21 is a 2008 “heist” movie starring Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth; it also co-stars Morpheus…ahem, I mean Laurence Fishburne.
The plot is laid out openly: to pay his Harvard tuition, a boy-genius gets involved with a group who teaches him to count cards (the probability to get as close to 21 as you can in Blackjack, hence the name of the movie) and to cheat money from casinos. The usual dynamics unfold amongst risks, betrayals, the addiction to gambling and the feeling of being untouchable because of success and money.
As usual, I will use the movie as an excuse to talk about something else. In the very first few minutes of the movie, as the protagonist is applying for one of the most prestigious scholarships at Harvard, he is told that the prior year it was given to a Korean immigrant with one leg. The supervisor proceeds to ask, with a straight face, if he has considered cutting one off; he then proceeds to saying that this was intended as a joke. I see this interaction, especially considering the serious face with which the lines are delivered, representative of what we are living today. Admittedly, although the movie considers an eliterian scholarship, grants and scholarships are not easy to get and the criteria used to bestow them do not rely exclusively on a meritocratic basis; for this exact reason, the joke of cutting off a leg, slices deeper in the folds of society than it should.
About criteria
While I understand that faculties have certain interests, financial and not, when choosing to which applicant give the intended scholarship, there are certain factors to consider. In my opinion it is a trifecta that is divided between the merit of the applicant, the interest of the university and luck. Quite possibly it would be a mere idealization to say that in previous years it was exclusively based on merit, because there have always been and always will be interests; what is however hard to appreciate is how much these two factors weigh on the board’s decision. I would also add luck as a key factor given that there are so many different topics, calls for application and faculties, and having a timely project may also contribute to successfully receiving the scholarship.
About self-worth
Now, here is my personal issue with this, the rub if you will. I do not consider to poses adequate qualifications for what I do in my life, but that is something that I have established on my own. You may think of impostor syndrome or that I am being modest, but nevertheless this is what I think about myself; that does not mean that I will not work hard for what I want to achieve. The main difference in this equation is that I have established my self-worth and measured myself based on the conversations I had with many professors, on the depth that I saw in others and by knowing my own limitations. The fact of the matter is that I have used my own criteria to decide who I am, and I couldn’t carte less about any other measures. It is true that part of my life may depend on an exterior criteria, getting or not a scholarship and so forth, but that is something already out of the realm of things I am able to control.
Any kind of rejection, academic or otherwise, will however not be taken similarly by everyone, and here is what really gets to me. Knowing that others somehow use the faculty’s criteria of selection as a measure of self-worth just saddens me deeply. Merit and self-esteem should not be searched for outwardly; it should be something within, something people establish by themselves, within themselves.
Other than that, the movie was a good watch and I would give it an adequate 7 out of 10 poker chips.