I will add that as far as villains go, I really liked both Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix's Jokers. Can't think of any CGI villains that even come close.
Great observation about the constant slaughtering of the (semi-)innocent and the "he must have had a bad childhood" sparing of the true villains. Never really thought about this.
I really can't stand super hero movies for quite some time now, even pre-woke. The shallowness is just insufferable. But what to expect from a culture that is now literally chasing balloons LOL. Collingwood was right: we will go under because we stopped believing our culture is worth saving. Sadly, we might even be right.
Great post, love it. I love film and the arts but despair of sharing magic in a world where people have lost touch with the real magic - of life. It is still a great magical journey for those who know. But the knowing must come first. Culture become cultures of death when they choose the wrong wolves.
I guess the Marvel method of dealing with "bad guys," i.e., destroying the rank-and-file but attempting to spare the evil bosses atop the entire enterprise, reflects what happens in real life. The plandemic and vaccine were a criminal scam, but if anyone is held responsible, it will be the folks near the bottom of the totem pole; Fauci and Francis Collins and the like will get off scott free. And that seems to be the pattern with every government-backed criminal enterprise: only the little guys take the fall; the big fish always get away.
They don’t understand heroism because the don’t understand virtue, or have any idea of what a developed personality might look like (tonic masculinity).
You nailed it. This is what happens when "education" is purposely stripped of classical literature, classical music, or anything else that might inspire higher thought. We live in an infantile culture.
So true. "Mainstream culture [and the screenwriters and directors who cast the vision] currently lacks two essential things: an adequate understanding of evil, and an adequate understanding of heroism." But as you so well point out - it's all there in our rich literary history! One need only read.
Oh, sorry, I forgot... all that stuff written by white European folk is somehow racist or whatever.
My young adult children have ditched this cultural flatland and are going back to the classics - there's hope!
Feb 13, 2023·edited Feb 13, 2023Liked by Harrison Koehli
No small wonder most people reject the modern Marvel and its anti-heroes. Hollywood has been playing the Hokey Pokey Wokey game forever ---normalizing evil as good, and perversion as normal. Tv programming is pure mind poison. I reject it, and refuse to have it in my house.
Excellent essay. I can’t think of anything to add at the moment, other than to lament that we as a culture have forgotten what heroes are, what heroes do, and what heroes are for. Perhaps never in human history have so many had so much time, resources and freedom to create great works yet failed so completely.
And funny enough, what you wrote kind of made me realize that Deadpool is more of a hero (sort of) than most other Marvel characters, or at least written in a more honest way that doesn’t infantilize the audience, and maybe that explains his popularity.
Aside from serialization, another reason that villains couldn't be killed was the ban on lethal violence in the Comics Code of America, which didn't even allow blood. The CCA basically created the superhero genre, which is why this trope of 'mercifully sparing the villain so he can have a fair trial' goes back to the very beginning.
Which isn't to say it hasn't been morally corrosive, because it absolutely has, and Saxon Cross was bang on to make this observation.
It reminds me of the way Disney bowdlerized the fairy tales. Relentlessly happy endings drain the magic from the story by removing the pathos. Truly magical tales rely on the full emotional palette - tragedy is as necessary as comedy, violence as crucial as romance. A society raised on these artificially restricted myths becomes boring and unfulfilling, because its participants aren't getting everything they need. The game becomes dull and they decide to play a new game.
This was fascinating and I don't even know this world. Your point is so well taken. I read it right after Glenn Greenwald on Seymour Hersch and his defamation by those for whom journalism is a day job. The parallels kept occurring to me, both Clark Kent and Superman as company hos. (I think this is the correct use of that term.)
I also love Joaquin Phoenix's Joker and try to do that little dance whenever I'm walking down steps. But was he a villain or a hero? That's not the right word but you know what I mean.
Nice shout-out to tonic masculinity, which gives me the perfect excuse to include this when I get to focus on your writing and evil, where I hope we'll disagree in a most agreeable way ;-)
Feb 14, 2023·edited Feb 14, 2023Liked by Harrison Koehli
Thank you for writing about the importance of magic. John Michael Greer has been writing about this lately, calling ours a dis-enchanted world, whereas most of the history of humanity we lived in an enchanted world.
The Boys on Amazon Prime is a satirical slant on the whole Super Hero ‘business.’ (Pun intended) Really drives home most of the critique above about the genre.
I am not familiar with most of these modern films, so probably should not delve too deeply into this.
I am somewhat familiar, however, with some of the Krishna stories. Krishna was an ancient "superhero" like Odysseus was. But what is special for me about Krishna is that I have seen his story retold through the writing of someone who remembers being there, Dena Merriam. And per her account, Krishna really WAS a superhero. In other words, he had real magical powers.
What I know from other sources is that most of us, if not all of us, used to have such powers. Thus the standard psychology of myth, the psychology of unfulfilled human longing, becomes what is (for me anyway) a more understandable problem of mourning for lost personal abilities. Some of us mourn the loss of our own childhoods for similar reasons. We were simply more able then.
Superhero stories cut into this issue from several angles. On the one hand, they give us ideals to emulate - however unattainable they may be. On another hand, some of them are stories of actual historical events (such are the Mahābhārata) and could be seen as seeking to document those events. Dena actually remembers being at the battlefield depicted in that story. And on the other hand, they can give us an excuse for not acting, because we obviously are not up to the task required. If a superhero did not show up, too bad.
What they do not give us, though inspired stories like Star Wars give us a hint of this, is how to transform ourselves into superheros (if we dare). I believe this is because most of these stories are told to put us into a dependent and defeatist mindset, and not really to inspire.
The few superhero stories I have seen tend to treat the heroes as high school kids, full of emotion and an amount of self-loathing or at least lack of self confidence. Krishna was a serene being, totally confident that he could achieve his desired effect, no matter how challenging. He was sometimes frustrated in his attempts, but never lost his confidence. The modern stories I've seen don't teach that. Krishna was an advanced spiritual being. Modern "heros" are kids with odd genetic mutations. I have seen some Japanese hero stories, though, that meet us half way. The hero is young and not confident, but practices a discipline and is instructed by a master.
If Asia ever comes to rule this planet, it will probably be because they retained a sense of how to develop ability using training and discipline. Freedom is great until you run into someone who is totally able to squash you like a bug.
I will add that as far as villains go, I really liked both Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix's Jokers. Can't think of any CGI villains that even come close.
Great observation about the constant slaughtering of the (semi-)innocent and the "he must have had a bad childhood" sparing of the true villains. Never really thought about this.
I really can't stand super hero movies for quite some time now, even pre-woke. The shallowness is just insufferable. But what to expect from a culture that is now literally chasing balloons LOL. Collingwood was right: we will go under because we stopped believing our culture is worth saving. Sadly, we might even be right.
Great post, love it. I love film and the arts but despair of sharing magic in a world where people have lost touch with the real magic - of life. It is still a great magical journey for those who know. But the knowing must come first. Culture become cultures of death when they choose the wrong wolves.
Balloons in the air, clowns on the ground.
I guess the Marvel method of dealing with "bad guys," i.e., destroying the rank-and-file but attempting to spare the evil bosses atop the entire enterprise, reflects what happens in real life. The plandemic and vaccine were a criminal scam, but if anyone is held responsible, it will be the folks near the bottom of the totem pole; Fauci and Francis Collins and the like will get off scott free. And that seems to be the pattern with every government-backed criminal enterprise: only the little guys take the fall; the big fish always get away.
They don’t understand heroism because the don’t understand virtue, or have any idea of what a developed personality might look like (tonic masculinity).
You nailed it. This is what happens when "education" is purposely stripped of classical literature, classical music, or anything else that might inspire higher thought. We live in an infantile culture.
So true. "Mainstream culture [and the screenwriters and directors who cast the vision] currently lacks two essential things: an adequate understanding of evil, and an adequate understanding of heroism." But as you so well point out - it's all there in our rich literary history! One need only read.
Oh, sorry, I forgot... all that stuff written by white European folk is somehow racist or whatever.
My young adult children have ditched this cultural flatland and are going back to the classics - there's hope!
No small wonder most people reject the modern Marvel and its anti-heroes. Hollywood has been playing the Hokey Pokey Wokey game forever ---normalizing evil as good, and perversion as normal. Tv programming is pure mind poison. I reject it, and refuse to have it in my house.
Excellent essay. I can’t think of anything to add at the moment, other than to lament that we as a culture have forgotten what heroes are, what heroes do, and what heroes are for. Perhaps never in human history have so many had so much time, resources and freedom to create great works yet failed so completely.
Gone are the days of Aragorn.
And funny enough, what you wrote kind of made me realize that Deadpool is more of a hero (sort of) than most other Marvel characters, or at least written in a more honest way that doesn’t infantilize the audience, and maybe that explains his popularity.
Aside from serialization, another reason that villains couldn't be killed was the ban on lethal violence in the Comics Code of America, which didn't even allow blood. The CCA basically created the superhero genre, which is why this trope of 'mercifully sparing the villain so he can have a fair trial' goes back to the very beginning.
Which isn't to say it hasn't been morally corrosive, because it absolutely has, and Saxon Cross was bang on to make this observation.
It reminds me of the way Disney bowdlerized the fairy tales. Relentlessly happy endings drain the magic from the story by removing the pathos. Truly magical tales rely on the full emotional palette - tragedy is as necessary as comedy, violence as crucial as romance. A society raised on these artificially restricted myths becomes boring and unfulfilling, because its participants aren't getting everything they need. The game becomes dull and they decide to play a new game.
Which is about where I think we're at now.
This was fascinating and I don't even know this world. Your point is so well taken. I read it right after Glenn Greenwald on Seymour Hersch and his defamation by those for whom journalism is a day job. The parallels kept occurring to me, both Clark Kent and Superman as company hos. (I think this is the correct use of that term.)
I also love Joaquin Phoenix's Joker and try to do that little dance whenever I'm walking down steps. But was he a villain or a hero? That's not the right word but you know what I mean.
Nice shout-out to tonic masculinity, which gives me the perfect excuse to include this when I get to focus on your writing and evil, where I hope we'll disagree in a most agreeable way ;-)
Thank you for writing about the importance of magic. John Michael Greer has been writing about this lately, calling ours a dis-enchanted world, whereas most of the history of humanity we lived in an enchanted world.
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-nature-of-enchantment/
The Boys on Amazon Prime is a satirical slant on the whole Super Hero ‘business.’ (Pun intended) Really drives home most of the critique above about the genre.
I am not familiar with most of these modern films, so probably should not delve too deeply into this.
I am somewhat familiar, however, with some of the Krishna stories. Krishna was an ancient "superhero" like Odysseus was. But what is special for me about Krishna is that I have seen his story retold through the writing of someone who remembers being there, Dena Merriam. And per her account, Krishna really WAS a superhero. In other words, he had real magical powers.
What I know from other sources is that most of us, if not all of us, used to have such powers. Thus the standard psychology of myth, the psychology of unfulfilled human longing, becomes what is (for me anyway) a more understandable problem of mourning for lost personal abilities. Some of us mourn the loss of our own childhoods for similar reasons. We were simply more able then.
Superhero stories cut into this issue from several angles. On the one hand, they give us ideals to emulate - however unattainable they may be. On another hand, some of them are stories of actual historical events (such are the Mahābhārata) and could be seen as seeking to document those events. Dena actually remembers being at the battlefield depicted in that story. And on the other hand, they can give us an excuse for not acting, because we obviously are not up to the task required. If a superhero did not show up, too bad.
What they do not give us, though inspired stories like Star Wars give us a hint of this, is how to transform ourselves into superheros (if we dare). I believe this is because most of these stories are told to put us into a dependent and defeatist mindset, and not really to inspire.
The few superhero stories I have seen tend to treat the heroes as high school kids, full of emotion and an amount of self-loathing or at least lack of self confidence. Krishna was a serene being, totally confident that he could achieve his desired effect, no matter how challenging. He was sometimes frustrated in his attempts, but never lost his confidence. The modern stories I've seen don't teach that. Krishna was an advanced spiritual being. Modern "heros" are kids with odd genetic mutations. I have seen some Japanese hero stories, though, that meet us half way. The hero is young and not confident, but practices a discipline and is instructed by a master.
If Asia ever comes to rule this planet, it will probably be because they retained a sense of how to develop ability using training and discipline. Freedom is great until you run into someone who is totally able to squash you like a bug.