I Don't Get It

When the movie Big came out in 1988, it seemed tailor-made for me.

The hero of the movie, Josh Baskin, is a 12 year old kid. I was a 12 year old kid. Josh is transitioning into the adult world, and so was I, albeit not quite as starkly as jumping into the body of a full-fledged adult after wishing to be big¹.

This was an amazing analogy for what I was going through, and while Josh’s leap was instant, my own leap into adolescence felt similar. I had even visited New York and the famous toy store FAO Schwartz, where Josh and his boss do the famous dance atop the enormous piano.

Josh gets to be an adult for a period of time, and he discovers that it’s both wonderful and terrible in its own way. All of the information and responsibility can feel overwhelming, but the personal friendships that matter when you’re a kid seem absent, especially in the office.

Three scenes from Big stick out in my mind. One is the scene where Susan, Josh’s work colleague, goes on a date with Josh. The two return and things get hot and steamy, but Josh thinks Susan wants to have a sleepover, like when Josh stays with his friends. Josh is stoked here, because the adult world seems to shun personal relationships, and here is Susan, just wanting to play and hang out with Josh.

Of course, Josh is 12, so he misinterprets what Susan wants. He does reach out to touch her bra-covered boob at one point, something quite a lot of 12 year old boys I knew would have loved to do, myself included.

The second scene is the creepy Zoltar scene, where Josh makes the wish in the first place. If this scene doesn’t stick in your mind and you’re Gen X, please explain yourself in the comments.

Finally, the scene that kind of makes the movie for me takes place in the office. The corporate suits are brainstorming a new toy together, something Josh can really weigh in on as a kid.

Of course, nobody there knows that a demonic vending machine magically transformed a 12-year-old into the grownup in front of them, so Josh has to play it cool.

The suits are presenting an idea for robots that transform into buildings. This seems incredibly lame to Josh, who has played with actual cool Transformers. Like a kid in a classroom, he raises his hand.

This action immediately stops the executives in their tracks. This isn’t how you’re supposed to behave in a boardroom—a slight breach of etiquette, but also silly grandstanding—but it’s the thing Josh says next that really floors everyone:

I don’t get it.

Instant mockery ensues. One jealous colleague in particular feels threatened by this approach, so he amplifies a golden rule of corporate America during the late 80s: never admit you don’t know something. A lack of complete knowledge will be considered shameful.

Here’s how I wrote about my own experience in Developing Permission to Be Curious, which mirrors Josh’s here:

I was encouraged from an early age to showcase my intelligence and hide my ignorance. The fear of appearing uninformed often overpowered the desire to learn.

It took time, maturity, and a shift in perspective to realize that the road to true wisdom lies in the willingness to be unabashedly enthusiastic about learning new things. This realization transformed not only how I approached learning but also how I viewed myself and the world around me.

Fortunately for Josh in the movie, he is spared from this next painful decade of slow realization and escape. His boss, MacMillan, is quick to defend Josh against the corporate hyenas trying to tear him down, praising Josh’s refreshing honesty and jargon-free approach.

By being genuine, Josh is able to show that he has a lot to offer the world.

Now, I didn’t have the magical ability to leap into an adult body like Josh did, but I’m pretty sure I drew a great deal of encouragement from Josh’s willingness to admit that he didn’t know. Like MacMillan, I hadn’t seen much of this candid intellectual humility. Instead, most of the kids tried to seem intimidating with their intellects, so I tried to learn to shut up any time I didn’t know something.

Over time, though, I broke free of this, and Big may have helped a tiny bit.

1. Quick side note: it would be pretty funny to reinterpret this through the lens of a wish-giving prankster, so Josh just ends up as a giant. I digress.