Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

NO SPOILERS!!!

I’ve been working on a long-winded diatribe for the last two weeks and I’m in no mood to do another. I’m gonna keep this short and sweet.

With Zack Snyder at the helm, for a brief instance Superman’s trustworthy Boy Scout image was traded for an alien of whom we were supposed to be suspicious. As an audience member I felt I was meant to ally with Lex Luthor and the rest of the humans sneering at the Man of Steel. The films were humorless and bastardizing of characters who not only have been revered for decades, but regarded as surrogate fictional symbols of real hope and salvation from a corrupt and perverse world.

The image of this supreme and benevolent being (apply it to Superman, Thor, Jesus, former president Jimmy Carter, Bob Ross) is inherent in our collective subconscious. Superman is the embodiment of several Jungian Archetypes.

Maybe it made sense for a while to abandon Superman to suspicion and mistrust because things felt good in the real world for a little while. Maybe we felt like we didn’t need hope. Or at least, maybe Zack Snyder didn’t think we needed it.

Then we had Covid. We lost Betty White. And some other bad stuff too.

“Lex Luthor” is a manipulative, sadistic, immoral, power hungry, narcissistic, egomaniac who probably doesn’t know what groceries are. And what’s so much worse, he has a swarm of fanatical followers at his beck and call, blindly following his orders without question and making all manner of excuse for his abhorrent disgusting behavior.

He creates wars, manipulates journalism, purposefully generates rage in people to serve his purposes, and literally kills anyone who stands in his way or is no longer useful to him.

His sole purpose is to annihilate Hope because that’s the one thing he can’t control and it’s the one thing he knows is more powerful than he.

Suddenly the “alien” who is saving us from this terror seems less suspicious. More like one of our own.

This being with God-like powers was raised as one of us. He teaches that no one is an alien, everyone is a human, our greatest super power is empathy, and being compassionate is the most badass thing you can be.

Also there’s a cute dog.

I liked this movie.