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Gotg 3 - Blog Posts
Guardians of the Galaxy is the story of a Racoon who flies a space ship and it had me sobbing on the floor.
It’s about outcasts, overcoming abuse, learning to love yourself and those around you.
It’s about forgiveness and guilt and family.
It’s about all the ludicrous little details surrounding life that make it bearable.
…I just really like the fucking raccoon ok?
The way I wept every time Rockets friends were onscreen knowing it could only end in tragedy.
I’ve been thinking about the significance of names in GotG 3, and how it plays into the movie’s themes of intelligence and a being’s intrinsic worth.
Each of the test subjects’ names shows a different level of abstract thought:
Floor, seemingly capable of only very basic associations, named herself based on where she was while picking the name
Teefs named himself after a distinctive personal feature, and didn’t quite get the grammar right
Lylla picked a “real” name that she decided fit for her
And Rocket named himself aspirationally, using his name as a metaphor for the kind of person he wants to be
And the great thing is that all of these names were enthusiastically accepted by the group of friends, regardless of the complexity of thought that went into them. Because unlike the High Evolutionary, who places all living things on a spectrum from least to most evolved with only the most developed and “pure” being judged worthy of life, Rocket and his friends loved and valued each other for the beings they were.
This theme is then carried over to another naming scene at the movie’s climax: when Rocket declares himself to the High Evolutionary as “Rocket Raccoon”.
Throughout the series Rocket has taken offense to being referred to as a racoon, not wanting to be seen as “just an animal”. But in the climax he looks at a cage of baby raccoons and sees himself, not as the intelligent creation of the High Evolutionary but as the baby animal he once was, who never deserved what was done to him. And he looks at the other animals (the camera lingers in particular on a rabbit) and sees his friends, who were never as intelligent or “developed” as him but were no less valuable and important in his eyes.
And so he accepts the moniker of “Raccoon” alongside his personal name of “Rocket”, and insists that every creature on the ship be saved, not just the “higher lifeforms” as the other Guardians said. Because the truth he comes to realize is that there is no such thing as a “higher life form”: every living being has value, regardless of how intelligent, “developed”, or “evolved” they are.
While we don’t have sentient raccoons in our world, this is still a message that is so important, and so relevant to issues we face. It has takeaways for environmental stewardship and animal welfare (not as much separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom as we like to think, and it’s important to treat all living things with respect and care), as well as for issues of fascism, eugenics and disability rights (there are no types of people who are inherently superior to others; a person’s intelligence and/or level of functioning has no bearing on their status as a human being deserving of dignity, respect and self-determination).
It’s a lesson I hope we all can learn someday. Bless Guardians of the Galaxy 3 for portraying it in such a clear and meaningful way.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, I was left screaming and crying on the floor over Floor.
May I also add:
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 spoilers without context