Lady in the Water

When it comes to M. Night Shyamalan’s films, people tend to be divided into lovers and haters for whatever reason. I’m a lover. However, I saw a really clear example of Jameson’s theory of hegemony in this movie. The surface plot goes something like this: The manager of an apartment complex finds a mythical creature called a Narf living in the complex’s pool. The Narf is there in order to meet her “vessel” whom she will be able to inspire. The vessel will then go on to change the world. However, she is being threatened by a creature from her world called a Scrunt. The inhabitants of the complex must come together to fill the assigned roles from the myth.
Most of Shyamalan’s movies have a moral (or a few morals) of some kind and this one is no different. It’s not perfectly clear what all the morals are, but one of them seems to be that people can regain hope for the future through community/culture. Shyamalan is essentially trying to persuade people to gather together around shared stories, making these new communities powerful units of change (note that what sort of change is never mentioned although the end of warfare is a strong candidate). Shyamalan uses the promise of a peaceful world where everyone has a safe and defined role with a strong community (his utopia) to get the audience to buy into his agenda of gathering. It is interesting that in some ways, Shyamalan’s agenda is the reward, as is untrue of most other usages of this model. Commercial users would want you to buy this product in order to be rewarded.