The Metal Children was an amazing play to read. I just couldn’t put it down. And Taxi Driver was equally amazing. I totally understand why its one of the greatest and most influential movies.
The Metal Children and Taxi Driver both have protagonists who are thought of in a positive light- the Metal Children’s Tobin was a Young Adult author whose book was taught in the school curriculum and considered one of the greats.
It was pretty comical because whenever Stacey Kinsella or Vera discussed the intricate symbolism and hidden meanings in his book, Tobin had no idea what they were talking about. I especially liked this part because in English class throughout high school we would always analyze classics and discuss what hidden meaning the author meant to reveal or what symbolism/ analogies he used and we would always wonder- what if we are reading too much into it? How do we know the author meant anything by it at all? Maybe we are wasting our time analyzing this book that wasn’t meant to be analyzed. And that’s exactly what happened in The Metal Children. Tobin wrote this book which was interpreted, analyzed, studied and declared one of the greatest pieces of Young Adult literature, when really Tobin had written the book when he was high on drugs and didn’t mean anything deeper in his writing.
Similarly in Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle searched to give his life meaning and a higher purpose than just driving taxis and watching all the scum- the pimps, prostitutes and hustlers who come out at night. He is not in his right mind and becomes fixated on Senator Palandine, who was running for president, and made it his life purpose to assassinate Palandine. When the time came to assassinate him, Travis’ plan was thwarted by the Secret Service and he just barely escaped. He went psycho and started popping pills and drinking alcohol, and transferred his fixation onto a different mission. He didn’t care- maybe it wouldn’t be Paladine, but he knew he would be killing people tonight. He went to the prostitute house where Iris worked and killed a few people there (the pimps). He was written up in the papers and hailed as a hero who killed the bad guys and freed Iris, a helpless twelve year old girl caught up in the prostitute business.
Both of these guys- Travis and Tobin- are perceived as heroes and geniuses, when in reality, they were just two messed up guys with troubled lives. If they had known Tobin had written the book while high, would they have cared enough to even read it, let alone make it a Bestseller and add it to a high school curriculum? Of course not- it would have been thought of as garbage. And if the public had known that Travis wanted and attempted to assassinate Palandine, would he be hailed as a hero? Of course not.
Both The Metal Children and Taxi Driver show the power of perception and misinterpretation. Travis is a perceived as a hero because his actions were misinterpreted, and Tobin is considered a literary genius because his intentions were misread, too.
