Imagine the Coyote Happy
After a challenging day, I suggested going to see a movie. Something light. Something fun. Something different. When we decided to see Coyote vs. Acme, I did not expect a movie that would reduce me to tears more than once. Somehow, a movie about why we choose to keep showing up, to keep trying, to find fulfillment in our labor, found its way in front of me when I needed it most.
As with all Looney Tunes Coyote properties, the drama surrounds the Coyote’s unceasing quest to catch and eat the Road Runner (with the aid of Acme brand tools, of course). We know—fundamentally—that he will never catch the Road Runner. He is a stand-in for Sisyphus. His effort must be in vain.
But as the film unfolds, we see that the Coyote’s existential disappointment rests in his lack of results (and in Acme’s products), not with his lot in life. Despite what appears to be a monotonous task he is being compelled to do by his Creator, we learn that is what gives him purpose and self-actualization. His disappointment is that he hasn’t had a win—but he’s still happy to be playing the game.
This movie was a poignant reminder that no matter how Sisyphean our labor is or our life feels, these things still deserve the dignity of effort.
That thinking opens up a lot of big ideas. We humans—cartoonish as we are—take on challenges purely to see if they can be done, even though they may be impossible. How many people strapped improvised wings onto their arms only to perish in their attempts to fly? Why did people look at mountains and decide to climb them only to freeze to death on the way up?
We do these things because even though they might end in failure, they open a window into an imagined future where these things are possible. Dreams have to come from somewhere.
What Coyote vs. Acme says about Sisyphean labor is that one should not look on another’s life without empathy: the Coyote is not living your life or trying to achieve your dreams; he is living his dream. Despite failing every time, he needs the challenge because the challenge brings him joy.
Camus might have been right: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Finally, in the climax of the film, we are given a different point of view: the Road Runner’s.
What really struck me was seeing this inversion of the Sisyphus myth. Where earlier we had to empathize with a lived reality where Sisyphus can be happy, we are now shown the other mythic character’s perspective: the boulder’s.
The Road Runner is and ever will be the Coyote’s foil. Sisyphus’s boulder. And Coyote vs. Acme makes the case that the Road Runner needs the Coyote as much as the Coyote needs the Road Runner. If not being chased by the Coyote, who is the Road Runner? If we observed the Road Runner the way we view the Coyote, we might pity the Road Runner as well. We might see prey, forced to run forever, never allowed to rest.
But if we give the Road Runner agency, and allow him, too, to be fulfilled by his labor, then—with apologies to Camus—one must also imagine the boulder happy. The two foils, never more fulfilled than halfway up/down the hill.
Pulled from the cartoon world and viewed across human experience, as much as we need to be challenged to find meaning, our challenges need us. If we are not trying to solve our greatest problems, our problems are nothing. Just a boulder at the bottom of the mountain, looking for meaning, wanting for a friend.
So why did this movie make me emotional? We can all be Coyotes at times. We meet our challenges in the shape of projects, nemeses, competitors, and any number of tasks that range from trivial to consequential. Regardless of our role, we are given the opportunity to try.
And we deserve the dignity of that effort as much as the effort proves the dignity inherent in the challenge.
Go find your Road Runner.
(But maybe leave the Acme at home.)