Psychology of a Hero: TONY STARK & PTSD (part 1/2)

i've had i've heard people ask why does tony have how did you get out of ptsd in iron man 3 when he doesn't have ptsd from his other adventures because there was plenty of danger before what do you think is the difference this time the difference this time is for the first time he accepted i'm going to die hello and welcome to cinema therapy i'm jonathan deckard licensed therapist and i love movies i am alan searight professional filmmaker and i need therapy hero psychology reminds us that just like in real life our cinematic heroes can wrestle with mental health struggles with relationship problems just like the rest of us there is no shame in it today we are going to be talking about tony stark who has appeared in 10 marvel cinematic universe films i feel like you're driving in a court martial this is crazy what did i do and has dealt with some stuff there is so much to cover in tony's story that we can make a bunch of episodes about it but today for one video so we're going to hone in on how he deals with trauma and how he deals with guilt okay we'll touch a little bit on his narcissism and how he makes the journey from narcissist to egotist to decent human being and family man yeah yeah so along with trauma we're we're touching on ptsd right yeah yeah we'll be we'll be diving into tony's ptsd and iron man 3 and how he copes with it let's go back to 2008 and iron man it's hard to believe unless you were a comics fan who the hell is iron man do you remember this oh yeah nobody knew who it was i mean i'm a nerd so i had read a bunch of comics i liked iron man as a character yeah there's there's no money in ireland and then robert downey jr was not where he's at today he was insane because he was he was known for tremendous talent but he kept going in and out of rehab so all you get was little indie films yeah and so to start to launch a potential universe on the shoulders of somebody who might be checking back into rehab like now you look at it and you go wow ballsy like that was that was gutsy you looked at it then you're like stupid it was dumb right out of the gate so you've all seen iron man we're not gonna rehash a bunch of stuff but he absolutely qualifies for narcissistic personality disorder oh yeah yeah immediately you've been called the da vinci of our time what do you say to that absolutely ridiculous i don't paint take that off what are you genius billionaire playboy philanthropist so tony's captured in the cave what role do you see yinson playing in his turn from from a screenwriter's perspective from a director's perspective yinsen is a combination you know obi-wan sort of mentor figure that's right smile not necessarily in a you know learn your new powers kind of way because tony had the powers all along he didn't learn anything new in the cave he just realized oh i can do this like i can use a thing that i've already got in a different way yeah because he was already a genius and a technical wizard and he assumed that what i was doing was good and it was the hands the weapons were in the hands of the right people and he and tony knew that he was a playboy and kind of he knew he was a snob but he didn't really care right because in his mind he says i'm still at the end of the day i'm a good person i'm doing good in the world and then he gets there and he's like oh maybe not yeah so much so what's tony's paradigm shift with jinson morally his paradigm shift with jinson is you know yinson calls into question his morals which is something that he'd never even bothered to question before because you know he's always the smartest guy in the room yeah might makes right or smart makes right so yinson gives this line so you're a man who has everything and nothing and tony realizes that this lifestyle that he's been living with you know fast cars and beautiful women and big explosions yeah michael bay he lives in a michael bay movie and oh my gosh ultimately he did kind of empty just got real and that plans to see that that in the very first marvel film that takes us all the way to endgame is tony is a man with everything and nothing because he doesn't have family yeah now it's not even about do you have a wife and kids i mean he does land there but we see throughout the marvel series as tony builds a family in the avengers yeah and as he starts to surround himself with people instead of being a lone wolf right and then yinson tells him don't waste that don't waste your life unlike a lot of narcissists tony self-reflects yeah and he says i need to make some changes and i love when he tells pepper and now that i'm trying to protect the people that i put in harm's way you're gonna walk out you're gonna kill yourself tony i'm not going to be a part of it so i want to talk about tony's guilt because tony realizes i've made the weapons that are being used by terrorists right i've made the weapons that are killing our soldiers and killing innocent people and he is full-on pissed yeah and so we get to what is my personal favorite scene in the first iron man film where he realizes there's people on the other side of the world still being killed with his weapons we get maybe the world's best tooling up sequence there's injustice being done and no one's going to do anything recent violence has been attributed to a group of foreign fighters referred to by locals as the title of that they augment with effects like he's making a fist like he's angry and then they bring in the glow and the sound from the repulsor yeah with no political will or international pressure movies are fun [Laughter] this does a good job of mixing fantasy with reality like what's going on over there feels very real on the news and so we want to indulge in the fantasy that oh i could suit up and kick ass i could shoot things and i can and i could go save the people [Music] talk to me about these effects and what you know about how it's done well this is you know this is all a big cg suit tooling up they uh put in a huge amount of work to make it all look realistic and i mean this is you know these are now 13 year old visual effects and it looks 100 real to me like i still can't pick because some of this some of this shot is him in an actual suit and some of it is cg and i can't pick the lines yeah and uh sonic boom when he goes like super sonic right there did your theater cheered oh hell yeah my theater exploded man yeah i was right there with him like i i don't remember if it was in this movie but i know for certain in avengers i jumped up out of my seat and was clapping at one point [Music] making moves reindeer games because i'm that guy i know you've been enjoying this because you've been watching it for several minutes if you'd like to see more you can just like subscribe and hit the bell that'll rank us up in the algorithm you'll get notifications everyone's happy boom so let's i want to talk about what is healthy guilt versus unhealthy guilt because tony definitely feels a tremendous amount of guilt here and actually right now his guilt is rather healthy later on in the series it turns into a more unhealthy guilt but healthy guilt is directed out of behavior it's not directed at the self unhealthy guilt says i'm a terrible person i'm a loser i suck and if i believe that i suck then i'm not even really gonna try it keeps me down i'm garbage so i might as well act like you also believe that your actions are going to you know if you believe that you suck you believe that your actions are going to suck and so you either don't do any actions or you don't do good ones yeah i can only do bad ones and in tony's case he doesn't direct his guild at himself he directs it at the behavior he says well what i was doing was wrong i didn't realize it effective immediately i am shutting down the weapons manufacturer division and i'm going to basically go out there and be the lone ranger and i'll be there i'll be i'll be earth's defender right but he takes his guilt and he does something productive with it and that is healthy guilt healthy guilt is directed at a behavior that you chose that you can change and you can do something to make amends and if you can't do something to make amends then at least you learn and change and don't repeat what the mistakes of the past and in iron man 1 he feels very healthy guilt and it doesn't really damage his confidence yeah i can fly later on we're gonna see tony pretty broken can we talk about how tony grows so he starts as a full-on narcissist he's but unlike a lot of narcissists he takes ownership he takes accountability he starts to clean up his own meth clean up his own meth let's face it this is not the worst thing you've got me doing [Laughter] he cleans up his own mess and he develops higher levels of compassion in other words he's gone from a narcissist to just being egotistical being an egotist it's growth it's progress hooray he did it can we talk about how tony goes from playboy to being with pepper do you buy that relationship and why yes or why i absolutely do and here's why it starts as a friendship and you know especially particularly on pepper's side it is almost begrudging yeah you know she's like uh i put up with this guy because i get to work on the best stuff yeah and he is the smartest guy even though ugh what a tool and the other that's enough of that that's not what you think i want you to call for a press conference now yeah and uh he charms women so well and oh crap he's charming me you are the most capable qualified trustworthy person i've ever met yeah and i you know i personally have never had the robert downey jr charm cannon turned on me but uh i can imagine that it's an overwhelming blast of charm [Music] yeah i look great oh god but i could fire you if i had to take the edge off but yeah it because it starts as you know a begrudging friendship turning into a real friendship and mutual respect and then progresses into something else even though he's you know constantly flirting with her what's your social security number five five you know she recognizes that that's just his playboy ways until oh it's it's not anymore yeah this is actually real i love how iron man 2 doesn't get enough credit for a lot of things i mean it is one of the lesser marvel films but there's a lot of great things in it especially tony and pepper talking over each other i do watch excellent idea i just figured this out you run the company yeah pepperoni i'm trying to run the company stop trying to do it and do it i'm not asking you to try to do it i'm asking you to physically do it i need you to do it i am trying to you're not listening to me i'm trying to make your ceo why won't you let me you been drinking brilliant it's so it's his girl friday night it is old school like that that rapid fire really witty and i love it to me the reason tony and pepper makes sense in addition to everything you were just saying especially the friendship that starts with is i think tony sees the playboy version of himself as part of the version that he's trying to leave behind yeah right before i i slept with a ton of women and i also dealt in death and i think they're kind of linked in his brain granted he's not all in on that because when scar when the black widow shows up will that be all mr stark yes that will be all miss freshman thank you very much i want one no but it's it's scarjo so but by the end of iron man 2 he's he's all in with pepper and and for a lot of people who are have a playboy lifestyle it's actually hard to transition into committed relationships i actually buy that it's not hard for tony because i think he's ready to leave all of that behind him as part of his growth right it all feels very natural and and uh not rushed which is one of the benefits of you know telling a story over many many films is you get to do more of a tv yeah pattern of character growth instead of a movie thing yeah that's that's one of the reasons that so many movies are just sort of hero's journey is because that's all you have time to do in two hours yeah you really kind of just uh we've got six things and that's what can happen because we only have two hours to do it and with marvel it's it feels like long-form storytelling it feels like big budget television you know it really does exceedingly big budget television yeah it's but you get a very interesting thing but you get a lot of time with all the characters and it's really really cool now let's take a look at this i've seen the footage the only thing you really fight for is yourself you're not the guy to make the sacrifice play to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you i think i would just cut one the dialogue is so sharp always a way out you know you may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero favorite hero like you you're a laboratory experiment rogers tony's always got an answer for everything came out about the bottle so quick-witted alas breaking that moment down from what we've seen so far is cap right absolutely why tony is about the guy to make the sacrifice play he is gonna think or talk his way out of it yeah he's gonna you know he's gonna cut the wire a no-win situation is the possibility every commander may face has that never occurred to you no sir it has not yeah he's always got a way out and that's the thing is tony will face danger but he's not truly laying his life on the line at least in his own mind because he's smart enough to get out of it like i don't think tony ever really thinks and we see evidence of this throughout the films like when he drives in the grand prix right or when he flies the test suit up so high that he freezes up yeah and jarvis is telling him not to but he's like i'll be fine i'll be fine i'll be fine in every situation his narcissism and his ego is saying i will i'll get out of this well and the evidence suggests i reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to rescue the ship what he cheated i changed the conditions of the test cut a commendation for original thinking i don't like to lose you know this is this dude's a scientist my hypothesis is always correct it is backed up by the evidence right i always think my way out of things because i'm tony stark right have you met me tony stark i'm great an intelligence organization that fears intelligence historically not awesome so tony does prove cap wrong later on but before it's all been about fame glory his own ego he loves the superhero life he loves the adulation oh it's good to be back there is no secret identity he loves the dancing girls in the iron man bikinis right he loves the iron man branded popcorn from lisa's passion for popcorn fantastic stuff so here in the battle of new york tony proves cap wrong when he grabs the nuke and he flies it into the wormhole but something happens here one he proves cap wrong he is the one to make the sacrifice play he is the one to lay down his life for everybody else but that's never something he's actually done before right and tony comes face to face with something which is his own mortality which he's always kept on the back burner and assumed he would come out and top here he is i'm going to die yeah and it affects him profoundly i've had i've heard people ask why does tony have ptsd in iron man 3 when he doesn't have ptsd from his other adventures because there is plenty of danger before what do you think is the difference this time the difference this time is for the first time he accepted i'm going to die yeah there's no way out i can't think my way out of this the suit is dead i'm in the i'm in space the wormhole is closing and i'm going to get hit with a nuclear blast yeah i'm dead i'm dead there's nothing i can do that's never ever happened before he's always had some kind of suit something that he can pull he's had some kind of trick he can play he can talk his way out of something he can make a joke yeah there's nothing to do here i've got a plan i've either got a plan or i'll think on my feet and i'm smart enough to do it and i'll be fine here he's not and that's what ptsd occurs when you think your world is safe and then you realize that it's not now tony knows that his world isn't safe but he also thinks that he's smart enough to he's not ever really in danger the world is safe for him yeah because he can just build a suit right and i will protect everybody else now suddenly we're dealing with aliens we're dealing with wormholes we're dealing with nukes we're dealing with my suit powering down i've got a friend who's a god that challenges my whole idea that i'm the most powerful you know and and suddenly my world doesn't feel safe anymore and in iron man 3 he struggles with ptsd and it actually does a damn good job of displaying the symptoms and what that looks like so let's take a look you know what this crater reminds me of no idea i'm not i don't that giant wormhole in um in new york doesn't remind you that's manipulative i don't want to talk about it are they coming back the aliens maybe can you stop remember i told you that i have an anxiety issue does this subject make make you edgy yeah a little bit does this subject make you edgy are the bad guys in rose hill do you need do you need a plastic bag to breathe into do you have medication nope do you need to be on it probably do you have ptsd i don't think so are you going completely mental i can stop do you want me to stop do you want me no i said stop doing that i'm sweating you're gonna freak me out oh man you did it didn't you you happy now i'm not i'm not laughing at the trauma but the way he's portraying it is so it's so great and the kid is hilarious what the hell is that your fault you spazzed me out tony's ptsd he is trying to avoid reminders i don't want to talk about new york he's trying to trying to avoid reminders trying to avoid the triggers he's got intense not just uh emotional i mean he does have intense emotional reactions also intense physical reactions yeah he's having a full-on anxiety attack yeah breathing problems he's literally sitting there talking to a kid there is no safer place to be right but just the reminders of it is triggering is bringing all of this up right and then elsewhere in the film you know he he has nightmares there's other evidence of ptsd going on tell me about the writing and the acting because you talked about i'm not laughing at the trauma but how it's portrayed but what he's saying here it's such a shame black thing to like take this mythic you know larger than life hero and then have a kid just like peck at him you know the kid is doing a great job of like playing it as obnoxious kid who isn't trying to be obnoxious but kind of also knows he's obnoxious a little bit yeah do you have medication nope do you need to be on and and you know robert danny jr is a freaking god he's a legend one thing he does really well in his ptsd scenes is you do empathize with him but because he's tony stark he keeps the snark and it's still funny yeah and you're laughing even as your heart's kind of breaking for him which is an interesting thing to pull off simultaneously it's such a great piece of acting to show you know and this is what actors do right they they tell you one thing and show you another thing yeah and he's telling you shut up stop it but showing you so many layers of turmoil and it's affecting and funny and heartbreaking all at the same time it's that's that's movie magic and it speaks to tony's hubris when the kid's like are you on medication no should you be on it probably and then he's like do you have ptsd i don't think so yeah you do but you're tony and you don't want to own that you absolutely do yeah and so uh let's let's look at a later scene where tony actually gets some help working through his ptsd uh he's gonna go save pepper and as you've mentioned earlier in the episode he's he's always reliant on his suits i've got my suits my i i got a suit for every situation because i got a suit i'm good so i'm headed off and i'm having the kid charge the suit in his garage so it can fly to me when i'm ready for it and this happens right now harley where is he really just look on the screen and tell me where it is um oh i have a real like say miami treatment question about this one okay where are we at with it uh it's not charging i just love the filmmaking once again it's funny but you also have empathy but the power source is questionable it may not succeed in revitalizing the mark 42. what's questionable about electricity all right it's my suit and then i can't i'm not gonna i don't wanna oh god that can't and again this is situationally kind of funny but it's also just gut-wrenching yeah i didn't even mention new york then you just said it by name while denying having said it okay um [Music] just breathe really just the wheezes are so realistic right you're a mechanic right right you said so yes i did what are you getting at why don't you just build something oh ding as well light bulb come on [Music] okay thanks all right so the uh i think the obvious question there is is that remotely realistic to like come out of a full-blown panic attack because you just remembered a thing yeah or somebody said just somebody said just the right thing is that i mean i assume that has happened before but common in the history of the world i'm sure it's happened it is not common right what i do like about the scene realistically in terms of so iron man 3 does a great job of portraying what ptsd and the anxiety attacks look like now at this point in the story we just kind of need tony to go in and kick ass and be iron man so his ptsd is just kind of done but in real life that's that's not how it works it happens yeah so iron man 3 does a really good job portraying as i said what ptsd looks like what trauma looks like it doesn't do the greatest job in showing what trauma recovery looks like i have transitioned to trauma treatment and i've formed an online clinic we're hiring therapists from across the country so we can work with people from across the country to help you whether you've been through emotional abuse physical abuse sexual abuse betrayal trauma all other forms of trauma we've got some free resources for you to check out and to learn about what we do check those links out down below but if you have been through something traumatic whether you work with us or somebody else get help no come on you love it i hate it it's great it works every time it's humiliating get help please get help we are not doing get help now something that i've found really interesting and i think you were talking with me about this is how iron man 3 a lot of people don't queue into this sets up spider-man homecoming really really well yeah it absolutely does it's you know this kid in iron man 3 who you know does come back in avengers end game at the funeral but he is very much set up as sort of a proto peter parker yeah so when when not the superhero sense but in his relationship to tony exactly so when tony meets peter parker in oh mr parker civil war and then deals with him a lot in spider-man homecoming if you even cared you'd actually be here it doesn't seem out of left field because we've already seen him as a mentor figure as somebody who's you know kind of looking to not just be a mentor but but kind of be a father figure even though he because he's tony stark down plays it and tries to be cool i don't have time for you kid he obviously wants to like yeah i mean he kind of digs on the kid and dad went to 7-eleven to get scratchers i i guess he won because that was six years ago which happens dad's leave no need to be a [ __ ] better here's what i need treats them like crap a little bit but the kid knows it's all in good fun or that's all i love especially because at the end tony does this big warm-hearted gesture for the kids yeah gives him all the stuff and sets him up with a scholarship yeah yeah and so i see tony like this is one of the ways tony deals with guilt we learn about this in civil war that there's a correlation between guilt and generosity tony wasn't seeking to be a mentor originally he came across as kid by happenstance but i do think this experience was so gratifying for tony tony's need for a father figure well i can be what my father never was right right and later he becomes an actual father but before that he's a mentor he's a father figure here and then later to peter parker and then and then we have the line about if you're nothing without this suit then you shouldn't have it okay got to sound like my dad what do we see in iron man 3 that's set up for that that's tony you know projecting onto peter a little bit but also you know he feared that he was nothing without the suit like literally i mean he's he's having a panic attack because he doesn't have his suit yeah i'm nothing without the suit and then the kid reminds him you know no you're still tony stark and he goes oh yeah let's build something yeah and uh because my power isn't my suit my power is here and it always was right and he's trying to i don't know if he's consciously trying to teach peter parker the same lesson that you know suit ain't all that you're still spider-man yeah at the end of iron man 3 tony's in a really good place he's really solid he's he successfully managed his guilt he successfully managed this trauma you know he stands on the edge of the cliff he's got his he's got a new he's taken the arc reactor out of his chest and gotten the shrapnel removed yeah like he's he's good to be on his own and and now he's really just iron man because the avengers need him but he doesn't need to be iron man anymore and so he's fine until wanda puts that vision in his head and he sees everybody laying there dead and dying could've saved us and it brings everything right back everything right back on the next cinema therapy episode psychology of the hero tony stark i'm going to have someone learn from my mistakes and be a better hero than i was i just i just wanted to be like you and i wanted you to be better and then he suffers probably the biggest blow of all which is this i don't want to go i don't want to go start please oh you don't want to go oh geez man you had to show that one he had to show that one

Channel: Cinema Therapy

Views: 149,842

Rating: 4.988625 out of 5

Keywords: cinematherapy, cinema therapy, mental health, counseling, therapy, mental health therapy, Jonathan Decker, Alan Seawright, Marvel, MCU, Iron Man, Tony Stark, PTSD, narcissism, Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow

Id: WabG3H-QnFw

Length: 27min 2sec (1622 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021