A still from ‘Wall-E’ (2008).
from Sheldon Cooper The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019) was probably the most recognizable geek idol on television, and one of his most visible characteristics was being a video game addict. PlayStations, gaming laptops, old-school handheld video games, he had it all.
In ‘The Monster Isolation’ (season 6, episode 17), Sheldon smuggles all sorts of video games with him because his friends are taking him to see a play he doesn’t want to see – notably, the only analog item he carries around is the humble Rubik’s Cube. We already know that Sheldon is into ‘cubing’ (the pursuit of fast and elegant Rubik’s Cube solutions, professionally or otherwise). Several times throughout seasons five and six, we see him wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of a melting Rubik’s Cube – a geek-endorsement for one of the world’s most fun and popular puzzles.
Jim Parsons played Sheldon Cooper in the popular sitcom ‘The Big Bang Theory.’
2024 marks 50 years since Hungarian architecture professor Ernő Rubik created the first prototype of his combination puzzle, in which a 3×3 cube is painted different colours for each face and you have to line them up, one colour for each face. Over these five decades, the cube has regularly appeared in blockbuster films and TV shows. As you can imagine, the hugely popular 3D puzzle is an easily recognisable metaphor – for life’s challenges, the dilemmas of the heart, the frantic feeling that life is passing you by and you need to ‘solve’ the attitudes that are holding you back.
Erno Rubik, inventor of the Rubik’s Cube. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
One of the simplest ways that filmmakers have used the Cube is to portray a character as a fast and intuitive learner, especially when it comes to tech-proficiency. Tron: Legacy (2010), protagonist Sam Flynn, the son of a great programmer, is shown playing with a Rubik’s Cube in his bedroom. Hacker (2016), featuring a child version of its protagonist, shows him quickly solving a cube at the breakfast table, with his shocked parents watching in the background. Snowden (2016) features its famous protagonist in the same way. Brilliant mathematician John Nash (Russell Crowe) is shown a cube in his room a beautiful Mind (2001). Even documentaries have found the Cube useful in this context: Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011) features the iconic chess player solving a Rubik’s Cube at one point.
Always Versatile
A scene from ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ (2018).
More recently, the Cube’s bright colors were used in an interesting visual comedy, one of the most original animated films of recent times. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). In this film, we see Spider-Men and Spider-Women from different realities congregating to train Spider-Man Miles Morales in the ‘default’ reality. One of these alt-Spideys is Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), who, true to his name, comes from a black and white reality. The grim, brooding Noir, tortured by the bloodshed that marks his crime-fighting life, is obsessed with a Rubik’s Cube that he keeps with him at all times. In the end, we see him solve the puzzle – which is also the only coloured object in his reality. Of course, the process of solving the Cube also reflects Noir’s existential crisis as the story progresses.
The Spidey scene reminded me of the versatility of this simple and attractive device. to WALL-E (2008) used the Cube as a romantic gesture between the robot protagonists Wall-E and Eevee. Jennifer Lopez’s music video for ‘Ain’t Your Mama’ (2016) features the singer playing women from every decade starting with the 1950s, with the video structured as a mini history of second-wave feminism. She is shown excelling at tasks that the men around her struggle to do, and at one moment she takes a Rubik’s Cube from an unsteady man and solves it on the spot.
star player will smith
Will Smith in ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ (2006).
However, my favorite use of the Cube, and probably the most iconic of them all, is from the Will Smith classic The Pursuit of Happyness (2006). In 1981, Smith’s penniless salesman protagonist Chris Gardner meets hotshot stockbroker Jay Twistle (Brian Howe) in a taxi. Twistle is the head of Dean Witter Reynolds, a big brokerage and securities firm of the 70s and 80s. This is Gardner’s chance to enter the world of finance and he impresses Twistle by solving a Rubik’s Cube during the cab ride (in the previous scene, we saw him practising in his bedroom). Gardner is asked to join the firm as an intern stockbroker. The film’s producers hired 22-year-old Tyson Mao to train Smith for this scene. Mao is a Taiwanese-American ‘speedsolver’ and one of the founders of the World Cube Association.
Brothers and speedcubing champions Tyson (left) and Toby Mao in a 2005 file photo. Tyson was hired to train Will Smith for the Rubik’s Cube scene in his hit film ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’. | Photo credit: Getty Images
During the pandemic, many American pro basketball players used the Rubik’s Cube to pass the time during lockdown. NBA legend Stephen Curry, considered one of the greatest players of all time, uploaded videos of himself solving the Cube on Instagram. He later also learned to solve the Cube blindfolded (there are several well-documented algorithmic methods). It’s rare to find a toy or puzzle that has such wide appeal among people of all ages and descriptions, and that’s what makes the Rubik’s Cube such a special thing.
The author and journalist is working on his first non-fiction book.
