawings.
There was one thing I was sure of: artists are weird. Therefore, I am weird too and aspire to become even stranger to fit the archetype. This was perfectly suitable.
Also, we now must turn back to my fascination with the words: “rebel without a cause.” At some point I must have said to myself, “Now I get it.” There was no obvious target, no real-life machine to rage against, during those youthful days. However, James Dean provided me with permission to “rage against the dying of the light” without knowledge of who was killing the light, and why.
Having no cause for my rebellion has appealed to me at every stage of my life thus far, but not in a strictly literal sense. It meant I did not have to force myself into the role of some character I doubted I could ever become.
At the same time, the desire to be different never left me. In all sincerity, there was always this inkling that all was not well with the world. Inside, I was as frustrated and sad as Dean was in the movie. Actually, more so. Back then, after thinking on these topics, rebellion appeared closer to me but still only in the land of fantasy and quiet deliberations. At the least, I could draw and scribble on paper.
I held the artist in the highest esteem, believing he was the greatest, most direct, and most accessible representative of all the wonderful and awful parts of being human. Only artistry allowed a person to release the gnawing suspicions, tensions, hopes, and all those colorful interpretations of what life might be. Artists were the conductors of the purest manifestations of feeling, and thus logic dictated that artists were the only type of people to emulate.
So, whatever you may think about any of that, my heart told my head this made more sense than anything else. I still believe it.
Actually, I somehow formulated the idea that artists needed no cause at all. The world is the inspiration for every canvas, I reckoned, and there was always plenty wrong with the world. Ideally, all artists are rebels.
Thus, the cause was just reflecting back what is, as interpreted by someone talented enough to ingest the “what is” and then express it coherently or delightfully incoherently. I did not need James Dean anymore, but I still like the look of a leather coat.
Well, I never needed him to be honest, and soon my hidden world of unlived rebellion took a new turn.
Most people have a memory of landmark coming-of-age events, but I had TV and the movies that came on them. One day the film Dead Poets Society found its way to one of my stations. It did not change my life, just to be perfectly clear, but it had some impact on rebels and my pursuit of them.
The late Robin Williams starred as the new English teacher at a strict boys’ school where poetry was taught by the book. So, Williams had the boys rip out the pages of that book, and he taught them to be individuals who followed their passions. He was the ultimate cool teacher until one of his pupils committed suicide due to his father’s hatred of his son’s acting career. So, the movie was extravagantly romantic, rebellious, and a love letter to art—but especially the kind of art that is weepy and dramatic (Romanticism). I also realize lots of people have seen Dead Poets Society, but I have no idea if YOU have.
Those motorcycle heroes in black usually prevailed as I remembered it, and Eastwood always slayed the bad guys, but Williams (character was Mr. Keating) suffered for his art and was fired by the school. I remembered that and all my favorite parts of Dead Poets Society.
Other rebels came along during my life’s journey, including Kurt Cobain and all the wannabes who slouched, mumbled, and looked bothered most of the time. This part of my story I am saving for a later date and a longer article.
Anyway, now we have to leave the stars and refocus on me just for a few sentences.
In the end, rebellion never came knocking. To be more accurate, I never answered the door when rebellion showed its face. I was still undiagnosed, unmedicated, and unwelcome at any place where cool resided.
In hindsight, I think not having any sort of rebellious surge negatively affected my life. All people should do what nature intended at that time when nature nudges us to do them. There is much more to tell about addiction and looking for rebellion in all the wrong places. There is a price to pay for not properly rebelling.
I have one last thought that involves Robin Williams. He was a person on TV who projected a big personality, but I sensed there was more to him. After his suicide, stories revealed the real individual who was very shy and quiet. He was a comedic rebel who I always felt had a big heart, because he enjoyed playing a certain type of character over and over. Think a minute about his roles, especially the later ones, and you will find a pattern there.
Williams’ heart was likely too big to close, and he might have represented the rebel in his most honorable configuration. This is the rebel as the man who feels, absorbs the emotional chemistry of all around him, barely contains it, and then performs all of that somehow. The sensitive rebel does not adhere to the macho, man of action standard who hides his feelings behind bluster.
If any of that is true, then this is the rebel I aim to become in my mind’s eye, and I hope this is not out of my reach.
I get you Strawbridge. I am old enough to remember James Dean and Rebel Without A Cause. You have allowed me to see that the very words, Rebel Without A Cause, make no sense. But as a teen, I thought it was "righteous." How many other expressions that sound "cutesy," have no meaning when examined in the light. Many.
Well said! You’re ready there. Welcome.