E. T.: A Cosmic Myth for Space-Age Children (1983)

E. T.:A Cosmic Myth for Space-Age Children Millicent Lenz While the director of a film may not be a reliable critic of it, his comments can be illuminating. In fact, Steven Spielberg has identified some of the more obvious themes of his phenomenally successful film, E. T. "To me," he says, "represents our generation's Wizard of Oz or Peter Pan. I think it represents a kind of contemporary social fantasy that doesn't play down to kids the way fantasies played down to me when I was growing up. Essentially, it treats everything very realistically and very importantly." It says, "Don't get locked into the cynicism of the technological 80s." Just when we feel that we're all becoming little microchips, 'E.T.' comes along and proves to everybody that we're all made of flesh and blood and that we were all born with and will die with a heart. Our society is becoming much too technical. I think E.T. is the humanistic answer to the technical revolution.1 This romantic statement of the old opposition between the head and the heart, with E.T. representing the heart, grossly oversimplifies the nature of E. T. as he is presented in the movie, where he comes from a civilization technologically far advanced over our own: he appears to represent Heart working in harmony with Head, not in opposition to it. Nor is Spielberg as anti-technology as this statement suggests, for in the same interview he speaks out in favor of more financial support for NASA and identifies E.T. as "my answer to the stalled space program"—helping to make space "more accessible to the imagination." But E.T., with his heart-light and his healing finger, certainly is a kind of cosmic father/mother, signifying a nurturing universe. Elliott finds in E.T. a surrogate father, filling "the gap left by a father who flew to Mexico with another woman." But by extension of the imagination, E.T. "transforms the father-son relationship into something much more cosmic."2 E.T.'s identification with nurturant qualities, with goodness and lovability, is made more striking by his unattractive physical appearance. Speilberg has said we realate not to his outside appearance "but the goodness inside him." Even though he is "a squashy little mensch"3 he is like the frog of the folk tale, transformed by the power of love into the handsome prince who saves the princess; but in this case it is Elliott whom he saves from "his closed-up anger" and points in the direction of "the promise of real manhood."4 Spielberg's thoughts bring out two related themes, expressed through both E.T. and Elliott: first, the search for a home, and second, the search for either father or a child, depending on whether we choose to look through the eyes of E.T. or the eyes of Elliott. One of the special fascinations of the film grows out of the "telepathic sympathy" between the two. The ancient botanist, star-child of a universe millions of light-years away,5 and the young boy, a human child, develop a perfect sympathy that transcends space and time and bridges the great gulfs between species and generations. But E.T. says more than that; the film presents certain timeless mythic patterns in a way that links us, not only to our mythological past, but also, perhaps, to our space-conscious future. On the universal mythological level, the most important and powerful theme in the story is "descent," the heroic initiation into the mystery of death, followed by "ascent," the rebirth into new life: in short, it is a drama of death and resurrection. While this magnificent subject is handled clumsily, it is the essence of E.T.'s power as a fantasy in the romantic mode. Given the nature of the film, there is a risk in overinterpreting it, in making a basically entertaining, fragile script bear the weight of too heavy an exegesis. But for better or for worse, E.T. has so fastened itself to my imagination, like a persistent ghost, that I must exorcise it; and I know of...