Prodigal ME

storyadvocate:

yarnzipangirl:

fierceawakening:

roachpatrol:

zionistmooncolony:

fromchaostocosmos:

When Superman: Man of Steel came out people were saying that the film was too gritty and cynical and it was that cynicism that destroyed the Superman we have always know and loved.

That it was that very cynicism that had Superman break his cardinal rule of do not kill and had him that very thing, kill.

As the reviews come out about Batman vs Superman and the bleakness and cynicism of that film I posit that the reason Superman has killed and the reason he is so unrecognizable as the hero we grew up with and the hero we loved and looked up to is because every essence of his Jewishness has been meticulously and calculatingly been scrubbed out.

Superman was written by two Jewish teens in the early 30′s and they imprinted onto Superman a Jewish identity.

Superman is in Diaspora. His homeland gone, his language, his culture, and his heritage both alien and foreign to were he lives. Living day to day with a part of himself hidden so as to be live a somewhat unmolested life.

He must struggle with what it means to be a member of his people while not having his people or culture around him and while having the outside culture imposed upon him and expected to assimilate to this outside force.

A great example of this can be seen oddly enough in Man of Steel when Lois Lane asks Superman what the S on his chest stands for. He tells it means hope in his people’s language and Lois responds by saying that here it is a S.

Superman is expected to accept this new reality and to let go of his culture and understand that he must rather assimilate instead. That he must let go of what it means in his language and culture and understand that it is now a S.

It is the internal struggle of the Jew. To survive in Diaspora. To endure and still maintain a sense of self and one’s roots. To keep your people’s language, customs, and culture alive especially surrounded by a world where you are the alien. You are the foreign being and you must assimilate and then be grateful that you were allowed to be forced to assimilate in the first place.

Superman has two masks. The mask of Superman and the mask of Clark Kent. Kal-el, is the face of Superman and not the mask. Kal-el is the struggle to survive when you are the alien.

Superman in the films and especially Man of Steel and even more so in Batman vs Superman is meant to be a jesus figure. A Messiah.

But that is not what he really is. He is rather the personification of Tikkun Olam.

Tikkun Olam is that each and every person is obligated to fix the world. To leave it a better place that when it was when you got there. To work towards justice, peace, and truth, the three pillars of Judaism.

Superman is meant to reflect what each of us can be. What we should be and should do. That when given the opportunity to good we should take it with both hands. That is whatever way we can with whatever our own abilities and powers are we should help others when given the chance. That is Tikkun Olam and that is Superman.

The new Superman does not fail because it is cynical. The new Superman fails because he is not Jewish.

You forgot to mention that kal-el, which in Hebrew is famously and intentionally spelled קל א-ל means “voice of G-d”. His story specifically was based on that of Moshe in many ways. His father and mother - knowing that if he stayed with them he would only find death - placed him in a basket. And that basket, they floated down a vast river. The river of stars and particles, and seemingly nothingness. A nothingness that swallows everything which has falls into it. And that basket came to a place where he could grow up, and where in the end, he was needed. I personally don’t know much about the movies - my job as colony paper pusher leaves no time for such fun, but I agree with you. To erase superman’s jewish identity is to erase superman and create an entirely new character, empty and devoid of its original meaning and purpose.

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Administrator

Running with this, I want to point out fundamentally different approaches between Christian and Jewish traditions on heroism, and good and evil. To simplify a couple hundred years of literature and parable: in Christian fantasy, you have to eradicate evil. The narrative of Christian goodness is generally a strenuous, violent opposition to badness, and frankly this moral philosophy makes people really fucking dangerous, because in order to define themselves as good, they have to be fighting something bad. Purge their sins, slay their demons, drive out the unbelievers. In Jewish fantasy, to do good, you have to actually find things to do that are helpful and needed. It’s not so oppositional, it’s… supplemental. If no one is helping someone, you help them. If no one is fixing something, you fix it. The hunger of children is as important as the enemy at the gate. Kal-El, the voice of god, protects his people both as a super-man and as a human reporter. In both cases, on both stages, he asks people to stand up for truth and justice, and to stand up for each other. 

I did not know this and it is VERY NEAT

Hokay.  So.  I was really not sure if I wanted to reply to this but *breathes deep* while I absolutely agree that Superman’s Jewishness and his identity as an immigrant is completely and utterly VITAL to who he is and what he stands for HOLY SHIT ON A BRICK do I disagree with your take on the DCEU, whether it’s succeeded or failed, and whether or not Clark, as shown in the DCEU, is a Messianic figure or not.

Because sorry, but no.  No, he’s really not.  It’s SO SO SO much more subtle and interesting and well done than that.  Because if you actually watched the movie, if you actually pay attention to the story and what’s really happening, Clark is absolutely positively a Moses figure in the DCEU.  The Jesus is there is an illusion.  The Jesus is posed as what people WANT HIM TO BE when he is actually Moses.  

And this is not at all accidental.  This is very clearly the intent of both the narrative AND the meta-narrative, the commentary on who Superman is and who people think he is and what kind of character he ACTUALLY IS, in narrative and for us as the audience.

“Well, he was 33 years old when MOS happens and he submitted himself to die!”

Except he DIDN’T die.  Instead, Clark’s first adventure in the DCEU is coming to know and learn his true origin, much as Moses did after he chose one of the slaves over one of his ‘own’ people and killed him for his abuse of said slave.  Because as we realize after the movie is over, this movie isn’t about Clark sacrificing his life for the world.  Instead, it is about him CHOOSING where his loyalties are, choosing who and how he will act, and CHOOSING to take the place leading the people of earth ‘towards the sun’.  

“But his ‘true’ people, his true place of origin, is Krypton.  That doesn’t make sense with what you just said.”

Except it ISN’T.  Lara and Jor-El pointedly REJECT the ways and the mistakes of Krypton and put their faith in the freedom of choice and the people of Earth.  Lara, specifically in this version, is the one to send him ‘down the river’ so to speak.  Regardless of WHERE he came from, regardless of what his genetic heritage, his true people (as evidenced by his choice) are the people of Earth.

And that doesn’t even bring the fact that if you try and put this as a Christian metaphor, what does that make Zod?  The Devil?  He wasn’t really tempting Clark with anything; he was threatening him and destroying everything he cares about.  Judas?  Don’t make me laugh.  There was nothing TO betray.  He might have betrayed Jor-El, but that was a betrayal of brothers who see different ways that the world works, NOT a decision based upon greed and betrayal of ideals.  All the same, not Clark.  Pontius Pilate?  Nope.  Because Zod deems Clark as guilty all on his own.  Zod never thinks he’s innocent.

Zod is the Pharaoh.  Zod is Clark’s last standing ‘brother’ who seeks to maintain that which he was tasked with protecting, the leader who would do anything for HIS people not realizing that Clark, despite all the trappings, is NOT one of those people but one of the people of Earth.  And Zod can’t understand that, why Clark would choose that when being Kryptonian is so clearly better, so much more important, but it is the TRUTH.  

There’s even, cinematics being as gorgeous as they can be, a ‘wave’ of force when Zod forces the issue on Clark and Clark chooses to kill Zod instead of seeing more of his people die.  The Phantom Zone sucking in the ship, that wave, like the Red Sea closing around the Pharaoh’s soldiers, leaving the people of Earth once more free and saved. 

“But why would they hide this message?  Why put in that scene where Clark goes to a church and stands in front of Jesus?  Why make him 33?  Why give an illusion of Messianic when you’re going for Moses?”

Because of the main thrust and the point of everything that IS Batman v Superman:  Clark Kent is ‘just a guy trying to do the right thing’.  Clark Kent is not the messiah, he is not divine.  He is EMPOWERED by the Divine (light=G*d=yellow sunlight=come on guys it’s right there) but he is not INHERENTLY Divine.  Everyone thinks that he’s Jesus but he’s NOT JESUS.  

Because it’s easy to think of him as Jesus.  It’s easy to think of him as all powerful, easy to divorce him from yourself and say ‘well he can do that because he’s Superman’ or ‘he should have fixed this part of the terrible world because he’s Superman’ when NO.  Noooo.  

He is a man.  Just trying to do the right thing.  He is a man, trying to lead the rest of the world with him into the ‘sun’, into a world where everyone acts like Superman, where everyone always tries to do the right thing.  It’s right there in the speech Jor-El gives him in MoS.

But the rest of the world INSISTS on creating that divide.  It insists on deifying him when as you can see in the movie, it is the last thing he wants.  It is the last thing that’s TRUE, as the movie takes great pains to both show that Clark is Exceptionally And Incredibly Normal in a lot of ways (brings his girlfriend flowers, gets grumpy face, has a boss coming after him for work, doesn’t know stuff, gets kind of awkward, gets angry) and that a lot of what he does (namely speak up for the poor and disenfranchised and insist that they be deemed ‘important’ in the eyes of the world is something that anyone can do if they decide to.  I’ve seen a dozen and a half metas about how various heroes would be proponents for the poor or POC or LGBTQA+ allies, but LITERALLY THE ONLY ONE WHO ACTUALLY SAYS SHIT ABOUT THIS POINT is Clark Kent in BvS and I’m going to harp on that point forever because it’s IMPORTANT that people remember it.

“But he died and he’s going to rise again!  That’s totally Jesusy!”

Except here’s the thing: he didn’t die when he was 33, he died when he was 34-35.  AND the way that he died, METATEXTUALLY?  We know he’s coming back.  We KNOW HE’S COMING BACK. Not only that, but they’ve chosen to make it so early in his career that it transforms this event: this is not so much Jesus’s death before he ascends to Heaven after having lived his life and told his story.  This is Odin on the Tree.  This is Moses in the desert (you know, that dream that Bruce had with the DESERT?).  This is a man being transformed by an experience, and the world’s perception of him transformed at the same time.  The Jesus-death for Superman isn’t possible, let alone at this stage of the game, because we know they aren’t going to keep him dead, unlike when it was done in the comics.  He is coming back ON EARTH to be Superman.  

So do you want to know why the DCEU Superman ‘failed’?

Well, first of all, as a giant Superman fan?  I don’t think he did.  I don’t think that at all.  I think there’s a million thinkpieces on it because people, as a THING lately, like to hate on Superman.  Or at least, a Superman that doesn’t solve all the problems and is perfect all the time, except for how he could solve all the problems and he’s perfect so he’s boring…

People.  PEOPLE.

I also think there’s a cottage industry of clickbait articles on how much the DCEU sucks because people click on them and negativity is more popular than positivity.  

But there’s plenty of Superman fans that I know who love the DCEU Superman.  Lots of fans that I’ve seen who connect with a Superman who feels misunderstood, who is so intrinsically tied to his roots as the Original Immigrant that people hold up signs telling him to go home IN CANON, who clearly has issues with depression and anxiety and doesn’t like to talk to people because he knows how important anything he says would be and that’s TERRIFYING.  And no matter what said clickbait articles say, the damn movies ARE making money.   

Why do people reject him?

Because he’s uncomfortable.  Because he IS so very clearly the immigrant unsure of his place in this world.  He is imperfect and human and in that place of imperfection and humanity LOOKS STRAIGHT AT YOU, just as he looks at Perry, and asks why you don’t care about the poor and disenfranchised TOO.  He shoves logs through a sexist’s truck because he endangered the livelihood of a woman, endangering that man’s livelihood right back and he does it unapologetically.

As Grant Morrison once pointed out, he’s not traditional wish fulfillment.  Not at all.

Why do people reject him?  BECAUSE HE’S A GODDAMN SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR, just the way those two Jewish boys made him, and people got used to the happy smiley everyone-loves-him joke-and-a-grin defender of the status quo that made up a lot of the public perception of the character for many years because it’s EASIER to like even if it’s HARDER to be invested in.  Because he IS a personification of Tikkun Olam and THAT IS NOT A COMFORTABLE PERSON TO BE, either from the outside or the inside and people are a lot more comfortable with sad men who do the wrong thing for the right reasons than those who insist that they have to do the right thing even when it costs them EVERYTHING.

Just… saying.

Reblogging for that last post. @yarnzipangirl Thank you well said I agree 100%. Also,

I apologize to whoever made this pic I forget who it was and they posted it a few months ago. But the moment I saw it I went “HOLY CRAP HE’S PARTING THE SEA.” I’m aware that the world engine is in fact creating this effect, but this pose with his fist in the air, dead center in the beam with ocean risen all around him is extremely evocative of Moses parting the Red Sea. And this is Clark’s biggest hero moment in the entire film, when he comes through when it counts the most. When he saves the people he chooses as his from certain destruction. That’s incredible Moses symbolism.

(via queenmera)