2 Hidden Gems about a Father’s Love in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (spoilers)
...and how they line up with cultural shifts & roles possible for fathers today.
In my last post, I shared my take on what gets in the way of authenticity for fathers:
This topic of authenticity will be woven throughout my writing as we explore together. Let’s dig in!
The Absent Father Wound:
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 explores the source of one of our culture’s deepest wounds—the absent father. The idea being that, for a variety of reasons, fathers are sometimes less accessible to family members either:
emotionally (not having the skills to authentically connect with others) or
physically (working long hours as a sacrifice to provide income or leaving the family altogether by choice).
BACKSTORY: The leader of the Guardians, Peter Quill, was raised by his mother alone until she passed away. Right after this loss, Yondu abducted Peter from Earth and took him into the stars, keeping the young man hidden from his real father, Ego. So by the end of this movie, we learn that it was actually Yondu who raised Peter. And Yondu turns out to be the father Peter always wished for—Yondu’s true character being revealed slowly over the course of this film.
Is “Protector” or “Provider” the Only Valuable Role for a Father?
Now, just because Yondu protected Peter as a child in the first movie and again at the finale of this sequel, we might assume that fatherly love is at its highest aspiration when the father is in a protector mode. Certainly, this mode is at play when Yondu gives up his life for Peter to live, and in that sense, shows us what fatherhood without ego can be like—launching our sons & daughters into life while offering ourselves to serve them along the way, sometimes as a provider of resources and opportunities.
Both the protector and provider roles are born from a particular kind of love we could call selfless sacrifice (selfless being more accessible when our ego is not in control). However, there are other forms of fatherly love that Yondu expresses in this sequel that are equally important. And they reflect a current shift in our culture, altering the story we might tell ourselves about what a father’s role ought to be.
Now, let’s look at how Yondu shows us two other kinds of fatherly love that are distinct from selfless sacrifice...
#1: FATHER AS EMPATHETIC REVEALER
”I know your pain”
My favorite relational scene of the movie takes place between Yondu and Rocket—the snarky raccoon Guardian whose intelligence and agility is enhanced by scientists.
Even if Rocket is not Yondu’s child, we learn how Yondu is capable of offering a kind of fatherly love in this scene, in which Rocket has just performed a very risky flight maneuver through space.
Yondu had warned Rocket not to proceed, but the impulsive Rocket ignores him like an impulsive child. Somehow they survive and Yondu confronts Rocket.
Here’s the dialogue between them...
Yondu: What the hell you doin’ boy?
Rocket: I can tell by the way you talked about him, this Ego is bad news—we’re here to save Quill!
Yondu: For what? For honor? For love?
Rocket: No, I don’t care about those things! I want to save Quill so I can prove I’m better than him! I can lorde this over him forever!
Yondu: (laughs)
Rocket: What are you laughing at me for?
Yondu: You can fool yourself and everyone else, but you can’t fool me. I know who you are.
Rocket: You don’t know anything about me, loser.
Yondu: I know everything about you. I know you play like you’re the meanest and the hardest but actually you’re the most scared of all.
Rocket: Shut up…
Yondu: I know you steal batteries you don’t need and you push away anyone who’s willing to put up with you, cause just a little bit of love reminds you how big and empty that hole inside you actually is...
Rocket: I said shut up!
Yondu: I know them scientists that made you never gave a rat’s ass about you!
Rocket: I’M SERIOUS, DUDE!
Yondu: Just like my own damn parents who sold me, a little baby, into slavery! I know who you are, boy, because you’re me!
In this exchange, Yondu brings to the surface all that Rocket is deeply ashamed of (and has likely never acknowledged to himself or anyone else), pegging him so accurately that Rocket is triggered into a defensive posture—from cracking his voice to shouting at Yondu to shut up.
Had Yondu stopped there, he would simply be playing out a kind of one-upping, dominator fantasy. But instead, he takes it to an entirely different place.
Yondu’s accuracy in calling out Rocket is based on self-awareness and seeing himself in Rocket. This is clearly marked by Yondu saying, “…you’re me!”
In other words, the things that Rocket is ashamed of, are the same things that Yondu was once ashamed of. Yondu can sense this and reveals his own painful experience for Rocket as a gesture of empathy.
In the scene, right after those words (“you’re me”), we see Rocket’s shoulders and body completely relax—he lets go of something.
What was concealed and feared is now out in the open and being met with acceptance, which is such an overlooked and yet crucial element in efforts of personal transformation (i.e. make peace with the present and the past as they are—then from that place, create the future).
The fatherly love that Yondu expresses here could be called empathetic revealing, wherein between the lines he’s essentially sending the message: “I know it hurts because it hurts me too. And there’s nothing wrong with either of us.”
This kind of love is different from being willing to sacrifice one’s self for their child. This is about relating and building bonds that heal.
Speaking the wisdom of empathetic revealer as a father is not easy. It requires being in touch with one’s own shame. This shame could be about:
one’s perceived failures (i.e. not succeeding enough);
one’s failing to try (i.e. not being confident enough);
or simply a perception that who I am is not good enough (i.e. not “man” enough).
Playing the empathetic revealer role requires a capacity for speaking honestly during emotionally rich moments as well as a capacity for feeling and accepting one’s own shame so that whatever has been labeled shameful can be accepted in others.
What a gift.
"It takes the warrior energy to be vulnerable and the king's wisdom to decide when it's appropriate." — Michael Schiesser
#2: FATHER AS GENERATIONAL CONNECTOR
“I celebrate life alongside you”
The other form of fatherly love appears in this potentially misunderstood scene in which Peter laughs and says to Yondu, “you look like Mary Poppins.”
Taken out of context, it appears this scene is about the delivery of a joke in which a man is being compared to a female icon from a childhood story. It may seem extra funny because my (U.S.) culture has some outdated, unspoken rules about gender—namely, that men shouldn’t be associated with “women stuff” and women shouldn’t be associated with “men stuff.”
But when the scene is fully played out, a kind of love is revealed we didn’t know Yondu (or Peter) was capable of expressing.
In this scene, Peter comments that Yondu looks like Mary Poppins because of the umbrella-like tool he’s holding as he floats in the air.
In reply, Yondu innocently asks, “Is he cool?” assuming Peter is talking about a guy called Mary Poppins. What I love about this next moment is Peter’s response.
Now it's important to consider here how kids have a kind of pop-culture knowledge that their parents don’t. They know about teen bands and new apps for chatting with friends and characters from shows and movies that only appeal to their age group.
What this means is that Peter has a choice to make—he could lord his knowledge over father-figure Yondu and make fun of him. Instead, he offers a gesture of love that makes sense because it matches the energy of the love that Yondu has offered Peter...
Yondu: Is he (Mary Poppins) cool?
Peter: Hell yeah, he’s cool.
Yondu: I’m Mary Poppins y’all!
In this scene, Yondu’s intention is about finding a moment of joy in the midst of chaos (with fire and explosions in the background, no less), while trusting in Peter’s word. Peter’s role is to accept his father-figure, also in the midst of chaos, even as weird as he may be.
And that brings us to the love that Yondu is displaying here—the generational connector. This is the kind of love that allows a father to convey a sentiment like, “I know we come from different generations, but I still want to enjoy my time with you no matter how different we are or how hard life gets.”
This scene is rich in character development because the desire is felt in both directions. From Yondu to Peter and in return.
When Yondu asks “is he cool?” he might as well be saying “do you accept me as your father?”
While Peter’s response might as well be saying “yes, I accept you as my father.”
Reflection for Today’s Fathers:
Not only did the father who raised Peter turn out to be a more loving father than he realized, but Yondu also became more capable of engaging distinct forms of love beyond that of the protector or provider, including the empathetic revealer and generational connector.
What’s most fascinating to me is that this movie’s take on fatherhood reflects the current change that today’s fathers are being compelled to make: to love in ways that include, but also go beyond, the sacrifice of protection and providing.
Maybe it was around the industrial revolution when men left farming and traveled to work in city factories that this absent father archetype emerged. More fathers spent time away from home, reducing their value to that of absent provider. They weren’t around as much to play other roles. Nor were they as in touch with the land to stay connected to the ebb and flow of life, akin to the ebb and flow of emotions.
It seems to me that as women have been questioning the roles expected of mothers beyond that of homemaking and child-rearing for some time now, they’ve paved the way for a father’s value to expand as well—including other ways a father might contribute love to his family, beyond only working for money and not being engaged with the family.
As suggested by Guardians of the Galaxy 2, fathers can provide and protect but they are also capable of offering empathy and bonding the family generations together.
In the wake of absent father wounds, these loving energies from fathers would be a healing response—a kind of counterbalance to the unavailable father of the past. I believe Fathers today holding these integrated energies will pave the way for the absent father wounds to fade into history. May this be a gentle invitation for all fathers to participate in this wave.
Well done, Guardians.
It’s nice to see the theme of fatherhood explored in a positive way, and not in a way that has to adhere to the cliches. Here, a father is great because he supports his family in the ways they need it most. I think that is simple and quite nice.
Readers, what do you wish to take away from this post?