Ideas are bulletproof. – V for Vendetta.
This morning, as is normal when I’m pretending I’m gonna get something done during the day, I sat down and watched a movie on Netflix. The movie in question for today was “The Bye Bye Man”. Yes, I am aware this movie has been out for a couple of years now. No, I honestly do not care. I generally watch things whenever I get around to it. I’m terrible like that.
Spoilers incoming for those who haven’t seen it. It’s not a terrible movie. If you get a chance, you really ought to sit down and watch it.
Basically, what happens is three friends move into a house where one of them encounters the first touch of The Bye Bye Man, a creature which apparently supernaturally listens for its own name and stalks those who say it. This leads to the mantra of the movie: “Don’t say it. Don’t think it”. The Bye Bye Man spreads through human connection, with the only survivor who is aware of it not actually knowing its name and thus being spared from having to be murdered because her husband didn’t actually tell her what he was talking about. Lucky her.
As a premise, I find this fascinating. Human beings are social animals. We instinctively want to talk about or share the things we come into contact with. As there is no background really given for The Bye Bye Man, I have no idea how he came to be, but his method of spreading which is essentially through our primary interactions rings true. So what does this have to do with ideas? The quote I pulled for the beginning of the article is from the movie, “V for Vendetta”, another one of my faves. V, the titular character, says this to a man who, along with a number of others, has put a bunch of bullets into him. In V’s case, he is saying an idea cannot be killed. Without spoiling the ending of The Bye Bye Man, one can be quite certain from the circumstances this creature will rise again. Even though people keep trying to get rid of The Bye Bye Man by killing everyone who knows about him, he keeps worming his way back to the surface to kill again.
In a way, one could consider The Bye Bye Man to be nothing more than a toxic idea given fruition. “Inception”, another one of those movies I adore, reminds us that an idea, or suggestion, can change everything about how we view the world. Given that no one describes The Bye Bye Man to Elliot and yet he gives him a face and a figure could mean Elliot projecting a face on a fear. Several places in the movie, Elliot is moved by jealousy to do or say things. Its ability to get inside your head is because it’s already there.
That raises the question of whether or not everyone in that movie had the notion to kill. Pushed into a fight or flight situation and with nowhere left to go, then most people can. In the end, no matter what happens to the people, the idea lives on. In the case of The Bye Bye Man, it was writing inside the drawer of an old table which brought him back after someone thought he had killed everyone connected to him.
I guess some ideas are better left to rot.