Fearing the Sting of Death
This week's New York Times Magazine examines "How Hollywood Killed Death." Alexander Huls recalls the temporary loss of Captain James Kirk, Pepper Potts, and Loki in last year's batch of action/superhero product offerings:
Huls is right about the new obsession with resurrection, though the fact that Hollywood mines the deepest reaches of human emotion to make a buck isn't breaking news. But wanting to avoid the permanence of death is far from an "inhuman observation;" it is, in fact, quite in keeping with the sitz im leben of 2014 - that death shouldn't matter. That it, like appearance or gender or conception, its just another biological problem to be solved, rather than accepted.
The fear of death is not a modern novelty. But whether it's Peter Thiel and a utopian vision of an infinite future, or the inability to bow to the inevitable in a nursing home*, we've never had the tools to stiff-arm death as we do now. To see that mimicked on the silver screen isn't surprising. But on a day Christians celebrate triumph over death, the unease we see with what comes next should be a reminder of what makes us different. Instead of turning to the real-life equivalent of Khan's superblood, radiation enhancements, or Nordic shapeshifting, we can invite others to joyfully sing with us "O, death, where is your sting?"
* Last year, Medicare paid $50 billion just for doctor and hospital bills during the last two months of patients' lives - that's more than the budget of the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Education. (CBS News)
"Death is no longer just a transparent formula; it has been hybridized with something worse: Business strategy. There is no greater force in the world for wringing the passion out of human affairs than the desiccating logic of quarterly earnings reports. Of course, Hollywood has always been a business...[But] no matter how much movies or comics depart into realities with superpowered beings, technologically advanced futures or fantastical worlds full of impossible creatures, they still need to do what all good stories should: Tell us something about being human. But most of today’s movies are telling us death doesn’t matter. And it’s hard to imagine a more inhuman observation than that."
Huls is right about the new obsession with resurrection, though the fact that Hollywood mines the deepest reaches of human emotion to make a buck isn't breaking news. But wanting to avoid the permanence of death is far from an "inhuman observation;" it is, in fact, quite in keeping with the sitz im leben of 2014 - that death shouldn't matter. That it, like appearance or gender or conception, its just another biological problem to be solved, rather than accepted.
The fear of death is not a modern novelty. But whether it's Peter Thiel and a utopian vision of an infinite future, or the inability to bow to the inevitable in a nursing home*, we've never had the tools to stiff-arm death as we do now. To see that mimicked on the silver screen isn't surprising. But on a day Christians celebrate triumph over death, the unease we see with what comes next should be a reminder of what makes us different. Instead of turning to the real-life equivalent of Khan's superblood, radiation enhancements, or Nordic shapeshifting, we can invite others to joyfully sing with us "O, death, where is your sting?"
* Last year, Medicare paid $50 billion just for doctor and hospital bills during the last two months of patients' lives - that's more than the budget of the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Education. (CBS News)