Destiny, the Other Side, and Stuff

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

Paul comments:
"The pop culture of the time presented H as a loony. Spike
Jones and Charlie Chaplin, for example. (Come to think, pop
culture today presents ALL our fuhrers as loonies. Is there some
kind of conspirary to fill high positions with maniacs???)"


Certainly in a war or even pre-war situation (remember that Chaplin was
one of those accused of being "prematurely anti-Nazi"), humor as satire
can be a useful weapon.  Think of that dinner at the Utgarthalokis!
But it is also a comfort to those who have to fight, another way of devaluing
and casting the enemy as Other.  (and even putatively democratic satire
fulfills similar functions.)

But pop. culture can also take this stuff pretty seriously.  Just look
(or don't) at THE X-FILES, etc.  It's interesting, for example, how this
German mysticism has crept into the comic book world of the "DC Universe."
It stems in part from an attempt to explain why, if there were costumed
superheros who could take down entire cities as part of a day's work, WWII
was so hard to win.  The answer was that Hitler had found Wotan's Spear
of Destiny which prevented said heroes from using much of their powers
in Europe, so they had to be content with fighting spies and catching
jewel robbers and the like.

Now, this mythology has been brought up to contemporary speed in recent issues
of THE SPECTRE (heh, heh), one of the holdovers of the Golden Age.  I've
only skimmed these issues, but Spec. is apparently trying to keep Naziism from
further infesting the American body politic, while wrestling with his own
(sometimes literal) demons.

(And I'm wondering just what that power change is going to do to the very concept
of Big Blue fighting for "truth, justice and the American way"!)

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)