POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Of Supers & “The S Word”

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki, Finland in August 2017 (to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

Sacrifice went out of fashion when The Greatest Generation began to die of old age…

Evidence is everywhere. From the glut of media hype celebrating the anniversary of the death of a woman who was not only wealthy and in the public eye, but who had no qualms about reveling at being the center of attention; and total media silence about the anniversary of the death of a woman whose life is synonymous with self-sacrifice. They died on the same day and where everyone knows the whole story of Princess Diana, few can remember much about Mother Teresa except that she was some Catholic lady in India somewhere…

We make embarrassed noises and crass jokes about a woman who not only dedicated her life to science, but died a painful death because she dared to reach beyond the known; and we make googly eyes at a mechanical engineer who “…invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on 747s…[and left to] pursue comedy, writing and performing jokes and bits…[and]…would regularly conduct wacky science experiments.” Most notably, he has not sacrificed so much as a booking appearance to science.

“The S Word” is no longer spoken while “The L Word” and the “The F Word” are celebrated as symbols of the ultimate in Human progress and moral achievement.

The age of the heroine is dead; she is gone from the public eye as is “the great man”. Together, once-upon-a-time, they created legends and generated hope.

Today our legends have TV shows, clothing lines, and magazines or websites and they hawk the next Facebook and iPhone Upgrade. It seems to me that real-life heroines and heroes have vanished, though they have reappeared on silver screen and LED screen, leaping off of old-fashioned comic books and new-fangled graphic novels and not only making us look up, but making us cheer (or cringe, depending on the reviews of the most recent super-movie). What started with a dorky kid wizard, a girl who defied a corrupt government with her bow and arrow, and a midget with hairy feet, reached a new culmination in the movie “Wonder Woman”.

I know you’ve all seen it, but when the credits were rolling, I said to my wife, “I hope they let the granddaughter watch this!”

Because I’m a man who grew up among the Greatest Generation, I knew how to tell the difference between a person in authority and a hero. But I’m an old teacher and school counselor now. I watch my students spark for a brief instant when they see “Logan” or “Wonder Woman”, or recall the magic of Narnia, or the bravery of Katniss Everdeen. Then the light goes out because “things aren’t really like that” and “we don’t have heroines anymore”, and except for imaginary movies, they don’t have any clear, realistic concept of the “The S Word” any more – because of a dearth of examples presented by MY generation.

I think this is also why the Christian Church at large is dead to most young people. It may be that they see it as a wealthy, static institution dedicated to the status quo rather than driving out the money changers…and it is CERTAINLY not a hotbed of sacrificial living.

It makes me weep that we have to watch actors pretending to fly planes full of bombs with deadly poisonous gas into the air so that they explode harmlessly; that they pretend die for something that they act as if they believe passionately. Those actors represent something that’s missing in our lives as a civilization.

I’m ending here with the deepest hope that anyone who reads this can refute my claim by naming names and pointing me to children, women, and men who embody “The S Word”; who have sacrificed -- really sacrificed -- for some higher ideal – whether religious or atheist or anywhere in between.

Anyone? Anyone? Beuller…Beuller...

Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Generation

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