The film HIM (2025), starring Tyriq Withers and Marlon Wayans, is far more than a critique of celebrity culture–it is a spiritual fable about the cost of chasing illusions, the spiritual warfare embedded in fame, and the vulnerability of Black bodies within systems built to consume them.
At first glance, the movie plays with the absurdity of fame, ego, and identity, but beneath the humor lies a sobering truth: the promise of fame is often an empty one. Isaiah’s arc makes this painfully clear. For a brief moment, he tastes the sweetness of visibility–the applause, the validation, the illusion of power, only to end up with nothing in the end. It mirrors the tragic real-life arc of many artists who are immortalized only in death; their humanity ignored while their image becomes a commodity.
Spiritually, this speaks to the idea that anything built on false light eventually collapses. Fame becomes an idol–a fragile, ego-driven construct that demands constant sacrifice without ever offering true nourishment. The fact that Cam’s “bootcamp” takes place in the desert is no accident. The desert is a landscape of spiritual testing: a place where illusions shimmer like water but offer no real sustenance. It mirrors the emptiness of the Saviors’ promise: an oasis that looks abundant from afar, yet provides nothing to feed the soul. In the same way, the pursuit of fame can feel like chasing a mirage–glittering, consuming, and ultimately leaving you spiritually dehydrated. Isaiah’s rise and fall illustrates this karmic truth: what is built on illusion cannot sustain the soul.
The Bootcamp as MKULTRA: Breaking the Spirit to Build a Product
One of the most haunting aspects of the film is the “bootcamp” sequence–a grueling process that mirrors conspiracy theories about MKULTRA mind control. Allegedly, MKULTRA techniques include sensory deprivation, humiliation, psychological torture, and trauma-induced dissociation designed to break a person’s identity so they could be rebuilt into something compliant.
The film uses some elements of comedy to mask something deeply sinister: Cam enters the bootcamp in a weakened, vulnerable state–the exact condition needed to make someone open to suggestion. When someone is physically, spiritually, and emotionally exhausted or broken, they are easier to mold.
The bootcamp is not training–it is conditioning, or “grooming” as mentioned throughout the film. Cam, like many rising artists, is stripped of autonomy, identity, and boundaries, not to mention he is also isolated from his loved ones. What emerges afterward is not a healed person, but a curated product.
This parallels how the entertainment industry historically exploits artists by breaking them, reshaping them, and consuming their personas, all while ignoring their humanity.
Race, Consumption, and the Black Body as Commodity
Isaiah and Cam are treated not as people, but as assets–tools to be molded, consumed, and eventually replaced. This dynamic is deeply rooted in America’s long legacy of exploiting Black bodies for entertainment, labor, and profit. Black creativity, athleticism, and cultural expression have always been heavily desired (this is a string that ties this film to that of “Get Out”), yet rarely protected. HIM exposes this contradiction: a system that eagerly profits from your gifts often shows no concern for the survival of your soul, especially if you are a non-white person.
Even Isaiah’s “moment” of fame is tainted by the fact that it was never truly his–he was simply filling a role shaped by societal expectation. When the illusion ends, the system spits him out. This happens in real life every day. In this way, the film ties fame, race, and exploitation into a unified message: when a system is built on consuming marginalized bodies, the spotlight becomes just another tool of extraction. The Saviors’ promise is the same promise “colonizers” have always made: we will make you better, stronger, more successful. But beneath that promise lies the truth: you are only valuable to them as long as you produce.
Fame as False Light: Isaiah’s Tragic Arc
Fame is a light that provides no warmth, no nourishment, no true clarity, yet it shines so brightly it convinces you it’s divine. Isaiah chases that light because it promises significance, validation; a shortcut to feeling worthy. This arc mirrors the theme in Nocturne: characters who follow the illusion of greatness; who try to bargain their soul for recognition, only find themselves swallowed by darkness. Fame, as HIM makes painfully clear, turns a person into a temporary god–worshipped for a moment, discarded the next. It seduces with gold but pays in dust.
Isaiah becomes a living cautionary tale: a man who believed visibility could substitute for purpose; who mistook applause for love. In the end, he is left spiritually hollow, consumed by a machine that never loved him–only the energy (blood?) he could generate. His downfall reminds us that when you chase the false light of fame (outer) instead of the INNERstanding, you don’t rise–you burn.
The Bigger Message: What Are You Willing to Give Up to Be Seen?
At its core, HIM asks a question many people never pause to answer: What are you willing to sacrifice for recognition?
And at what point does the price become too high?
Cam’s indoctrination, Isaiah’s collapse, and the industry’s grotesque demands all point to a warning:
Glory without grounding is a trap.
Ego without soul is destruction.
Real power doesn’t come from fame, it comes from staying rooted in your identity and inner truth.
When Cam is being coerced into signing the contract at the end of the film, he takes a moment to remember his family. The bootcamp experience isolated him from love to make him more susceptible to evil influences, but in that moment of remembering his family they became his number 1 priority, in contrast to Isaiah’s number 1, which was himself. Remembering the love of his family gave him the strength to resist temptation and “save” his soul.
The Modern Gladiator & the Cost of Survival
One of the film’s sharpest commentaries is its comparison of professional football to the gladiator games of ancient Rome. The players on the Saviors aren’t treated as human beings–they are soldiers in an entertainment empire, trained for “battle” through grueling drills, psychological manipulation, and physical punishment. They are molded into weapons, not honored as humans. Cam, as the chosen quarterback –the would-be GOAT–is positioned to become the star gladiator; the champion the crowd worships and the system drains.
Although Cam refuses to take the position in the end, the training has already left its mark. This is symbolized beautifully in the final shot: red, white, and blue streaks across the sky–a patriotic halo that follows him, whether he accepts it or not. It’s as if the film is saying that even when you reject the system, the system still brands you. At the start of the film, Cam is repulsed by violence, yet by the end, he participates in ultraviolence with a level of precision and instinct that reveals how deeply he’s been conditioned.
Though Cam saved his soul, he did not escape unchanged. And that’s where the film’s final message becomes even darker. The owner of the Saviors, the symbolic colonizers, the devil figure, the system of exploitation–might have lost this particular battle, but the war is far from over. Because in conditioning Cam to survive through violence, the system still achieved its aim: it reshaped him.
At the end, HIM leaves us wondering whether Cam truly won, or whether the Devil simply shifted tactics–even in rejecting the throne, sometimes you still end up carrying the crown.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I genuinely enjoyed this film. Tyriq Withers and Marlon Wayans delivered deeply committed performances that brought emotional weight and authenticity to every scene. HIM is packed with layered symbolism and social commentary–none of which is lost on those willing to read between the lines. The ending left me both unsettled and intrigued, and I’m curious to know how it landed for you.
What did you think of the film? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
