20160202 (redemptive violence)

In one of the last scenes a lady sergeant remarks to her
accompanying general after he makes peace with S-man,
"You gotta admit, he's a hunk."

Watching 2013’s Man of Steel 

Brought a lot of thoughts to mind 

About the nature of the world, the 

Elements of  “fight” stories, which 

Hearken back to a book seminal

To my thinking about literature,

Myth, and theology, Walter Wink’s,

Engaging the Powers (1992). 

He illustrates how a religion

Of violence founded in ancient

Babylonian myth abounds in

American cultural life—religion,

Politics, and entertainment. If I

Might simplify (and may 

Scholars forgive my errors): the

Babylonian cosmos is the result

Of a dispute among primordial

Principles. Tiamat, the disorderly

Female equivalent of evil and

Chaos is violently subdued by

A stronger god Marduk, male

Principle. Ea, another god who

Slaughters still another whose

Drops of blood become humans,

Made simply to serve the gods,

Produce wealth, fight and die 

Without question. Wink says

The themes are everywhere in our

Culture: an indestructible good 

Guy becomes captive to an

Equally indestructible bad guy.

They fight it out until the good

Guy triumphs. But wait, there’s

More. The bad guy is never really

Destroyed and the cycle goes on.

Comics are an especially good

Source: Superman, Batman and

Robin, Lone Ranger. And the theme

Translates well into our system

Of military superiority, our police,

The national security state, even to

Corruptions of religion allying 

With our being the world police

Who must put down every instance

Of disorder, revolution, change.

To bow out now and suggest you

Read the book may seem 

Unfair but I want to say a few

Things about “fight” stories and

This movie. Fight films build up

To the big one and the drama

Consists in following the mayhem

Punch by punch, often in slow 

Motion so that you can watch

The blood splatter from the faces.

So too, MoS, ends in a tediously

Overworked blow-by-blow of 

These Titans of good and evil

Until more than half the window

Glass in all Manhattan has been

Shattered while they throw each 

Other’s bodies about. Humankind

Watches and waits in the streets 

Below, somehow not covered in

Blood and not recoiling from all

The death worked about them,

Ready to pay obeisance to the 

Demigod Kal-El from Krypton

Via Kansas. And since you’re

An American moviegoer capable

Of suspending tremendous 

Disbelief or not remembering

The Daily Planet building was

Destroyed in the fracas, who but

Our hero S-Man, mild-mannered,

Clark Kent assumes the task of

Stringer in the Daily Planet’s

Metropolis headquarters, to do

Mini-battles with human ne’er

Do wells? What a downer.

c. J.S.Manista, 2016