artifact1: The Iron Giant

I know: it's okay for men to cry. In no way, however, does that mean it's easy for me to cry. Maybe it's because I'm an optimist, maybe it's because I'm just plain emotionless (although I doubt it, I did theater all through high school, and that took emotion). If you ask me, though, I would say it's because there are only a small selection of things that can make me cry. The things that usually make me cry are goodbye's, ends of eras (notably friends graduating), select pieces of music (m83's album Hurry Up We're Dreaming; straight feels, Debussy's Claire De Lune), Select television episodes (most notably this clip from Fresh Prince of Bel Air: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7Ha08rKkqc). But perhaps no other piece of media can make me cry more than Brad Bird's The Iron Giant. I can't make it through the last half hour of the film with out tears streaming down my face. And the reason that this movie is so apt to tug on my heart strings is due to it's emphasis on the fact that everyday, each and everyone of us is doing the best we can to hold back the brokenness and evil within us. This is showcased through the Iron Giant himself as he (with the help of Hogarth Hughes) does everything in his power to fight his true purpose of death and destruction. The Iron Giant, in contrast to it's message on the evil of humanity, also reveals to us that we are all capable of extreme good, and that above all else, the most beautiful action capable of humanity is self-sacrifice (John 15:13 "Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"). But what does that mean for us as humanity? are we born good, doing our best to keep ourselves from evil? Or are we inherently evil doing everything in our power to become good? I would lean more towards the latter, but perhaps we will never know.