Instructor Spotlight: Travis Shapiro and Joshua Meininger

What inspired you to teach this course?

Our inspiration for the course came from the show Alex Edelman: Just for Us. The show wrestles with the tension between identity and belonging, the moral complexities of confronting people with opposing views, and the gray areas where empathy, discomfort, and accountability intersect. One of the reasons we both love watching movies is that they offer a way to see the world through someone else’s eyes. We believed that by building a course around films with morally ambiguous characters, we could explore these themes more deeply and carry the insights from our classroom conversations into our everyday lives.

What is your favorite film that you’re teaching this semester? Why?

Josh: My favorite film that we’re teaching this semester is Jojo Rabbit. The movie is a satirical comedy told from the perspective of Jojo, a 10 year old boy in the Hitler Youth, who finds that his mom is hiding a Jewish girl, Elsa, in their attic. Throughout the movie, we see Jojo evolve from a blindly hating Hitler Youth to a child who learns to love and accept others, and learns about the power of doing the right thing. The movie allows us to discuss whether a child can be evil and, through the use of a likable Nazi character that helps Jojo and Elsa throughout the movie, about how we weigh our opinion of people who have contradicting actions.

Travis: My sophomore year, I wrote an 8-page paper about Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader and the complicated morality of “the chosen one” in Star Wars. Each movie in the Star Wars franchise adds more to the story, and how you judge the character differs wildly based on the movies you watch, the order in which you watch them, or even how old you were when you first saw them. Franchise movies are complicated, and they add another element to the discussion of our characters. 

What is something “moral” that we can learn from “immoral” characters?

Being a hero doesn’t require perfection; it requires choice. As Colossus says in Deadpool: “Four or five moments, that’s all it takes to be a hero. People think you wake up a hero, brush your teeth a hero; not true. Over a lifetime, there are only four or five moments that really matter.” Immoral characters remind us that people aren’t perfect; we all make mistakes, and nobody is always a hero. But when those defining moments come, what truly matters is the decision we make in that instant. Whether it’s Rick Blaine letting Ilsa go, Darth Vader sacrificing his life for Luke’s, or Jojo choosing love over hate, those moments reveal who we really are.

What is your favorite character redemption arc?

Casablanca is known as one of the best movies ever made, and the character Rick Blaine is a massive reason why. Beyond the incredible writing, Humphrey Bogart’s portrayal of Rick is fascinating. The emotion he is able to convey with a nod, a wince, or an ad-libbed line shines beyond a truly incredible script. As much as the movie is a love story, it’s also an incredible journey of rediscovery. The viewer gets to witness a husk of a man remember who he truly is. This blueprint has also been recycled in many ways in the 83 years since Casablanca’s release. We don’t want to spoil the course for you or for our students, but we will be revisiting Rick, Casablanca, and redemption throughout the semester.

What do you hope that students will take away from your course?

We believe that morally ambiguous characters in film are the most similar to real people, as they often face real-world ethical dilemmas and are not all good nor all evil. We hope that by examining these morally ambiguous characters, it can help us, and our students, better understand human nature, different perspectives, and societal values. Especially in a time where society and politics have shifted to a very black and white binary, these characters will hopefully help us realize that most things in the world are not binary.