Alright, so this has been bugging me for a little while now. In the 1997 movie “Men in Black” starring Will Smith as Kevin Brown, I could never really judge what was happening when his character is “interviewing” for the agent position. The organization puts him through a series of tests, including a written exam and a marksmanship test at the shooting range. In each instance, he subverts the established protocol and implements some ingenuity; he moves a heavy table to write on while the rest of the recruits fumble with oddly shaped chairs in the first instance, and he shoots a “civilian” girl and explains that she must be evil due to the books she carries in the second. In each case, Chief Zed and Agent K roll their eyes and express doubts about Browns’ ability for the job.
The scenes are set up in such a way that they are meant to be taken humorously. I suppose we are meant to see Brown as some sort of bumbling goof who is dangerously ill-suited for the job. However, I thought that Brown showed great cleverness in solving the problems he was presented. So, what’s your analysis on these scenes? Is Will Smith’s character that stupid or is he very clever?
Officer Edwards is a street cop with street smarts. While he may not have the academic credentials of the other candidates, he demonstrates that he can undertake completely unfamiliar situations (I assumed that the other candidates were familiar with tests of the sort administered by elite law-enforcement agencies) and use his ‘street’ abilities to meet them in unexpected ways.
The tests aren’t real tests. Their psyche tests. Presented with a problem, how do you solve it? The written exam wasn’t about the questions, it was about who would be the first to figure out that that you need the freaking table. Likewise with the shooting range. [sesame street]: one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong
Yes. Edwards was being clever, and the Zed and K like that. I don’t think they’re showing doubts. When Edwards shoots the girl, and Zed asks “May I ask why you felt little Tiffany deserved to die?” that’s part of the test – to see if he could justify what he did and not be intimidated by authority.
Even when I first saw the movie, I took those to be knowing glances to each other conveying the message, “he’s a natural, didn’t even need an explanation!”
Because he’s right, of course, in all his actions and answers. The whole point of the uncomfortable test is surely to see who has the initiative to get and use the table. And he’s actually got the right answer for the marksmanship test, as we see later on (the one alien is only crying; the other alien is “working out”; and “Tiffany” is almost certainly a ruse, like the “Bug in the Edgar suit” who is the main villain in the rest of the movie.)
I just now noticed the double meaning when Zed tells the soldiers that they’re “everything he’s come to expect from years of government training.” I always thought he was just lying to them before he flashy-thinged them. Never-realized that he was telling the truth, and that he doesn’t expect any good agents to come from government training.
No, we are not meant to see Brown as some sort of bumbling goof. Quite the opposite. You’ve got the wrong impression somehow.
The tests are conducted in a way that conformists, with no imagination or natural problem-solving ability, will give predictable results. Only the most perceptive candidate will pass by applying logic even when the logical conclusion deviates from standard behaviour.
“Chief Zed and Agent K roll their eyes and express doubts about Browns’ ability for the job.”
As agents-par-excellence themselves, Chief Zed and Agent K recognize greatness immediately when they see it, but are non-plussed by it. So they can debate Brown’s merits and demerits without having to formally agree that he is the best candidate - they both already know it so it goes without saying. When they address Brown they downplay his greatness by talking down to him. SOP.
An “automatic” watch is wound when you move your left wrist and no winding should be required, and no battery is used. I mouse with my right hand so my left hand is superfluous and I need to wind an automatic watch twice a day.
