This weekend we watched Oz, the Great and Powerful in theaters. It was a good movie (not great – I’d give it a 7/10), and the main theme is one of the most common themes in story telling. In Oz, we watch the protagonist struggle to answer the question: “Who Am I?“.

He wants to be a great man that changes the world, but believes and lives like he is nothing more than a selfish con-man. Glinda calls on the Wizard to rescue the people of Oz, but only once he realizes his true identity can he actually save them.

This theme is so popular, in fact, that in last year’s film, The Amazing Spiderman, the film ends with a teacher making a bold statement about story lines: “There is only one story and it is: who am I?”

Even Male Models struggle with this question. Check out the wisdom of Derek Zoolander:

I doubt this is the only story, but I imagine it is the most common. It occurs frequently throughout the Bible. Continue Reading…