Ben...Where Have You Gone?

9/19/05


Written in 1997 by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, the academy award winning script for the film "Good Will Hunting," is about a mathematical prodigy named Will whom the Government and several big corporations try to recruit.

The movie has this scene representing one such meeting:

N.S.A. Executive

So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?"

WILL

Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one.

Let’s see.

Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed.

Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area” ‘cause they don't give a shit. It
won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks.

Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price.
And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic.

So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.

So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard?

Christ, I could be elected President.

This is eerily prophetic dialogue. Wasn't the character Will's description of our foreign policy and course of action pretty accurate and came to pass pretty much word for word five years AFTER it was written?

I have made fun of Mr. Lopez and the disasterous career choices he has made ever since this film just as much as the next guy but, "Pearl Harbor" and "Surviving Christmas" come to mind immediately, but, in retrospect, is it possible that he just knew things that we didn't?

It would explain Gigli.

Sixth Army