I rewatched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory last night. I figured since I had done the same with other movie references that had come up (Xanadu, Star Trek, etc.), I would check out this classic. This is the 1971 version with Gene Wilder that I have referenced before.
It was a fun movie, and has aged pretty well. I was thinking at the time that Wilder's acting combined with the effects they can produce today on the big screen, like what we saw in the new Wonka movie, it would have been an amazing film.
Anyway, I have already covered some things in past posts and no reason to revisit or expand too much on those here. There were three additional things that stood out to me as somewhat 'new' or interesting references that I wanted to quickly log here: Gobstoppers, Spies, and Roller Skates
The Everlasting Gobstopper
The iconic candy of the Willy Wonka story is the Everlasting Gobstopper. This is the candy that Arthur Slugworth (the name is interesting, also, but I am not going to go into it here) is trying to get his hands on. Or, rather, the person we think is the real Slugworth - it is all a ruse or a test, as we find out at the end. There is a real Slugworth, but that isn't the person we see in the movie. Each of the contestants are approached with a proposition to provide the Gobstopper to Slugworth (Mr. Wilkinson, in reality - a name that means "son of little William) in exchange for money.
So, this particular candy is set up as important. It is very secret and hasn't been released yet.
The importance of the candy (and its secretive nature) is emphasized by Wonka himself once he shows the children the candy itself and the machine that makes it. He introduces the machine by saying, "This is the one that is really going to sizzle old Slugworth."
The phrase stood out to me when I heard it, and I got imaginative with it. If we continue on with the notion that Willy Wonka and Charlie are Faramir and Peter, respectively, then Slugworth, as Wonka's rival and nemesis, can be initially assumed to represent Saruman. Let's go with it for a bit and see how it works out at least.
In this light, the 'sizzle' phrase takes on a more literal meaning. Looking it up on Etymonline, sizzle means "to burn with a hissing sound". So, Slugworth is going to burn, and he is going to make a hissing sound as he does. What else makes a hissing sound? You guessed it - a snake, which is what we have also compared old Saruman to. In this interpretation, then, one can imagine Wonka's phrase that Slugworth will sizzle to directly refer to a snake that will burn.
Jesus was pretty direct to those at Bountiful when he quoted Malachi in saying,
For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up,
Saruman-Slugworth is going to burn, or as Wonka says, sizzle.
I thought this made sense, and then I looked into the name of the Everlasting Gobstopper itself, and it seemed to come together fairly nicely.
A 'gobstopper', as I came to find out (I don't know why I didn't know this before), is simply slang in the UK for what Americans would call a 'jawbreaker'. So, we have an everlasting jawbreaker. Everlasting obviously means forever or eternally - it doesn't end. One inference, or the standard one, is this means the candy will last forever. It won't run out.
But, we can look at the name a different way. It could also mean, if you didn't know this was referring to candy, that one's jaw will be broken forever or eternally - it won't be fixed. That could make sense given the Being we are talking about (who likes to use his mouth), but we can do even better with the name taking it on its own terms.
"Gob" is slang literally for "Mouth". And "Stopper" is something that either stops something, or it plugs up a hole or passage.
There are two meanings I can take from this, both extremely relevant to the topic at hand (that topic being Saruman).
First, as both highlighted in LOTR, and discussed in various posts regarding Saruman on this blog, the power of Saruman lies in his Voice. Even when left with nothing at Isengard, he still retained that power, and used it to effect. I believe he still possesses it.
Given this, what would really sizzle or burn old Saruman? Something that would stop up or plug his mouth for eternity. If his mouth is plugged up, then he cannot use his Voice. Simple.
Thus, I believe Wonka's secret (as represented in the movie by the Gobstopper candy) will shut Saruman's mouth and silence his voice forever, at least with respect to those who wish to be free of it. Which brings me to my second, and closely tied, meaning of the Everlasting Gobstopper.
We are told in the Book of Mormon that when the "work of the Father" commences it will "everlasting". In Nephi's vision captured in 1 Nephi, the angel explains this to him:
For the time cometh, saith the Lamb of God, that I will work a great and a marvelous work among the children of men; a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other—either to the convincing of them unto peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds unto their being brought down into captivity, and also into destruction, both temporally and spiritually, according to the captivity of the devil, of which I have spoken.
There are other instances where this work is described in this way - that there will come about an 'everlasting' set of consequences, where certain Beings (which includes Saruman, at this point) will be forever cut off from Jesus and his family (which I believe will include all those who wish to be part of Jesus' family, whether previously considered so or not).
As Beings are not created, and thus cannot be destroyed, even by Jesus, then this separation must involve some gate or door that forever remains closed to them. In that, there is no way for these evil beings to interact with or be with this Family ever again. In that light, we can look at the Everlasting Gobstopper as something that references not just the individual mouth of Saruman, but the place into which he and his followers go. They will go away to their own place or prison, it seems. "Mouth" (which gob refers to) is not just a physical mouth for a human being, but also refers to any door, gate, or opening, and a 'stopper' as a literal plug or closure for said opening or door.
Thus, these Beings will go away to their own place, and the door or passage through which they go will be eternally closed. That will really sizzle old Saruman as well, I should think.
I know a lot to pull out of a fictional, nonsensical candy from a children's book and movie, but at least as I worked through it, it made sense to me.
Here is the clip from the movie:
Spies
I had forgotten one of the main story elements is that Wonka apparently had, in the past, consistently dealt with spies who were trying to steal his secrets. This is set up as one of the reasons the doors to his factory closed, and why he disappeared for a time.
It is also a critical element to the development and testing of each of the child contestants. At least two of them in the movie are shown to have made a deal with the fake Slugworth. The others may have, but we don't know.
I won't go into a lot of this, because I don't have a lot of specifics, but in my story, spies and theft play a role also.
I mentioned that cars represent Stones in my dreams, or at least that is what I have come to assume so in many cases. In one dream I had, I was in a parking lot of some sort, or at least surrounded by many, many cars that were gathered around in a group, including one which I thought of as my own.
All of the cars, however, had been opened, and car alarms were going off everywhere. People around me were examining their cars (every car seemed to have a person with it), and I started to do the same. As I looked through, I found that whoever had broken in had actually left quite a few, valuable things - their intent wasn't to take everything. I seemed to have recognized what it was they did take (though I don't remember what it was), and I thought "They knew exactly what they were looking for."
Something had been stolen, and it appeared to have been an inside job, or at least facilitated by those who would know where to look.
Other dreams, and even words, support this overall story element that there has been not only evil things done by known enemies, but also by those on the 'inside'.
What that all means, exactly, I don't know, and what I do think I don't necessarily want to go through here, so I just wanted to log that the story element resonated with some other things I have thought through in the past.
Roller Skates
To conclude the post, I thought I'd include a fun shout out to Xanadu. It is just a 3 second clip (the only one I could find). It comes after they take a wash on the Wonka Mobile:
No comments:
Post a Comment