@Randem

Everyone loves the rebel — guys want to be like him, girls want to be with him, authority figures want to change him. The rebel gets all the attention, and controls all the power. Let’s face it: rebels are cool. And it’s hard to find a cooler rebel than Cool Hand Luke, who is the latest subject of my ongoing blog series about how Hollywood helped to shape my life.

A natural born world-shaker
From beginning to end, there can be no doubt that Luke is a rebel. He bends to no authority but his own, and in doing so, he shakes things up. That’s what happens. When you go against the grain, when you walk against the crowd, when you don’t do what everyone else is doing, things get shaken up.

In this modern, overpopulated world, everyone works hard to “fit in”. People are sheep: they get their opinions from the same talking heads; they follow the trends, shop in the same stores, and wear the same clothes; they drink the same trendy beers and eat the same trendy foods.

When someone doesn’t fit in they stand out, and that’s what Luke did. That’s what Michael Jackson did, and Marilyn Manson, and Howard Stern. Copernicus, and Columbus, and Darwin went against the grain. The quickest and easiest (and often best) way to get noticed is to be different — to be a rebel.

Go to the mall some time in blue jeans and a sweat shirt, and walk in the same door as everyone else and ride up the escalator with everyone else, and see how many heads you turn. Then go back in some nice clothes, and walk in where people are walking out, and try going up on the down escalator, and see the difference. You don’t even have to do it, because you already know what will happen — everyone will be looking at you.

That’s how it was for Cool Hand Luke. Everyone in the chain gang lived vicariously through him. They all watched anxiously to see what he’d do next. They got their satisfaction from his willingness to do what they all wanted to but lacked the nerve. They fed off of him.

Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand
Luke earns his nickname “Cool Hand” after he wins a poker game by keeping his cool while bluffing on a losing hand. Even when he knew he was beaten, he never accepted defeat. And more, his confidence was never shaken.

In another scene, Luke got into a fight with Dragline, the prison yard bully. He is clearly outmatched by Dragline, who is much bigger and stronger than him, and who is repeatedly knocks him to the ground, but he keeps getting up. Even after being warned to “stay down, you’re beat,” Luke replies, “you’re gonna hafta kill me.”

Even when he’s got nothing, Luke never gives up. (It reminds me of Captain Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru.) He never accepts defeat, and he never loses his cool. It’s that persistence that earns him the respect of everyone else in the prison.

A rebel without a cause
For all the admirable qualities we find in our protagonist, the funny thing is that Luke always loses. It seems clear that this is because he never had a goal. During his last big escape attempt, when asked how long he was planning it his response is “I never planned nothin’ a day in my life.”

Had he ever turned all that charm and all that perseverance toward accomplishing a specific goal, Luke might have been unstoppable. Imagine those same qualities applied toward training for the Olympics, or being an entrepreneur, or running for office. But without a goal, all that charm and persistence and rebellion only fueled his impulsive mischief.

Luke was an agitator. He landed in prison for cutting the heads off of parking meters. When asked why, his response was, “small town, not much to do in the evenin’.” Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, as they say. A man needs to have a purpose.

Life isn’t fair
When Luke’s mother died, the warden had him put in the box just to prevent him from trying to get to her funeral. After a torturous week of hard work, while everyone else got a day off to rest, he was forced to spend the entire time digging a hole and filling it in, just to dig it again, all without sleep or rest. And in the final scene, he dies unjustly.

Everything bad that happened to Luke was unfair. And that’s life: it isn’t fair. But Luke’s whims were his undoing. You have to pick your battles. There are times when there is nothing to be gained from being the rebel.