The Weather Man: In Defense of Mediocrity

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on June 26, 2006.

The question of mediocrity is perhaps one of the most important of our times. In an era in which we demand excellence—nay, perfection—in all aspects of our lives, we need to be reminded of the value of the mediocre, the average, the unimportant wallflower who commands neither attention nor respect. As a culture obsessed with "greatness" in wealth, beauty, athletic prowess, etc., we could use a bit of that proverbial "reality check," a reminder that most of us are, by definition, "average"—and dare I say, mediocre—in almost everything we do.[1]

Gore Verbinski's The Weather Man (2005) tackles this theme head-on, reminding us that in the vast majority of cases, the search for excellence is futile. Nicolas Cage plays David Spritz, the weather man in question, working for a Chicago-based television station and applying for an open slot on a show with both a national audience and a substantial increase in pay. However, in the midst of his professional goal-setting, Spritz must deal with a personal life that is falling apart: he wants to get back together with his ex-wife, but he flubs every attempt at showing that he's a "changed man"; his son is being slowly seduced by his former rehab counselor; his daughter is seriously obese and suffering from depression; and his father is dying of cancer. In each of his relationships, Spritz feels that he has failed in some capacity, and in one sense, The Weather Man is a record of both his attempts to right some wrongs and his realization that there are some aspects of his life that will never reach the level of excellence.

Even in a professional sense, Spritz is essentially a mediocre performer. Sure, he's a popular forecaster, but we learn that he has no degree in meteorology and that he was hired mainly for his skills in chatting it up in front of the cameras (and in doing some promotional appearances on the side). For working essentially two hours a day, he earns well over $200,000.00 annually. You might think that getting so much money for so little work would entitle Spritz to the label of "success," but he knows that his job is essentially a no-brainer, that he lacks substance beneath the smiling exterior, and that his cushy lifestyle has earned him the derision of some Chicagoland residents, who show their contempt by attacking him on the street with half-eaten fast food (a bizarre, but comical, sidebar in the movie).

More fundamentally, Spritz's job garners him no respect from his father, Robert Spritzel (Michael Caine), a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer (how many could top that?) who clearly has very little understanding of—or interest in—what his son does for a living. We learn that Spritz tries to earn his father's respect by taking a stab at the written word and penning a spy novel — an endeavor that proves to be a horrible (though comical) failure.

Besides his professional and literary shortcomings, Spritz also must deal with his moral and relational failures. While he can deal with the fact that he's an intellectual lightweight, he is more troubled by the fact that he couldn't hold his marriage together or keep his kids out of trouble. He ultimately sees these failures as stemming from a lack of virtue, and late in the movie, he remembers how he used to think that one day, he would become a man with a particular set of qualities (qualities usually exemplified in other people). However, as he crept into middle age, he realized that most of these qualities were non-existent in his life, and that he instead became a man of distinctly mediocre talents and virtues. In fact, The Weather Man's theme ultimately revolves around the acceptance of mediocrity as our natural condition.

So how does this relate to us? Is the question of mediocrity truly critical to our age? Do we need to learn how to accept, even revel, in mediocrity? Perhaps I am making a broad generalization from very limited observations, but I hypothesize that we live in an age of unreasonably high expectations, both in regards to our lifestyles (how we live, how much stuff we have) and our achievements (how many degrees we earn, what types of jobs we have, how much money we make). There appears to be no standard of acceptability or contentment; as soon as one level is reached, the drive to climb to the next immediately beckons, and we mindlessly trudge forward.

The danger in this lies not only in the stress such expectations produce but also in the utter depression, even despair, that results from any lack of success. Even if one's overall trajectory is positive, any temporary setbacks can prove emotionally devastating. 'Tis better to have low expectations, which allow us to be content with utter failure, happy with mediocre performances, and absolutely exuberant with those rare (once-in-a-lifetime?) moments of excellence. Rather than teach our children the lie that they "can be anything they want to be" or that "if they work hard, then can achieve anything," we instead should be honest, counseling them that they probably will not be super-rich or intellectually brilliant or especially attractive and that they should be content with the relatively anonymous, average, mediocre lives that they are bound to live.

More importantly, does this clarion call to mediocrity transfer to questions of morality and virtue? In one sense, it does. While we certainly are called to nothing less than perfection (Mt. 5:48), while we are morally obligated to avoid sin, we also must be honest with ourselves and recognize that our virtue is woefully limited. A person who lives in a state of healthy mediocrity does not give up on moral improvement, but he/she also acknowledges that any moral victory comes from God alone and humbly accepts that his/her life will be marked by moral and spiritual imperfection until either death or the eschaton. While virtue and moral purity are important topics for preaching and teaching, one should not focus on them at the exclusion of grace and the humble acknowledgement that since Genesis 3, humans have been born in a position even worse than mediocre.

Thus, Gentle Reader, I encourage you to reconsider the value of mediocrity, a refreshingly honest perspective in an era obsessed with supposed excellence and greatness. We should acknowledge our mediocrity now — before other people or (circumstances) do it for us.

Note

[1]There are numerous studies on the tendency of humans to perceive themselves as above average. A dated, but nevertheless interesting, summary of this research can be found in Robert H. Frank's and Philip J. Cook's The Winner-Take-All Society (New York: The Free Press, 1995), 103-5.