Williams had a wide appeal in popular culture and a prolific body of work, and his passing got me thinking about one of my favorite Robin Williams movies: Hook. Hook is an unofficial sequel to the story of Peter Pan. The original stage play by J.M. Barrie is called Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. The Peter Pan of this film—played by Williams, of course—is quite grown up. When the story begins, we find out that a long time ago Peter left Neverland and was taken in by a much older Wendy Darling. He married Wendy's granddaughter and became a corporate lawyer. So much time has passed that Peter has completely forgotten Neverland, and he spends most of his time mired in work, which puts a strain on his family life. He has trouble relating to his children and breaks promises to them, such when he misses his son's baseball game.
Put another way, the responsibilities of adulthood make it more difficult to really play in a childlike manner. When we play in this sense, we create a virtual space that is separate from reality. We pick and choose rules—for example, in soccer you try to put a ball into a net and cannot touch it with your hands—and apply them to this new space. This make-believe place is largely insulated from reality. We are able to avoid permanent real-world consequences for winning or losing, and we are free to explore without fear. We engage in the activity for the pleasure of the experience and the pleasure of learning how the rules operate. This is why people use phrases such as "I'm just playing" and "it's just a game".
In the book The Ambiguity of Play, the author Brian Sutton-Smith proposes that play is an important mechanism in evolution. Under evolutionary theory, natural selection can only take place if a population of individuals exhibits variability - that is, if the characteristics of individual organisms differ from each other. After all, you can only make a selection if you have different options from which to choose. Sutton-Smith suggests that animal and human behavior becomes more rigid as individuals age because they tend to rely more and more on those behaviors that have led to successful adaptation. He further posits that playing might increase the variability of individuals by making their behavior more flexible. It does this because, in play, the organisms are free to experiment with and engage in behavior that they otherwise might not have in the real world.
This rationale provides an explanation for why play and games are often associated with children and not adults. It also underscores the importance of play for adults, since being playful makes one more flexible, surprising, and fun. Ideally, we take some of what we learn from play—for instance, problem solving and teamwork skills—and incorporate it into our real lives.
Going back to Hook, the final battle between the Lost Boys and the pirates is both amusing and interesting because of the interplay between war as a game and war as a real life-threatening ordeal. The Lost Boys employ a variety of whimsical weapons and tricks such as blinding mirrors, egg guns, rolling marbles, and tomato catapults to disable the pirates without causing permanent damage. In contrast, the pirates—along with the older good guys, Peter Pan and Rufio—use traditional swords with an intent to cause real harm.
The antagonist in Neverland is of course the titular Captain Hook, who is immoral and an all-around bad guy. He's a pirate, so that implies stealing. He kidnaps Peter's children, Jack and Maggie, and creepily brainwashes Jack into thinking Hook is a better father figure than Peter. It's important to note that Captain Hook is an adult, with all of the baggage that implies. He is not interested in play - he is only interested in revenge.
Rufio is a interesting character because he is a teenager caught in that awkward stage between childhood and adulthood. He wants leadership power associated with being an adult, but to Peter Pan and Captain Hook he is still a child. Hook actually breaks the wall between "play" and "reality" by killing Rufio, and in doing so he renders permanent consequences to the rest of the participants.
It is ironic that Robin Williams's archenemy in the film contemplates suicide, saying "Death is the only great adventure I have left." This line is adapted from the original play, where it is Peter Pan who at one point says, "To die will be an awfully big adventure." Later, at the very end of the play, the narrator suggests that if only Peter could understand the "riddle of his being", then he would change this cry to "To live would be an awfully big adventure!". Young Peter Pan is, of course, afraid of growing up and taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, and I believe those are the things to which the narrator is referring when he says that Peter does not understand the "riddle of his being". Young Peter is stuck in a limbo of sorts, afraid of moving beyond his child fantasies where he is the center of the universe.
At the beginning of Hook, old Peter has moved to the opposite extreme on the spectrum—that of a rigid, unbending adult. By the end of the story, though, Peter has reclaimed his childhood sense of adventure and can be playful again. He even says having children—one of the greatest, if not the ultimate, example of adult responsibilities—was his happy thought that enabled him to do so. At the very close of the film Peter has come full circle and is finally able to say "To live will be an awfully big adventure."
We can't know everything that was going on in Williams's mind. Perhaps he, like Captain Hook, felt that there were no new experiences left to be had; or perhaps, like Peter Pan, he was afraid of getting older and finding out what that would bring. In any event, Williams was a phenomenal entertainer who helped many, many people recapture their childhood sense of adventure, and he will be sorely missed.
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