Superhero is Super-zero

Last summer, on this blog, I claimed that the Sci-Fi Channel's Who Wants to Be a Superhero? was the answer to the reality show genre. I thought that a show that forced people to be good people in order to win did, in some small way, redeem the reality show genre.

I am sorry to say it. I was wrong.

The first season was charming, but the second season clarifies how much Superhero is just another reality show. A second season does not serve as a referendum on the genre, but a perpetuation of much that is wrong with the reality show genre: play-acting old scripts with a cast of characters far less compelling than the first.

Watching tonight's episode, I found myself wondering how they cast women for this season. Perhaps strong women don't need to be fake superheroes? Then, watching the treatment of the one woman left, it is clear that the show does reward a certain kind of behavior more common among the show's men: taking charge even when you're not really paying attention to how other people are reacting. Hygena, the woman left, does not take charge, but she also knows when she may not have the skill set that others have and that it might be good to let them air out their ideas.

On the other hand, she was not eliminated. The openly gay superhero, Parthenon, who has been a strong contender and the most compelling character for much of the season, was eliminated because he failed to inspire children. The winner from last season, Feedback, also failed that challenge, but he went on to become the superhero. I can't help but wonder if sci-fi feels children aren't ready for a gay superhero?

This leaves one superhero for whom the competition is his to lose, and that is Hyperstrike. The sad thing though, if he does win, is that he is the character who, at least on camera, has seemed the most scripted and least well acted. But then reality shows tend to reward those who follow the script best.

This season of Superhero has proven itself to be ruled by certain normative scripts. Even if they are scripts more to my liking, I still can't help but wonder why we (and obviously I am included here) want to watch "reality" shows that just perpetuate old scripts instead of helping us to create our own new ones.

Settling for Less

I just read a movie review for Dedication in the New York Times. It was a relief to read Jeannette Catsoulis' opening remarks. I haven't seen the film, but I have seen Knocked Up, which she references. Good humor aside, I was really struck by the completely flat portrayal of women in the film. Not only that, but I have always assumed successful, intelligent, and beautiful women don't generally settle for whatever random man they find in a bar. Whatever happened to the being alone, having friends, and having cats option? Oh wait, I just remembered, these are movies being made by men. I suppose it is a certain ever-adolescent male fantasy to somehow find a woman capable of standing on her own two feet and yet choosing to add this man to her life. And somehow, these same men would like to imagine they don't actually have to mature past the age of 20 in order to convince this woman to stay with them. Well, girls, I hope that you don't let these movies convince you of that. We all have to grow up and maybe the best thing to do in a situation like this is to grow up alone.

Hook a Canuck and Get Free Healthcare

I just saw Sicko, and I wanted to testify to my own experience that there is better healthcare in other countries who believe in socialized medicine. As Michael Moore tracked us down the list of WHO rankings, I noticed that the #36 spot, just above the U.S.A. was occupied by Costa Rica. Having actually been treated in hospitals in Costa Rica as well as the U.S.A., I would say that this feels accurate. Costa Ricans do get better (and guaranteed) healthcare than the average person in the U.S.A.

So I also ask, what is so wrong with the term "socialized"? Sometimes, it's a good thing to have if it works better than what we've got.

As tear-jerking and over the top as Sicko could be at points, it is a good reminder of the devastation that a for-profit health care system leaves behind. The logic of the free-hand globalized capitalist marketplace is not, in fact, always the best logic for everything. Those of us who have health insurance in the U.S.A. can generally testify to the hassles of dealing with our insurance companies just to get the basic coverage supposedly guaranteed to us by our insurance policies.

The next president will probably not revamp the system the way we need (which is to remove the "over 65" from Medicare and convince companies, business executives, and the middle class that they will all actually save money by supporting a socialized health care system with taxes). So I can see why, even jokingly, there would be some appeal in marrying a Canadian for a good health care system as proposed in the video above from a website advertised at the end of Sicko.

Catholics didn't play fair in American colonization

Or so the Pope admitted, after he had claimed the indigenous peoples of Latin America were "silently longing" for Christianity. Having been criticized for that statement by a number of people including Brazilian leaders and Venezuela president Hugo Chavez, the Pope responded "It is, in fact, not possible to forget the suffering, injustices inflicted by the colonizers against the indigenous population, whose human and fundamental rights have often been trampled." This is not actually an apology for the statement, just an acknowledgment of certain historical facts.

I find this whole story quite amusing. In my undergraduate school's daily paper, there was once a profile of a Latino janitor. The title included the terms "Spic and Span." Admittedly, these students came up with this title at 2AM. But what the titling reveals is the difference between their contexts and those of Latino/as, especially the janitor they profiled. While not intending to offend, the editorial staff of the paper did apologize for their limited vision that had led to the offensive title.

The Pope's initial comment in Brazil reflects a similar situation. An aging German man living in the Vatican, his context is radically different than that of the majority populace of Latin America. An apology is not to be expected from the Vatican. But maybe the Cardinals should consider, in the next papal election, someone whose context is more representative of the Church's faithful. Maybe next time around they can look to the descendants of those colonized by Christian Europe, i.e. Latin Americans, Africans, and Asians who make up the bulk of the Church's population now.

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Photograph from Reuters.

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Lies

Just wanted to post a short montage of our favorite booths at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Thank you Katy for the appropriate title for these photos.

Warning: Don't Try Theology at Home

I have been away, and pretty uninspired to blog by the world around me, but a small news item came to my attention this morning. I am by no means an expert on liberation theology, but I am quite certain something important happened in the last few days. The Roman Catholic Church's inquisitory arm, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has officially admonished Jesuit priest Jon Sobrino. Though of Basque heritage, he lives and teaches in El Salvador where he has been forbidden to lecture on theology.

The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith made clear that Sobrino's teachings were "incorrect." Intriguingly, they focused not only on his emphasis on the humanity of Jesus but also upon his teaching that the "Church of the Poor" is the true setting for understanding who Jesus is. While the Congregation wished to make it clear that they of course share Sobrino's concern with the poor in Latin America, they sought to remind people not only of Jesus' divinity but of the Church hierarchy's own intractable authority in these matters because "it is only the apostolic faith which the Church has transmitted through all generations that constitutes the ecclesial setting of Christology and of theology in general."

I definitely believe that people should seek education in all forms and think critically about the world around the. But in essence, this statement is telling people that they can only think critically about certain things in so far as they accord with what more qualified thinkers believe. For right and for wrong, for better and for worse, the Church wanted to remind those who might follow Sobrino that certain issues of faith are up to the deciders. The Church is not liable for the dangers of engaging in theology in your own home, especially if that home is poverty in Latin America, and that home might lead you to conclude things that differ in small and large ways from what important powerful people tell you. In other words, theologizing is to be done by a chosen professional on a closed course. Don't theologize at home.

China supports genocide in Darfur

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka deliver a lecture in Claremont, CA: Deities for a Secular Dispensation. In the lecture, he acknowledged that while religion had been invoked for horrible atrocities, it may have been a restraining factor in human history. Perhaps without religion, the human species would have been even worse.

While I am plagued with concern over the role of religion in contemporary global politics, I thought of Wole Soyinka today when I heard that China is strengthening its economic ties with the genocidally criminal government of Sudan (see BBC article, “Chinese leader boosts Sudan ties”, from which the above image was taken).

The Sudanese government has committed unpardonable atrocities in Darfur, carrying out an ethnic cleansing that involves a religious dimension (just in case you thought I was letting religiously motivated murder off the hook). But for a major political and economic power like China to support such a regime is equally unpardonable. Of course, the Chinese government likewise has its own horrendous record of human rights abuses (consider, for example, the ways in which the Chinese government silences the dissent of its own people).

Yet this decision on China’s part combined with its own history of human rights abuse does remind us of the need for universally accepted (and enforced) ethical standards for the treatment of all human beings (something the USA would benefit from having as well). What would be remarkable in the real adoption of universal ethical standards like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the decreased emphasis on national boundaries in dictating the application of such universally recognized standards. I know this is a complex issue, and I don’t mean to talk about it overly simplistically. Yet we as citizens of the world are over a half-century too late. We should already have recognized the universal appeal of truly adopting these standards.

In cases like China economically supporting the Sudan, or the USA economically supporting apartheid South Africa under Reagan, one can recognize that the lack of any ideology higher than nationalism is indeed the problem. In both cases, these decisions were not made for the good of Communism or the good of Christianity (although one cannot deny the atrocities committed in the names of both); they were made purely for the economic and political power of the nation. Nationalism has often colluded with what it likes from a particular religion or ideology in perpetrating horrific violence. Yet as dangerous as fundamentalist religious and/or ideological views have been and continue to be for the world, perhaps it is unchecked nationalism that still poses the gravest danger to the future of humanity.