Windstorm, 2011

A few nights ago, Jenna and I watched Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon. It was bad. Very bad. I haven't seen one quite that bad in a long time—since Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

On Monday, Jenna and I went to the Hale Centre Theatre of Orem to see The Drowsy Chaperone. We first saw that play a few years ago during the first national tour (Jonathan Crombiee, the actor who played Gilbert in the Anne of Green Gables movies played the lead role). We loved it and laughed throughout the whole thing, so we were excited to see it again.

The play is about a man, known simply as "The Man in the Chair." He is feeling blue and pondering questions of life and musical theater. To help cheer himself up, he puts on a record ("yes, record") of one of his favorite plays from the 1920s—The Drowsy Chaperone. As he listens, the play comes to life in his apartment, telling an absurdly predictable story about a young woman giving up a life of glamour to tie the knot with a man she barely knows.

The man in the chair narrates and even interacts with the characters as the play builds to its wacky crescendo. Jokes abound, ranging from the outrageous Adolfo, the self-proclaimed "King of Romance," who has the funniest scenes, trying to seduce the bride to the terrible puns by two jovial gangsters disguised as pastry chefs.

Throughout, the play pokes fun at the foibles of theater, especially musicals. It riffs on old-time Broadway prejudice, spit-take sequences, and more and apes dozens of other plays, including a hilarious take on The King and I. It even has well-placed digs at modern Broadway, intermissions, Elton John, and Disney. The result is one of the funniest plays ever staged. But the interesting thing is that, in the middle of a rip-roaringly hilarious time, there is a very powerful--and very serious--message.

The message comes in the middle of the play when the bride is feeling apprehensive about getting married and asks advice from her chaperone, a woman who is perpetually drunk and drowsy (hence the name). In response, the chaperone sings an entirely inappropriate anthem (yes, "anthem") called "As We Stumble Along."

As we stumble along
On life's funny journey,
As we stumble along
Into the blue,
We look here and we look there,
Seeking answers anywhere,
Never sure of where to turn or what to do.

Still we bumble our way
Through life's crazy labyrinth.
Barely knowing left from right
Nor right from wrong,
And the best that we can do
Is hope a blue bird
Will sing his song
As we stumble along.

Later, the man in the chair protests a song that declares that "love is always lovely in the end."

"That's not true!" he says. "Love isn't always lovely in the end. Sometimes there are lawyers."

The audience slowly begins to realize that the man, like so many of us, is frustrated with the difficulties of the world and he uses musicals as a way to escape.

As the play progresses, he gets more and more into it and ignores all disruptions to focus solely on the joy it brings him. He obsesses about a moment where a glitch in the record prevents him from hearing the most important advice the chaperone gives to the bride, which is either "leave while you can" or "live while you can." He points out that is the same choice we have through much of life—leave or live.

Just as the play comes to a triumphant, happy climax, real life intrudes, cutting off the last note in an amusing and frustrating way. The man doesn't know what to do. He thinks about starting over but says, "no, we can't do that, can we?"

He collapses into his chair in despair. There, he returns to the message that makes the play transcend its goofiness. "I know it's not a perfect show," he tells the audience (he's right, it is hilariously bad, but that is on purpose). "But it does what a musical is supposed to do. It takes you to another world. And it gives you a little tune to carry with you in your head for when you're feeling blue."

Softly, he begins to hum and then sing "As We Stumble Along." he is soon joined by the rest of the cast and as the song reaches the end, he opens the door and, squaring his shoulders back, he walks off into the world.

I like that message. It touches on why it is so important to find good, uplifting things in life. There are so many things in life to bring us down, that make us blue. As the economic crisis gets worse and partisan battles increase to the point that we fear blood will be spilled, it is hard to see the good. But good plays, books, music, TV shows, movies and more can help lift us up and make it possible to confront the world with defiance and even joy. It is what stories do--it is why they are important!

Arthur Miller once wrote: "Great drama is great questions or it is nothing but technique. I could not imagine a theater worth my time that didn't want to change the world." I agree. Theater—for that matter, any kind of diversion—should have some kind of redeeming value, or it isn't worth our time and effort. It should try to change the world in some way. Even if it is doing nothing more than lift spirits for a few hours.

That doesn't mean that good theater has to always be fun and light. In fact, deep and darker stories can be just as powerful. One of my favorite movies of all time is Glory, about the first all-black regiment in the Civil War. It isn't a funny film, and often it is uncomfortable to watch. The ending is heart-wrenching and sad, but the movie is amazing because I always walk away from it grateful for those that gave their lives to give me the opportunities I have—those that were willing to give everything to preserve this nation. I walk away a little better and a little stronger and a little more willing to face trials and overcome because it is right.

Another of my favorite movies is The Dark Knight. It is a difficult movie to watch, and it makes you wonder if any good still exists in Gotham and, by extension, the rest of the world. And then comes the end, where the people of Gotham and even the "bad men" mobsters, refuse to blow each other up, even at the cost of their own lives. And you walk away with a newfound hope for humanity, that no matter how dark and depressing things get, we can overcome.

In my mind, that is what great theater--what great popular culture--should do: It should give us a bit of light we can use to hold back the darkness of the world. And hopefully it will give us a little tune to carry with us for when we're feeling blue.

Then we stumble away
Through dawn's blinding sunbeams.
Barely knowing right from left
Nor left from wrong.

But as long as we can hear that little blue bird
There'll be a song
As we stumble along.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend that got me to thinking. The conversation focused on technological advances in general and Facebook in particular. This friend, who I will not name, is adamantly opposed to Facebook, which is his absolute right. But it was his reason for being opposed that I felt was a bit--maybe not odd, because I've heard the same argument from other people before--but perhaps a bit short-sighted or even false. His argument for not using Facebook was simple: People lived just fine before Facebook was invented, so I can, too. And the truth is that he is absolutely correct. People survived just fine without Facebook and his refusal to jointhe site will, in no way, impede his ability to survive or even to enjoy life. That wasn't my problem. My problem was that he is looking at the whole thing all wrong. First of all, Facebook wasn't created as a necessity of life. It was created as a way to help people keep in touch with others and even connect with those with whom they have lost touch. And it does both of those things very well. I grew up in a very small town in northeastern Arizona. After graduation, my high school class (94 students) scattered across the United States and even around the globe. I myself spent 2 years in southern Chile, several moved to Phoenix, and others moved all over the place. I quickly lost touch with all but a very few of my friends. This was not because I didn't want to communicate with them, it was just that communication took a lot of time. Could I live without knowing where they were or what they were up to? Sure. And I did. For several years after I returned from Chile, my life went on just fine. I kept in contact with the few friends I could still find and heard rumors about other ones through the town gossip line (I mentioned that the town was small, right?). But I still wondered how some of them were doing and wished that there was a way to contact them. A few years before the Facebook revolution, I attended a reuinion, where I met some of my old friends. It was so great to see them, but the short hours afforded at the reunion weren't enough to really re-connect. I got a few email addresses, but that was it. Then came Facebook and viola! Suddenly many of my high school friends, along with several of my Chilean friends and many others friends that I've made over the years, can be found in a single, easy-to-use space. I can chat with them, find out what is going on in their lives, and even see pictures. On top of that, it reminds me when i need to send out birthday cards or other important events. And friends can invite me to reunions and get togethers, which are always fun. Are there problems? Yes. I hate the Facebook games and couldn't care less if my friend John wants my help in on his virtual farm, I'm never going to do it. I sometimes worry about security and set my security to a very high level to protect myself as much as possible. Sometimes I get invites from people I don't know or really don't want to reconnect with. And some of my friends posts are ... well, let's just say that they are less interesting than others. But those are minor inconveniences that I gladly put up with for the value that I feel I get from Facebook. But the good and bad of Facebook are actually not the point of this post. They can be argued left and right forever and the argument will always come down to personal opinion, so it's kind of pointless. What I want to point out is that, regardless of how much I enjoy Facebook, I have never considered it necessary for a happy life. Does reconnecting with my friends make me happy. Absolutely. Could I be happy without them? Absolutely, though I would (and did) miss some of the friends that I now get to hear from on a regular basis. And that's my first problem with what my friend said: Surviving and being happy before or after Facebook aren't really the point. Facebook is just a way--an optional way--to enhance life, and that is it. So my first objection is a simple technicality--the statement that people lived just fine before Facebook is irrelevant as it was never meant to be more than an enhancement to life. The real question is whether people feel that their lives have been enhanced by Facebook. That goes back to personal preference and, to a large degree, experience and I'm fine with that. But as I thought about my friend's statement, another thought struck me: can't you say that exact same thing about pretty much ANY technology? TV? check. Cars? check. Microwaves? check. Modern farming equipment? sure, that, too. See, that is the problem that has troubled me since my discussion with my friend. Personally, I don't honestly care one way or the other whether he uses Facebook or not, but it reflects an attitude I think is problematic: the "reject all change because the past was just fine" attitude. As someone who works in technology, I see this all the time. A short time ago a user at work actually accused me of not doing my job because my team changed things too much. It didn't matter to him that over 95% of our user base not only approves of the changes but has commented many times on how much more productive those same changes make their jobs. "Things were working just fine before," this particular employee said, so to him the changes were a bad thing because why would you change something that is working? A couple of nights ago Jenna and I discussed this same idea regarding pregnancy and birth. In her most recent class, she is learning about child development and the class got into a debate over how much the medical industry should be involved in childbirth. One of the students all but called all mothers who do not have natural births in their own home irresponsible (she also claimed that when she had children, she was sure she would find a comfortable position to pop them out and that there was NEVER a good reason to induce labor). That bothered Jenna quite a bit and we discussed it late into the night. As humans I think we have a tendency to romanticize the past while ignoring the hard facts of that time. Today it seems to be in fashion to idolize the 1950s—especially the 1950s portrayed in I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver, where the husband and wife slept in separate beds and they couldn't show a toilet on national television (dead serious, check out this little factoid on Snopes.com). But we forget that there were serious problems in the '50s. Racism and abuse were rampant, women had few rights and less respect, much of the world economy was still reeling from World War II, communism had half the world terrified of the other half and neighbors terrified of neighbors, smoking was encouraged by doctors and The Flintstones, and so on. Even worse, a lot of people seem to be getting nostalgic for the days of the Founding Fathers, when disease killed off most people before they reached what we now consider middle age, people were often hung for minor offenses, and slaves were a regular part of life for a lot of Americans. Please don't think I'm suggesting that things like Facebook or other technologies have anything to do with solving those kinds of problems. They don't. But my point is that it is foolish to think of the past as having many advantages over modern day life. Are there problems today? Yes. Are they worse than the past? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of the time I lean towards "not." The Dark Ages, for example, just seem to be a bummer all around except for a handful of people who happened to be born into the extremely inbred breed of royalty—and then they were lucky only if they were male. So whether you Facebook or not really isn't a big deal to me. True, you will probably hear more from me if you do Facebook, but I can appreciate your decision not to. But please don't use the excuse that the world got along just fine without it. Truth is, life on this planet got along pretty well without all of us as well. But I don't think we want to return to those days, do we?

DISCLAIMER: It was a very sad day when I learned that science fiction author Michael Chrichton passed away a few years ago. He filled my high school years with wonder and fantasy. And while I poke a little fun at some of his stories in this post, I mean no disrespect to him or his work. What terrible thing happened in Michael Chrichton's childhood to make him hate amusement parks? One park or another feature as the "real" bad guy of at least 3 of his stories (4 if you count The Lost World as separate fromJurassic Park). It's like he thinks that the worst evils of the world are manifest in those parks. Recently, Jenna and I watched Chrichton's first volley against amusement parks: Westworld. In that movie, rich people attend a theme park designed to look and feel just like the old west, medieval times, or Roman times. In the theme park, they interact with (and kill or have sex with) robots designed to look and act human. One of the robots, played by Yul Brynner (yes, THAT Yul Brynner—from The King and I) is a gunslinger who is constantly after one of the primary guests. Of course, he is programmed to always lose ... at least until some kind of computer virus glitches all of the machines and they turn against the park's guests. Then Brynner's character becomes dangerous and goes on a long, protracted hunt after the main character. Futureworld, the Chrichton-less sequel to Westworld, continued on the same theme, though borrowed a bit from Asimov's I, Robot at the same time. And, while it did feature some of the theme park ideas in it, it focused more behind the scenes, so the fun of the parks was lost. Of course, you can't talk about Chrichton and theme parks without talking about Jurassic Park. That is probably the epitome of a theme park run amok. I still think of the Weird Al song about that book/movie:

Jurassic Park is frightening in the dark All the animals are running wild! Someone shut the fence off in the rain. Now they scare me and alarm me, 'Cause they sure don't act like Barney, And I'm not sure I'll get home again. Oh no!

Lost World, the infinitely inferior Jurassic Park sequel, also focused on the theme park idea, though to a lesser extent. The movie pushed it much further than the book did, with InGen trying to bring the animals to the mainland for some kind of zoo, which ended in one of the lamest sequences in Hollywood history: the T-Rex loose in San Diego, except he doesn't do much except eat a dog. LAME! Chrichton's last volley against theme parks came in a book that, at first glance, seems a bit out of place in this list: Timeline. In that book, a mega-corporation discovered a way to essentially fax yourself back in time (no, I'm not kidding). What would they plan for this exciting new technology? Why, build a time-based theme park of course! The theme park idea was so shoehorned into the story that it was completely excised for the film version. And, quite frankly, the film benefited from its removal. So my question is, what did theme parks do the Chrichton to make him so adamantly opposed to them. Did Mickey Mouse bite him as a child? Did he see the characters unmasking and lost all sense of wonder? What? Actually, I think that he returned to the theme park idea so often because he was able to use it to magnify the problems of society. In Westworld, the uber-rich do whatever they please. They have sex, they kill, they brawl, whatever with no consequences—all for $1,000 a day (which was a lot more back in the '70s). They lower themselves to the lowest possible levels human beings can achieve. The Jurassic Park stories aren't much better. In those stories, man plays God to the amusement, once again, to the uber-rich. The move corrected this problem by making Hammond, the park's owner, a kindly old soul who just wants to bring real wonder to children around the globe, but the book's version of Hammond is much harsher. He is a prick, to say the least, and plans on charging an arm and a leg for anyone to have the chance to glimpse his creations. He shows no respect for what he has made and thinks he can control nature. In the end of the book, he is eaten by dung-eating rodent-like dinosaurs and no one really seems to care. Timeline is a bit different than the others. It is all about highlighting real history against the legends and ideas that have built up over time. In one memorable sequence of the book, the evil corporate leader is watching some video of George Washington crossing he Potomac. The leader is upset that Washington—THE ACTUAL GEORGE WASHINGTON—is not perched out on the bow of his boat, sword drawn, ready to face the enemy. Instead, Washington is huddled in the back of the boat under a blanket, trying in vain to keep warm against the freezing temperatures. In another part of the book, a college student sent back in time watches 2 knights fight and is shocked at how agile they are in their armor, because no one could possibly be that mobile wearing close to 100 lbs of steal, right? And that is the genius of Chrichton's war against theme parks. He uses them to illustrate modern humanity's ignorance, decadence, and greed. Theme parks are all about enlarging one aspect of life or another, so they work perfectly for Chrichton's purposes. And they once again remind us of the value of popular culture as a mirror in which we can see ourselves laid bare. Now, who wants to go to Disneyland?

I don't like Stephen King. I have known this for a while but it was brought back to the forefront last week when I attempted (and failed) to read Under the Dome, King's latest best seller. To be clear, I have nothing against him personally and I actually think he is a very talented writer--I often quote his essays on writing in my classes. And I don't begrudge anyone who enjoys reading his books. No, I just don't care for his stories themselves ... or, perhaps more accurately, I don't care for his worldview. No matter your opinion of King's stories, it is hard to argue that he has a pretty dismal worldview. If King is to be trusted:

• Pretty much everyone is twisted and psychotic in one way or another--even the good guys.
• People in desperate situations are more likely to turn on each other than try to resolve the situation.
• Most people are more infatuated with power than doing good--especially people who are in positions to do good.
• People who aren't infatuated with power are not only rare, they are also beat down and isolated by those who are.
• Religious people are fanatics and extremists who, deep down, believe in blood sacrifice first and doing good last.
• The government is both inept and always knee-deep in dark, horrifying conspiracies.
• Psychos are common.
• Maine is mostly populated with said psychos.
• Good guys are almost always former covert ops or ex-military.
• Anyone named "Randall" is big trouble.

All in all, King's world is a pretty depressing place. Take Under the Dome, King's most recent novel. It is about a town that mysteriously becomes trapped in some kind of transparent energy field. Almost immediately, the psychos in the town gain power and people start to turn on each other. Things just go from bad to worse and then keep getting worse. It was so depressing I only made it about a third of the way (I have never made it past the half-way mark of any King book, despite my many attempts). And that is pretty much how I feel about King's stories. The thing is, I do enjoy horror stories. In the past few years, I have become a pretty big Dean Koontz fan and I have read several of his books. But, despite using similar material in their stories and having the same first initial in their last name (a coincidence I always found a bit amusing), there is a world of difference between Koontz and King novels. For one thing, while psychos do exist in almost every Koontz book, they are the exception, not the rule. Most people in Koontz' stories are good, decent folks who are just trying to do what is right. And while Koontz' good guys share some similarities with King's (many of them also seem to have some sort of military background and they often harbor dark secrets in their past), they are people who you can trust and rally behind. And, perhaps most important, the good guys overcome incredible odds to become the good guys that they are. For example, I recently finished reading the first three of Koontz' Odd Thomas series. The books, which I highly recommend, are about Odd Thomas, a young man who can see (but not talk to) ghosts. The ghosts come to him seeking help to resolve whatever wrong is keeping them on the terrestrial plane. Odd (who really is named "Odd") helps them. There isn't anything in it for Odd. In fact, there are many reasons why he shouldn't help people, the main ones being that it often gets him in trouble and brings pain (or death) to those he loves. But he does it anyway, just because it is right. Like most of Koontz' characters, Odd comes from a dark past. His mother is fairly psychotic and his father is a jerk beyond words. Odd had a very unhappy childhood and ran away at a young age to fend for himself. Add to that the dark, sinister things the ghosts show him, and Odd could--and probably should--be a maladjusted freak who sees nothing but darkness and evil. But he isn't. Instead, Odd sees the world as one filled with light and beauty. Even at his darkest he finds moments of happiness and tranquility.  And rather than shun humanity, he embraces it and finds nothing but good (minus the occasional psycho who crosses his path). The people that surround him are an eclectic bunch with dark histories of their own, but they have almost universally overcome those pasts to become truly good people: Little Ozzie has overcome weight issues and the judgement of the world to become a famous novelist. Stormy, Odd's one true love, has overcome abuse to become a happy, well-adjusted person. Brother Knuckles overcame his life as a mob hitman to become a monk. And on and on. And that is one of the things I like the most about Koontz' stories: the characters overcome the world, no matter how bad and horrifying. In King's world, things just seem to remain dark and horrifying, even after the good guys have "won." I think the thing that attracts me to Koontz' stories over King's is that Koontz' vision of the world is much closer to my own. I believe that most people, regardless of their religious or political ideology, are good, decent people who are just trying to do what they think is right. I believe that there are good guys out there who do what is right just because it is right, no matter the cost to them. And while I do believe that psychos and monsters do exist, I believe that they are the exception. And, most important, I believe that no matter the darkness people have experienced in their lives, they can always overcome it. I didn't always believe this. As a kid I was very paranoid about the world--especially the world outside of St. Johns. I saw it as a terrible and terrifying place filled with evil just waiting to devour the few righteous ones. I blame this on two things: Hollywood and the isolation of St. Johns. Because the town is far removed from the "real world," my opinions of what that world was like largely came from movies and television. Is it any wonder that I thought everything beyond St. Johns' borders was nearing the Ninth Circle of Hell? But all of that changed when I served a two-week religious mission to Phoenix the summer before my senior year of high school. On the mission, I was required to meet and talk with several people--all of them strangers. Before leaving, I was terrified. I secretly worried that one of them would kill or, at the very least, hurt me. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not one of those strangers was a psycho and that, almost without exception, they were good, decent people just trying to do what they felt was right Later, my father asked me what I learned from the mission. After a brief moment of reflection, I told him simply: "That most people are good, honest people." I believe that to this day. So, to return to my original point, I don't like Stephen King. I believe in humanity more than that and, no matter how bad things are, I am optimistic for the future of mankind. In the words of William Faulkner:

I decline to accept the end of man. ... I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

So I'll avoid Stephen King from now on because I don't believe in his world. His world is filled with darkness. And while the world I believe in may often be dark and gloomy, there is always color and light and joy. And rather than be filled with egotistical maniacs and psychos, it is filled with good, decent people who overcome incredible odds to do what is right, for no other reason than that it is right. Naive? Perhaps. But which world would you rather live in?

WARNING: This rant reveals key plot points of the recent pilot for the remaike of V. If you haven't seen the new pilot, you may want to skip this post. I doubt that there were very many people who were more excited about the recent reboot of V on ABC this week. I still remember being mesmerized by the original mini-series when it premiered back in the 80s, even though I was pretty young at the time. After rewatching the old mini-series a couple of years ago, I became convinced that a remake with today's effects and better screenwriting could actually improve upon the original premise rather than ruining it. So intense was my  whenever a commercial for the new series came on I would shake with excitement. So imagine my disappointment when the show wasn't all I'd hoped it would be. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad. But that was the problem, in my mind, it should have been great and it wasn't that either. In fact, it had some real script problems, starting with New Yorkers applauding after the aliens arrived and showed a video that basically said, "We come in peace. Take us to your leader." I'm sorry, but I just have a hard time believing that anyone would applaud after the Independence Day-like terror they'd just gone through. Mostly I think they'd just stand around looking confused. Some would probably shoot at the ships. Others would take advantage and loot the unwatched stores. Maybe I'm just too cynical. The other problem is Elizabeth Mitchell's character. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see Elizabeth Mitchell in the show since she's proved herself in Lost, but I'm baffled why they thought it was necessary to make her an FBI agent. Is it just me or is anyone else getting tired of seeing the FBI show up in Sci-Fi shows? First there was 4400 (which also shared one of its stars with the new V--the priest), Fringe, then there was FlashForward, and now there is V. Since when did the FBI become the experts in extra-terrestrial investigation? But my biggest complaint was the resistance recruiting scene. I know that the writers only had 4 episodes before the show goes on break for the holidays, and I realize that it is an update of an old series so most of the audience already knows that the aliens are actually lizards disguised as humans, and I can see why they wanted to jump-start the notion that not all the V's are bad, evil creatures, but there had to be a better way to do it than have a guy just spill the beans in one long monologue. That's just sloppy writing. As I tell my students again, and again: "Show, don't tell." On top of that, they didn't allow any of the characters to trust the V's by immediately portraying Anna, the new Diana, as a manipulative witch. Again, it goes back to the "show, don't tell" idea. Sure, the audience would know they are evil, but couldn't they at least let the characters buy into them for a little? Whatever happened to exploring humanity's reaction to this kind of extraordinary event? Some have defended the quick reveals as necessary to capture the short attention span of the "iPod Generation." But I think that the success of Fringe and Lost and shows like that prove that the new generation are willing to stick with a show as long as the writing is good. Unfortunately, V just decided to be lazy. That being said, I did find one part of the speech--actually, one idea in the speech--kind of interesting. It was the part where he was explaining that the Visitors ("V's" for short) had sleeper agents living among us, infiltrating all levels of government, society, and religion. He said that their mission had been to destabilize the world through pointless wars, economic crises, etc. So, essentially, he was saying that President Bush, the Pope, and other world leaders are all V's. But they didn't stop there. In an interview with Anna, the V's leader, she said that they wanted to expand the medical help they were giving to the world so that everyone could have free healthcare. Incredulous, the reporter asked: "You want to give everyone universal healthcare?" "That's what you call it, yes." Anna said. So, not only was President Bush a V, Obama is one, too! Who then, should we trust? In the old show, the people to trust were scientists. In the remake, it is far less clear. At first, it seems like it would be either the FBI or God as both are represented in two of the main characters. But with the digs at religion (the Vatican quickly accepts the V's and the statement that religious leaders are actually V's) discounts God. And the fact that Elizabeth Mitchell's partner (a wonderful cameo by Firefly's Alan Tudyk) turns out to be a V discounts the idea of trusting the FBI. So who do they present instead? Perhaps ironically, perhaps not, the show seems to suggest that the people to trust are ... conspiracy theorists. Yep, the people with the tinfoil hats that live "off the grid" in constant fear that the government or religion or something is gonna get 'em. Those are the people that are set out as the ones who really know what's going on. Those are the people to trust. Well, those and traitor V's who have fallen in love with humanity because ... actually, that part wasn't explained. But still. Almost in spite of myself, I am curious exactly where they are going with this mess. One of the most powerful aspects of Science Fiction is arguably its ability to comment on modern society. The original V was a brilliant commentary on the dangers of turning too much power over to the government just because they seem trustworthy. This new one seems to want to do the same thing but can't seem to find a modern group worthy of following. So in the end, we are left with the kooks. I wonder what they will do next week.

I am worried about this country.

I've read several other blogs lately that started with the exact same line but meant it in a completely different way. I guess that just goes to show how we all love this country but in different ways.

And that, quite frankly, is what is worrying me.

I don't have any problem with everyone loving this country in their own way. In fact, just the opposite. What concerns me is the tendency to believe that one version of America is the "true" one.

This came up in the presidential campaign, when Sarah Palin called small town America the "real America," thereby insulting the majority of the population that lives in cities. But I ask, in all seriousness, what makes one version of America more "real" or "true" than another?

Back in the '70s, during the Watergate scandal, Captain America had a crisis of faith. In a story that intentionally paralleled the Watergate scandal, he discovered that a high-ranking government official (assumed to be the president but never stated outright) had conspired with the Secret Empire (an organization bent on world domination, in case you couldn't guess), to put the US completely under his control. When the Cap finally caught up with him and tried to stop him, the government official (code named "Number One"), committed suicide in order to escape prosecution.

Steve Rogers - the Cap - was so distraught over the plot that he lost his faith in the country and gave up being Captain America and eventually became "Nomad: Man Without a Country" (he later returned to being Cap after realizing that the nation needed a unifying symbol).

In one issue, his friends attempt, one-by-one, to convince him to change his mine. They argued that the country needs Captain America (much in the same way that Grant Morrison argued that the world needs Batman in Comic Con last year). At the end, he finally explained his rationale.

He explained that, when he became Captain America during World War II, the country was united against a common foe. Since he was reawakened in the '60s (he had been frozen in a block of ice at the end of WWII and was rediscovered by the Avengers years later), he had always felt like a man out of time. So much had changed. People had grown different and apart. The unity that had existed when he was first created no longer existed. Now everyone was doing their own thing.

In one of the most powerful scenes of the issue he stands with a bewildered look on his face as images of several "Americas" float over him: black, white, construction worker, business man, hippie, men, women, young, old, etc. Today you could probably add Christian, Muslim, Atheist, liberal, conservative, Hispanic, gay, straight, and too many others to name. In the panel, the Cap asks, "When people look at me, which America do they see?"

Here's what concerns me: everyone today thinks that their version of America is the "true" or the "real" one without stopping to consider that other points of view are just as valid. What makes small town America "real" and big city America - where something like 70% of the population lives - less real?

There is a predominant myth in American history, called the Edenic (as in "The Garden of Eden") Myth. It is the tendency to view the frontier - the wild - as real and natural while the city is false and manufactured. In this myth (please remember that in Academia, "myth" means "metaphoric story," not "lie"), nature is closer to God, which gives it the "realnesss." It is seen as a place of peace and tranquility. The Edenic Myth fueled the naturalist movement (Thoreau on Walden's Pond, for example) as well as to the race for the west, where people hoped to find their own Eden, at first on the plains and then even further.

The Edenic Myth has also been credited for the invention of the superhero (see The Myth of the American Superhero by Lawrence and Jewett). When the American "Eden" was threatened by either internal or external forces, it required a hero outside the law to come in and save them before fading into obscurity (incidentally, the American superhero myth is based upon the Messianic tradition from the Bible - Moses and Jesus being the two biggest examples).

Whether we are conscious of it or not, the Edenic Myth comes through in our speech. For example, we refer to farmers and laborers (again, those in rural America), as "the salt of the earth," hearkening back to the biblical passage: "Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?" (Matt 5:13). In other words, calling someone "the salt of the earth" is really saying that they are true believers/followers of God - they are the "good" people. The implication is that anyone who does not meet that qualification (i.e. those that live in cities) are not worthy or that they are "evil" people. The comparison seems to be "salt of the earth" vs. "scum of the earth" with little in between.

Have you ever heard a lawyer or car salesman called "the salt of the earth?" Why can't they give as much savor as a field hand? And why can't a farm be the "scum of the earth?"

I am not trying to make this just about rural versus urban, though that is one of the biggest and most obvious examples. I have lived in both the city and the small town out in the middle of nowhere and found there to be equal measures of positive and negative in both (I think that both have more positive than negative). But beyond the urban vs. rural debate, there are tons of versions of this country and none of them seem to be able to find any merit to other versions: conservative vs. liberals, for example. Which one is the "true" America? Which one is "real?" What makes the difference? Having studied both sides of the political divide, I can easily see both positive and negative in both liberal and conservative ideologies.

Note that I said "positive and negative," not "good and bad" or "good and evil." Too often we cast things in starkly moral terms. I have heard commentators from both sides of the political divide use the word "evil" to describe the other side. But is the other political side really evil? Really? Evil is a big word. It conjures to mind comic book and movie villains like Lex Luthor and Darth Vader. So we're saying that [insert opposing political party] are just as bad as Lex Luthor and Darth Vader who mercilessly kill millions? Really?

In the now-cancelled (and, for me, sorely missed) TV show, Joan of Arcadia, which was about a girl that routinely talks with God, Joan is instructed by God to ask a particular boy to a dance. The boy is a bully with a lot of hate and anger built up inside him. He is not a nice guy - definitely not "the salt of the earth" - and frequently lashes out at others, both verbally and physically. Joan protests to God that the boy is "evil," which leads to the following conversation:

GOD: Evil is not a word to use lightly. It's only the darkest end of a broad spectrum.

JOAN: You mean like light?

GOD: Exactly like light. Nobody is born in total darkness. Most of you live on the gray end of the spectrum, a lie here and there, jealousy, wrath. But you only get to absolute evil by doing one thing after another 'till, eventually, you're transformed.

JOAN: Like . . . into a monster?

GOD: A monster is a creature with no conscience. They're extremely rare, but they do exist.

JOAN: Have you watched the news? I'm not sure they're so rare.

GOD: Almost everyone has light somewhere. And that light is always worth fighting for."

I think the same is true about the versions of America. They all have merit but you have to look for it. Most of the time, you don't have to look very hard. But that merit - that light - is always worth fighting for. Even if it comes from the opposing side.

I am not saying there isn't bad or evil out there. And I'm not saying that some points of view don't have more merit than others. What worries me is the absolutism. "I'm right, you're wrong. I'm good, you're evil."

We are dividing. We are turning into individual tribes with separate ideals, separate leaders, and separate destinies. We no longer seem to have the ability to look for the good in others. All we see is the bad. And it is that division that worries me. After all, to quote another scripture, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand" (Matt 12:25).

Last week, in church, I gave a lesson on living in harmony with others. I asked if anyone knew what harmony was. There was a long pause before someone finally said, "singing together." And, yes, that is true, at least to a point. Harmony is singing together, but it doesn't mean singing the same thing. In fact, "harmony" means singing many different things at once. Dictionary.com defines it as "the simultaneous combination of tones, esp. when blended into chords pleasing to the ear." When a choir sings in harmony, they are all singing different notes but they blend together in a way that is far more beautiful than any single note could ever be on its own.

The same can apply to life. Just because we are singing different notes doesn't mean that others are singing wrong. And just because they are singing something different it doesn't make us wrong either. If we can come together, with all our distinctness and diversity still intact, it can be very right and very beautiful.

To me, it is in that harmony, that we find the "real" and "true" America.

In this post I discuss Watchmen at length. I include several spoilers for both the book and the movie. If you do not want them spoiled, you might want to skip it.

On Saturday, I went to see Watchmen. My purpose in going was research. The last chapter of Fallible and Flawed is going to be about Watchmen, the graphic novel, so it was important for me to see the movie. I'm glad I did, because they made some significant changes that speak directly to my thesis. But more on that later.

Honestly, I was expecting to dislike the movie, largely because I have never actually decided whether I like the book or not. I fully respect what Alan Moore and David Gibbons succeeded in doing with the book, but the whole thing made me feel very uncomfortable. The story is extremely dark and very violent. To top that off, it has a very low opinion of humanity and, more than anything else, that really got under my skin. So I was surprised that I actually enjoyed the film.

That being said, I don't really recommend it. It is kind of like The Passion of the Christ. Both of them are very good movies. They are exceptionally well made and have the ability to reach their audience in profound ways. However, they are both extremely difficult to watch. The violence in Watchmen is over-the-top (it is so gut wrenching in a few places that I actually gasped), the sex and nudity are as explicit as they can be without getting an NC17 rating, and the story is a real downer. It isn't really a fun experience.

So you may be wondering why I enjoyed it if is was so bad. I think that the only answer to that is that I knew what I was getting into and, even more than that, I knew what the story was trying to say. I have no idea what someone without any background in the novel or the philosophical debates around it would think of the movie. My guess is that they wouldn't get it and, as a result, would hate it. But that is just a guess.

The story is a perfect example of post-modernism. It is an incredible example of deconstruction focused on what really lies beneath the mask of a superhero. Alan Moore said that he wrote the book as a statement against hero worship. He said that he couldn't believe that anyone would trust their lives or their salvation to some of these "heroes" and he set out to show that heroes aren't all they're cracked up to be (incidentally, this dovetails nicely with my recent post about flawed heroes ). And so the book is an examination of what it would be like if superheroes existed in the real world.

The story, which takes place in an alternate 1980s universe where America won Vietnam and Nixon has been elected to a fifth term (he asked Dr. Manhattan to intervene in Vietnam which won the war within a week and, as a result, became so popular that he got the term limits repealed), focuses on a group of masked "heroes:" the Comedian, Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl, the Silk Specter, Ozymandias, and Rorschach (for the uber-fans out there, yes, I do know that it is actually "Nite Owl II" and "Silk Specter II"). Of them, only Dr. Manhattan, who was created in an accident in a nuclear physics laboratory has any super powers. And, due to the Keane Act passed by Congress years earlier, only Dr. Manhattan, the Comedian, and Rorschach are still active - Dr. Manhattan and the Comedian because they are government sponsored, and Rorschach because he refuses to give up.

The heroes are amalgams of popular superheroes. Both Rorschach and Nite Owl are parts of Batman. Dr. Manhattan is a take on Superman. And the Comedian is something like Captain America in that he goes to war for the country and has the government's backing. But the most important aspects of these characters are their problems. That is what it is all about, and to miss that is to miss the entire crux of the story.

Dr. Manhattan (the blue one) is a perfect example. After the accident, he becomes, essentially, a god. What would happen to someone who was given limitless power? Would they be able to maintain their humanity? Would they have any connection to Earth at all? As Dr. Manhattan says "In my opinion, the existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon." As the story progresses, he moves further and further away from humanity. Visually, this is shown by him losing more and more of his clothing until he wears nothing at all.

Rorschach, on the other hand, is mentally deranged but morally exact. He enacts retribution on the guilty in the most violent manner possible, typically ending in their death. But he is certain in his morality and never wrong. When he attacks someone, you can be sure that they are, indeed, guilty. In the same way that, when Batman takes down a criminal, you know they deserved it. The difference is Batman's "one rule" to not kill, which Rorschach abandons after he tracks down a kidnapped child and finds that her kidnapper raped her, cut her into pieces, and fed her to his dogs. After that, there is no mercy for him, only justice.

The Comedian is, as Dr. Manhattan says, "the most amoral man" you have ever met. He believes that humanity is one big joke and relishes in retribution and anarchy. In the course of the movie he rapes two different women and, when one becomes pregnant, he murders her in cold blood. And yet, his actions are fully sanctioned by the government.

Ozymandias, the world's strongest/smartest man, on the other hand, is a megalomaniac that only wants to make the world a better place. This is actually brought out more in the film than in the book. In the book, he is just a very successful businessman who capitalized on his alter ego. In the movie, he working with Dr. Manhattan to find clean, renewable energy. He wants to make the world a better place but is willing to pay any price for it. In this way, Ozymandias is the most like a comic book villain. He is like Lex Luthor if Luthor's intentions were noble instead of selfish.

Nite Owl and the Silk Specter are the normal of the group, but even they have their issues. The Silk Specter has mommy issues (and daddy issues when it turns out that the Comedian, who raped her mother, is her father) and Nite Owl has adequacy issues which he compensates for with the costumes and violence.

All in all, not the nicest bunch of people. And they're the "Watchmen," those set up to protect humanity.

And, in the end, they do - sort of. To prevent nuclear war and the complete elimination of mankind, Ozymandias orchestrates a scheme that wipes out millions of people but unites the world against a common - albeit, imaginary - enemy. This was the one place where the movie differed dramatically from the book. In the book, the plot involved a giant squid and a supposed invasion from outer space. The movie, it involved framing Dr. Manhattan.

This change - which fans will no doubt debate for all time - was very interesting. It was definitely a statement, though an obscure one. It is almost a philosophic statement about religion in that Dr. Manhattan is set up as a god who is "up there watching them" and who punishes the wicked. It suggests that belief in God is just as risky as trusting these heroes - that mankind must look to itself for salvation. Very interesting given the political climate today.

As I said, this isn't a fun story, and anyone who heads to the theater thinking that it is going to be just another superhero flick is going to be seriously put out. Instead, it is an examination of what makes people heroic, what makes people villainous, and what makes people human. Like the superhero stories it deconstructs, it uses archetypes - amplified examples - to prove its point. The only difference is that these archetypes are not the nice kind.

But the most fascinating part of the movie came towards the end. In the beginning, Laurie (the Silk Specter) goes to see her mother (the original Silk Specter) about the murder of the Comedian. Her mother, who had been one of the women raped by the Comedian is unable to condemn him and actually speaks affectionately of him. At the end of the movie, after discovering that the Comedian was her father, Laurie's mother asks. "How could I condemn him when he gave me you?" Earlier, Dr. Manhattan is awed by what he calls miracles, including the fact that even someone as amoral and "evil" as the Comedian could produce someone like Laurie. Those two moments struck me as being more redemptive for humanity than the book was for me. They spoke to our ability to forgive, repent, and move past our mistakes. They speak of our ability to improve life, no matter how bad or how bleak.

So, in the end, I think I enjoyed it for what it was: an examination of humanity and heroism with all its warts and dark little secrets laid bare. It isn't an easy film to watch, but I think that, despite its flaws, it was a worthwhile experience. Just know what you are getting into before watching it.