RadixJournal - Superchrist — Unconscious Cinema： Man of Steel (2013)

00:00:00.000 I don't know the degree to which, at least in terms of emphasis, that original Superman comics and films or cartoons or whatever were based on this notion of Superman as Christ.

00:00:14.740 Or was it always like that?

00:00:16.200 No, I mean, it's interesting.

00:00:17.640 I think that from a kind of Jewish esoteric perspective that they understand, as we've discussed in these podcasts before, they definitely understand Christ as a Jewish figure.

00:00:27.520 In a lot of ways, as a very, very Jewish figure, right?

00:00:30.960 As a kind of archetypal figure in the way that Moses or David is a archetypal Jew. 0.78

00:00:36.680 Christ is also that in a lot of ways.

00:00:38.600 You know what I mean?

00:00:39.660 So while I don't think that the metaphor about Superman specifically is about Christianity, though it may have elements of that.

00:00:49.380 I mean, I think it's more about Jews.

00:00:52.680 It's about Krypsis, as we've discussed, and we can get into that.

00:00:55.900 With Zack Snyder, it's all about Christ.

00:00:58.980 And I do think that's almost like it.

00:01:01.180 Yeah, with Superman, yeah.

00:01:02.360 I think it's almost like a, you could say like an advancement on the myth in a way.

00:01:08.400 Yeah, look, it's definitely interesting.

00:01:10.840 It's definitely interesting.

00:01:11.940 And I think he's much more clearly turning it into a Christ figure than the original Superman.

00:01:21.340 But the original Superman, you could say he's a Christ figure, but he's much less explicitly a Christ figure.

00:01:30.100 And he's just, he's more clearly a Jewish figure, which Christ is also a Jewish figure.

00:01:35.460 So he shares that similarity.

00:01:37.920 But I, and that's an important similarity.

00:01:41.440 But I think that what he's doing is he's just making it more explicit, right?

00:01:47.500 So he's making the Christian aspect of it more explicit.

00:01:50.660 And I think that, you know, being a Christian, most Christians don't, obviously would not agree with my view, which is kind of a sort of continuation of Nietzsche's view. 0.58

00:02:00.280 Whereas, you know, there are points in Nietzsche's writing where he describes Christianity as sort of uber-Jewish, right?

00:02:09.140 Like a very Jewish. 0.99

00:02:10.500 Yeah, the fulfillment of Jewish, yeah. 0.98

00:02:11.720 Yeah, like more Jewish than Jewish. 1.00

00:02:14.480 I mean, he basically says stuff to that effect.

00:02:17.840 And that's also my position as well.

00:02:19.600 You know, I don't know if I would describe it like that, but it's clearly a kind of, a sort of expression of Judaism and a continuation of Judaism and seeking to fulfill Jewish ends, you know?

00:02:32.580 So a Christ figure is also a Jewish figure.

00:02:35.200 And so, yeah, but he's making it more obvious.

00:02:41.880 And that's probably would be the tendency.

00:02:43.840 And I don't even, he might even be thinking that he's even kind of changing the myth, which he is in a way, which he is certainly in a way.

00:02:51.560 But he might be even be changing it kind of superficially because his understanding is that Christ is something definitely distinct, do you agree, right?

00:03:00.740 Right.

00:03:01.260 And there is that tension.

00:03:03.060 Let's jump into this.

00:03:13.840 Let's jump into this.

00:03:43.840 So, Mark, before we talk about Man of Steel, directed by Zack Snyder, released in 2013, let's talk about the whole Superman mythos and the genesis of it.

00:04:04.280 I actually read an article about Zack Snyder making Man of Steel, and Snyder said that the Superman symbol is the second most recognizable symbol on Earth next to the crucifix.

00:04:22.380 And I tried to look up such a study or poll, and I couldn't quite find it.

00:04:28.000 But I don't really contradict Zack Snyder.

00:04:32.180 I think he's probably correct, maybe followed by the crescent moon of the Muslim world and the Red Cross and maybe a couple of others up there or maybe even Apple computer or something.

00:04:45.400 But these are icons of the modern world, and the Superman S is just as much of one as the crucifix.

00:04:58.800 I mean, in some ways, these comic books seem to be eclipsing traditional religion and mythos.

00:05:08.600 And Zack Snyder is a very sincere director.

00:05:12.300 I think you kind of can't understand him if you don't understand that aspect of him.

00:05:17.300 And he said that as a way of reverence.

00:05:20.240 You know, this is a major burden that I'm bearing in bringing this to the screen.

00:05:26.320 I can't screw it up.

00:05:27.780 But before we talk about Man of Steel and Zack Snyder, let's just talk about what Superman is and who created him.

00:05:40.780 So we're going to have to go back to 1938, Joe Schuster living in Toronto, actually.

00:05:51.740 And there is this kind of this is the period of the kind of birth of comic books as we know them or do we know them anymore?

00:06:02.200 I think comic books is a genre kind of fading, but they, you know, on one level, they're more popular than ever because these Hollywood has become a kind of comic book industry writ large, you could say.

00:06:15.420 So there's, you know, pulp novels and illustrated novels and so on with with figures like the shadow obviously has a lot of influence on Batman and so on.

00:06:29.160 And Schuster starts to to create this Superman character and he actually originated in this some kind of small little websy, you know, or not websy small little small blog, you know, a small little, you know, magazine of some sort as this telepathic villain.

00:06:54.600 He's a blonde, a bald headed villain who's a telepath who's kind of controlling the earth and it's about the reign of the Superman. 0.93

00:07:02.920 And I think in this way he was probably evoking two things.

00:07:09.960 I think with the with the bald head, he might very well have been evoking Mussolini, possibly with just the Superman itself.

00:07:19.740 He was evoking Nietzsche and in particular this reception of Nietzsche that came in America in the 20s of in 20s and 30s as Nietzsche as the godfather of Hitler.

00:07:33.040 Basically, this crazy Germanic anti-Christian madman who said God is dead and everything is chaos and thought that, you know, you could justify a cause with a good war and all that kind of stuff.

00:07:50.880 And he was not he was not translated well and we just didn't have an academic apparatus that was able to receive Nietzsche. 0.90

00:08:00.020 And so what you got of him were these, you know, cartoonish depictions as a fanatical Nazi.

00:08:07.020 Now, obviously, the actual Nietzsche and his relationship with Nazism is very much more complicated than that.

00:08:15.000 We don't have to go into it on this podcast.

00:08:17.140 We might want to do a podcast on that, to be honest, but we'll save that for later.

00:08:23.060 And so but this notion of a Superman was out there and it kind of naturally tends to sound like a comic book or pulp villain.

00:08:32.580 You know, this mastermind who's going to control the world like Aaron Stavro Blofeld or these types of figures.

00:08:40.400 And then slowly but surely, Schuster started to change Superman into the form that we know today and that would have emerged in action comics in 1938 with this figure wearing a cape with an S on his chest.

00:08:57.120 He's actually lifting up a car and, you know, in a way like the Superman, you know, comic book character has changed, of course, and, you know, as he appeared on radio and then TV and and throughout, you know, decades of comic books.

00:09:13.120 But all of the details were there.

00:09:43.120 Krypton.

00:09:44.120 Krypton.

00:09:45.120 So let me kind of hand it off to you if you want to develop this a little further ad and anything that I missed.

00:09:51.460 Yeah, no.

00:09:53.460 So yeah, and it's it was clearly a reference to Nietzsche's concept of Superman, and it was from a Jewish perspective.

00:10:02.460 And it was kind of I think it was an effort to basically because I mean, you know, again, we Nietzsche's idea of a Superman is a little more complex.

00:10:14.540 It's so I mean, on some level, it's it's uncomplex or not complex in the sense that I mean, clearly what he was describing was a Aryan Superman as a or a European Superman at the very least.

00:10:30.500 You know, I mean, Aryan might be too strong word from Nietzsche's perspective, but a European Superman and not a Jewish Superman. 0.80

00:10:37.280 Right now, but a good European. 1.00

00:10:41.960 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:10:43.000 But what what Schuster or Siegel, I think, is was I don't know if Siegel might have been more sort of the architect of Superman.

00:10:52.520 That was I think that was my impression when I was looking at these things before.

00:10:56.640 But do you have it?

00:10:57.940 They both are writers currently.

00:10:59.600 But yes, one is an illustrator.

00:11:01.780 Was Schuster?

00:11:02.360 Yes, I think that's the case.

00:11:03.680 And Schuster was the writer who started these kinds of things.

00:11:08.360 It was from Toronto.

00:11:09.480 But yeah, I mean, look, they're co-creators.

00:11:12.120 They have very similar backgrounds.

00:11:13.780 Yeah.

00:11:14.780 Yeah.

00:11:15.480 In any case, the creators of Superman were they, you know, the first kind of version, as you've described, was this very primitive comic that describes a villain, actually.

00:11:29.400 Right.

00:11:29.580 And that villain is something more that villain is something more akin to how they're imagining Superman.

00:11:36.380 But at some point they make they make the decision.

00:11:38.840 They make a kind of artistic, creative decision that, like, well, we should basically be depicting a kind of crypto Jew as the Superman or Jews as Superman instead of like, you know, I mean, why do we see that? 0.94

00:11:50.640 So they made a kind of propagandistic and artistic or creative decision, you know, in an intelligent one, as it would turn out, obviously.

00:11:57.700 Right.

00:11:57.880 But so so there were and the decision there ultimately was, well, we're actually we're the Superman.

00:12:04.380 So the Superman is going to be kind of redefined.

00:12:07.300 We're going to redefine the Superman and maybe also in the English language, in a way, rather than the Uber inch.

00:12:13.740 It's the Superman.

00:12:15.040 Right.

00:12:15.280 So maybe they're taking it for for the English audience.

00:12:18.280 They're sort of transmuting the Superman into a Jewish figure. 0.99

00:12:20.820 But, yeah, so from the beginning, it deals with Jewish cripsis. 0.99

00:12:27.280 Right. 0.52

00:12:28.740 The main guy or rather he has a secret identity.

00:12:33.340 So Superman has a secret identity and his secret identity is Clark Kent.

00:12:38.260 And the names, as people know, the names are often chosen very carefully in in Jewish works, especially salient and kind of important and impactful ones.

00:12:49.180 And there's no it's no exception here.

00:12:52.120 Kent, the name Kent means white.

00:12:54.400 Right.

00:12:54.700 So so in other words, Clark Kent represents a kind of white presenting face of this Jewish figure. 0.96

00:13:01.780 I think the word Clark means, interestingly, means priest or or clergy or clerk.

00:13:08.980 Right.

00:13:09.240 So it's a it's a kind of a clerical name.

00:13:12.660 Right.

00:13:12.800 And so white priest could be a kind of like that could be essentially the meaning of Clark Kent.

00:13:19.800 Right.

00:13:20.700 So already.

00:13:21.780 Let me jump in real quick.

00:13:23.580 No, no.

00:13:24.100 But so also corroborate.

00:13:26.180 Fine, please.

00:13:27.440 Yeah.

00:13:27.680 No, no.

00:13:28.200 I'll jump in real quick.

00:13:28.980 So first off, in saying that Superman is a Jewish figure, that might have been a bit controversial, maybe in the 1950s or something like this.

00:13:41.220 At this point, this is totally uncontroversial and mainstream among people looking at the history of comics.

00:13:50.180 This isn't something that people will maybe talk about when they're reviewing The Man of Steel or something like that.

00:13:56.840 But in academic circles, this is just taken for granted that, you know, you have this amazing burst of creativity at this point.

00:14:09.400 The golden age of comics, the 1930s and the creation of all these superheroes that have, you know, kind of stood the test of time and are still extremely popular.

00:14:18.420 Maybe even replacing religious figures in terms of iconic images of, you know, woman, Wonder Woman or Superman as this, you know, God among us who's good.

00:14:32.580 Batman is a darker, more ambiguous figure as well.

00:14:36.940 But, yeah, these are all created by Jews as Jewish myths and they reflect Jewish experience and Jewish personality. 0.93

00:14:47.680 So that's what we're not just thrusting this upon there.

00:14:51.040 Also, there, according to I was just reading up a little bit on Joe Shuster, and he ostensibly claimed that he named Clark Kent after Clark Gable, who, of course, you know, was a famous actor of the time, Gone with the Wind and all that.

00:15:03.240 But I would strongly suggest, A, that you don't always believe the cover stories that people tell you.

00:15:12.040 You know, Ian Fleming said that James Bond came from a book on birdwatching.

00:15:18.680 I'm a little bit dubious about that.

00:15:21.480 And Stan Lee said the Black Panther was that was not named after the Black Panther group.

00:15:26.960 Right.

00:15:27.820 Right.

00:15:28.360 Well, actually, they did come later, didn't they?

00:15:30.500 No, well, there was an earlier Black Panther group that the one that we're familiar with that I think is Oakland based, based out of California.

00:15:40.100 There was one in the South that was called the Black Panthers.

00:15:43.240 And I think that the Oakland group may have, like, purchased the name or something like that.

00:15:48.960 So it was known.

00:15:49.760 It was known in, you know, civil rights circles.

00:15:52.620 Certainly would have been known to Stan Lee.

00:15:54.060 His work was, you know, is filled with references to the civil rights movement.

00:15:58.160 Yeah.

00:15:58.540 Right.

00:15:58.980 Oh, yeah.

00:15:59.320 I love big animals.

00:16:00.560 You know, they're big and scary.

00:16:02.100 Yeah.

00:16:03.140 Yeah.

00:16:03.540 There are other examples.

00:16:05.040 I mean, the walk is another example, too.

00:16:07.120 Right.

00:16:07.400 Which is a more subtle one.

00:16:09.580 Another example is Mary Jane is a reference to marijuana.

00:16:14.220 And that's like born out in those parables.

00:16:17.160 Like, it's, you know, just saying that, and he denied that, but, you know, and he had reason, he actually had reason to deny that.

00:16:24.180 Because if it seemed like he was, like, promoting drug use or something in the comics, the guy wouldn't check that.

00:16:29.620 Right?

00:16:30.460 Right.

00:16:31.820 But just quickly, as an aside, one of the, like, sort of, one of the famous comic books in the, or comic books, one of the famous, sort of, it might have been a two, you know, two episode.

00:16:47.160 A series.

00:16:48.280 But one of the famous series in the Spider-Man, the early Spider-Man comics was when Harry Osborn becomes, like, a hard drug user.

00:16:56.300 Right?

00:16:57.400 Interesting.

00:16:57.840 But, yeah, but the whole thing is set up with Peter Parker basically kind of, like, pawning off Mary Jane on Harry Osborn.

00:17:06.620 And the real chick in the circle that they want to get is Gwen Stacy or Stacy Gwen.

00:17:11.480 Right?

00:17:11.600 That's the one, that's sort of the waspy sort of blonde that everyone's going after. 1.00

00:17:17.160 And Peter Parker brings in Mary Jane from his own Queen's neighborhood.

00:17:21.760 Right? 1.00

00:17:22.300 Who's this kind of redheaded sex pot. 1.00

00:17:24.940 And he introduces her to Harry Osborn. 0.99

00:17:29.420 Harry Osborn becomes sort of, like, in love with her and addicted to her in a way.

00:17:33.520 And then she breaks his heart and he turns to hard drugs.

00:17:36.760 Right?

00:17:37.460 Because she still loves Peter Parker.

00:17:39.120 But the metaphor there is that he's not just introducing a sort of Jewess, a corrupting Jewess into the circle. 0.95

00:17:45.940 He's introducing marijuana into the circle.

00:17:49.380 Right?

00:17:50.300 Yeah.

00:17:50.460 That's how I read.

00:17:52.720 And there are obviously other clues, but it's the whole, the whole, it's all, it's sort of permeated.

00:17:58.020 It's also kind of hiding in plain sight.

00:17:59.980 I mean, a character called the wasp, you know, you're like, oh, yeah, she's a wasp, she has wings, she flies around.

00:18:05.580 But it's like that, that term wasp, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, was current for decades before then, actually.

00:18:15.320 And it, it is what you think it is.

00:18:19.160 It's like hiding in plain sight.

00:18:20.900 It's right in front of your face and you can't see it.

00:18:24.400 But it much like Superman, I think, in some ways.

00:18:27.340 I mean, you see sometimes people joke.

00:18:29.100 I've seen, someone as a gift one time gave me this, it was like an action figure version of Nietzsche and he was kind of like Superman or something.

00:18:38.680 You know, it's like that, this is amusing.

00:18:41.460 But yeah, it's like this is a reference to this term that was in the air at the time.

00:18:49.940 And as you mentioned before, quite rightly, it was a way of transfiguring it and making it something almost the opposite of what was meant in Nietzsche's works, including Vespos Zarathustra, where that term appears.

00:19:07.100 But yeah, so let's, there are a lot of strongly Jewish elements to Superman.

00:19:14.340 And there, there's the name, which is Hebraic, Kal-El, his father is Jor-El.

00:19:20.280 Do you know what those are references to specifically?

00:19:23.760 Kal-El, I think, is voice of God.

00:19:26.520 I looked at the Hebrew, I couldn't really figure out if there was any other secret there. 0.97

00:19:31.260 But El is one of the words that's used for, you know, Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible.

00:19:38.380 So it's, I think that the fact that it's, yeah, well, El is singular, right?

00:19:43.280 So the distinction there, I think, is singular versus plural.

00:19:46.940 Elohim is plural or can be plural, right?

00:19:51.120 So El is, El may be a kind of specific Jewish identifier or a reference to Yahweh, like, you know, Adonai or something like that.

00:20:00.140 So it might be a term that means Lord and it's singular, therefore, identifying a Jewish God as opposed to another God.

00:20:10.420 Interesting.

00:20:10.940 El Olam, El Olam was, so El Olam was one of the gods, too, that was identified with Cronus and Saturn, right?

00:20:20.700 Interesting.

00:20:21.240 So, and El Olam is Lord of Time, basically, Lord of Time, Olam, or Lord of the World, I guess it would be another reading of the Hebrew there.

00:20:28.380 Hmm.

00:20:29.020 So we have these names that strongly evoke Hebrew.

00:20:35.920 Superman will eventually come to Earth in a Moses basket, effectively.

00:20:41.460 He'll be, you know, cast out from a dying Krypton and he'll come to Earth, you know, in these ways that are clearly evoking, you know, biblical myth.

00:20:53.620 Now, again, I think a lot of this operates on an unconscious level, you know, I mean, particularly in this day and age where we have, you know, like the personifications of the comic book guy on YouTube who, you know, like it was actually in 1940 Action Comics 17 when he was placed in a spaceship that came to Earth.

00:21:17.880 You know, these people kind of obsess about the details in an amusing way about these comics.

00:21:23.960 But again, it's all you have to, like, get away from the details and just look at the structure of it.

00:21:30.720 It's all Hebraic myths retold in this pulpy fashion that is appealing to kids and will eventually appeal to adults. 1.00

00:21:42.140 And in fact, adults will buy more comic books than kids eventually, but it is appealing to them on a, you know, childlike level of, you know, wish fulfillment.

00:21:52.120 Superman is wish fulfillment, you know, big straw man, strong man who punches everyone and can fly and do anything and can get shot by bullets and they just fall off him, etc.

00:22:03.340 It is a way of transmitting Hebraic parables to children at an impressionable age and have those kind of stick in their mind, maybe unconsciously, but still stick in their mind.

00:22:19.740 And it is funny that the, you know, the attack on comic books that came in mid-century with the, I'm forgetting his name, it's a name like Werther or Wertham or something, this commission where they were claiming that comic books were about sexual perversion and, you know, they were, you know, promoting deviancy and so on.

00:22:44.600 Not completely wrong, you could say, but the most powerful transmission was not, you know, free love.

00:22:54.040 The most powerful transmission was the Hebrew Bible.

00:22:57.880 Yeah.

00:22:58.340 I mean, so, but to your, to your earlier point, like is Superman a Jewish character?

00:23:03.360 Obviously is, right?

00:23:04.560 So it's not, and this, it's, this is one of the most obvious, you know, if certainly don't bother watching the rest of our, or listening to the rest of our podcast.

00:23:12.280 If you can't get over the, you know, Superman is a Jew. 1.00

00:23:16.880 That's sort of the beginner course, right?

00:23:19.260 Yes.

00:23:19.680 He's given a Hebrew name, two Jews invented the guy, you know, these clear themes of Krypsis. 0.96

00:23:25.800 So.

00:23:26.840 And a secret identity.

00:23:27.780 And it's a weird one because his secret, it's, when you think about who Superman is, I mean, his false identity is Clark Kent.

00:23:36.660 Even though it is kind of authentic to him, he doesn't have to like put on heirs to become Clark Kent, but his, his secret identity as, as a nebbish journalist, basically.

00:23:49.260 But his real identity is this superhero, a God among us, basically.

00:23:55.140 And, um, that also just the fact that those persona were chosen is also interesting, let's say.

00:24:05.100 Yeah.

00:24:05.260 And this is, I mean, this is in book one, so I may as well drop it here as well.

00:24:09.640 But the, uh, uh, Krypton is obviously a reference also to Krypsis, to Jewish Krypsis.

00:24:14.980 In fact, the Krypton, uh, that the word is also the name for an element on the, uh, you know, a periodic table.

00:24:23.840 I mean, the, the meaning of that word is hidden one, right?

00:24:27.980 It means hidden one.

00:24:29.760 Um, so, you know, this idea that, um, in which makes the metaphor very interesting, of course, because what is being described is that Krypton is dying.

00:24:41.400 Right.

00:24:41.880 So there's an interesting layer there where Krypton is dying.

00:24:45.960 So, um, they might be dealing with a metaphor where Krypsis is ending on some level.

00:24:53.000 I don't know.

00:24:53.720 Right.

00:24:54.120 I mean, that might be one way of thinking of it.

00:24:56.320 Well, it's fascinating.

00:24:57.380 And you, yeah, it's, it's fascinating that you talk about this because it's, um, you know, what, what is the only thing that can kill Superman?

00:25:05.320 Uh, because in some ways they had to come up with some contrivance because this guy is so strong that there needs to be some kind of threat.

00:25:13.800 He can't just punch burglars, you know, for all his life.

00:25:17.660 And that, that is Kryptonite and it's a piece of his planet. 1.00

00:25:21.680 So, and, and again, Krypton evokes Krypsis and crypto Jew, you could say it's the, the, the, the way a, a strategy for Jewish survival that was quite successful in Christian periods and, and elsewhere, which is to be a Jew at home while ostensibly converting or being, you know, relatively neutral in society. 0.88

00:25:50.320 But maintaining this tradition and, and, and the, the technology of the Hebrew Bible.

00:25:56.560 Um, and it's interesting again, that he comes from this place that is Krypsis.

00:26:01.800 It's almost like it, we can't know what it really is.

00:26:05.840 And, um, but in all of these cases, it is dying.

00:26:09.520 Maybe that's Krypsis dying. 0.96

00:26:10.820 Maybe that's a kind of ancestral home world.

00:26:13.580 You could say Israel, Zion, Jerusalem is, is, is dying.

00:26:19.340 It's not theirs anymore.

00:26:20.660 Uh, and they have to kind of enter the world, which is entering the realm of, of Gentiles. 1.00

00:26:26.360 But it's also interesting, as you point out, I'll give you total credit for coming up with this again, when you told me this, it was like, you know, oh, well, here we go.

00:26:35.640 This is, um, this has been hiding in plain sight all this time.

00:26:39.400 Um, it's interesting that it is Krypsis that can attack Superman. 0.98

00:26:44.100 So when you, and it's a piece of his home world that is dangerous to him.

00:26:49.080 And it's almost like if you show him who he really is, that is, that is how you destroy him.

00:26:58.380 Yeah.

00:26:58.920 Well, let me talk a second because that metaphor, uh, developed a little later.

00:27:03.200 And I actually think it might've been Bill Finger who authored the first appearance of, uh, Kryptonite.

00:27:09.520 Um, but basically what was happening is that, um, and I guess their secretary, uh, you know, who worked in the office pointing it out to, to them.

00:27:16.660 Uh, maybe she had a, uh, more, uh, important, uh, title and secretary, but she's credited with basically bugging these guys, uh, you know, the two Jewish creators of it by saying, Hey, well, there's no way to kill him. 0.67

00:27:27.960 So it's kind of boring.

00:27:29.180 It's a boring guy's indestructible.

00:27:32.100 So what's it, what's the point?

00:27:33.460 I mean, it's the, the conflict that's inherent in drama is sort of absent with Superman.

00:27:37.720 It's actually one of the reasons that I never really liked Superman, because even though there was in the problem with Kryptonite, okay, he has a weakness, but then it's like the same weakness.

00:27:46.560 It's every time.

00:27:47.260 So it's the same kind of formula to attack him.

00:27:50.080 So I found that irritating as a kid.

00:27:52.940 Um, but so, but I think that, um, one way of looking, so the metaphor, so in a way they're developing something that wasn't kind of thought of originally.

00:28:05.280 So there might be a kind of imperfectness to it.

00:28:07.580 You could argue.

00:28:08.920 Um, but I, what they do come up with is it.

00:28:12.140 Yeah.

00:28:12.300 If they have a piece of the planet, so it could, there's, there are a couple of readings of it.

00:28:16.260 One could be, well, it's reminding them of this tragedy, which is, it hurts them emotionally.

00:28:22.660 Right.

00:28:23.360 So let's imagine Kryptonite, like something like a, a Holocaust or some, a pogrom or some Jewish suffering. 0.66

00:28:29.600 Right.

00:28:30.220 Imagine it as a metaphor for that.

00:28:31.880 It's out of Jerusalem.

00:28:32.560 Yeah.

00:28:32.800 Yeah.

00:28:33.080 So, so by having a piece of it, it's a kind of, uh, memento or it's a reminder of suffering.

00:28:39.640 So that harms them.

00:28:41.400 Uh, the other thing too, is that it could be, it could be a metaphor for, for essentially revealing their cryptos.

00:28:47.320 It's like, we know you were a Jew basically.

00:28:48.820 So it's, it's, you know, so the power of this Jewish figure comes from the fact that no one knows that he's a Jew, right? 0.56

00:28:56.040 No one knows that Clark Kent's a Jew.

00:28:57.820 And that allows him to kind of, um, you know, operate in Gentile society, be successful in Gentile society, um, and have this, you know, whatever this sort of, this sort of secret mojo of like being, uh, having a secret identity.

00:29:13.020 And whatever kind of additional potency that might give a person, because I think that there probably is something to that.

00:29:18.460 Right.

00:29:19.240 Um, so I think that, um, a power level, right.

00:29:23.660 People describe it as a power level.

00:29:25.160 Right.

00:29:26.140 Um, so I think that, uh, that metaphor might be a little bit of an imperfect metaphor, but one reading of it is that basically he's being outed as a Jew.

00:29:37.940 That could be one reading of it.

00:29:39.240 So, so we're, we're saying, so someone who shows them is saying, Hey, we know it's, you know, we know this is Krypsis, right? 0.73

00:29:47.140 Look, we found the evidence that you're a Jew effectively, and this is Krypsis, right? 1.00

00:29:52.640 So being found out as a Jew might be, that might be the metaphor with a kryptonite. 1.00

00:29:58.200 Yes.

00:29:59.380 Um, well, let's, I'm glad we talked about that, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

00:30:04.860 Cause all of these things that we discussed are applicable to man of steel.

00:30:10.360 So let's go to where I usually start these.

00:30:15.840 So what, what were your initial impressions of man of steel when you first saw it, maybe in theaters and in 2013?

00:30:25.620 Um, man of steel.

00:30:29.000 Uh, I, so I first had a kind of ho-hum reaction to it.

00:30:32.900 Uh, you and I talked about this.

00:30:34.240 I, I wasn't, you know, uh, generally I, I mean, I, you know, comic book films in general are kind of a mixed bag.

00:30:41.300 Few of them are good, of course.

00:30:43.400 Uh, and most of them are, are pretty bad.

00:30:45.660 Um, but, uh, I've tended, like, I think that my favorite, and I've said this on the podcast before, is it, uh, you know, the 2008 Iron Man, I thought was a pretty funny movie at the time.

00:30:56.660 And I thought it just like kind of had the right sort of kinetic, you know, energy was humorous and was kind of cool.

00:31:04.060 And, you know, it didn't take itself seriously in a good way.

00:31:08.220 Right.

00:31:09.080 Uh, whereas Nolan took Batman serious in a good way as well.

00:31:13.440 Right.

00:31:13.800 So he took it serious.

00:31:14.820 Like, so there were, there are two, it represents two different approaches to the comic book genre.

00:31:20.000 Yeah.

00:31:20.120 And they came out in the same year.

00:31:21.740 Interestingly.

00:31:22.780 You said 2008 was the, was that the first?

00:31:25.020 Yeah.

00:31:25.540 Yeah.

00:31:25.720 Yeah.

00:31:26.160 Okay.

00:31:26.680 Um, yeah, it, it is.

00:31:28.720 Cause I, I think these are the two kind of versions of what big Hollywood can be.

00:31:35.940 It's, it's the Marvel Marvel movie where everything is kind of a joke and they'll even wink at the audience, you know, and basically say, I think there was some moment in one of the Avengers films where he was like, I'm just some guy wearing tights, shooting a bow and arrow.

00:31:53.560 Like all of this is wacky.

00:31:55.300 You know, it's almost like a, allowing the audience to kind of play along in the big joke that the movies are.

00:32:03.000 And, you know, Marvel movies are known for their quips, uh, the irony, the kind of silliness, fun, cute characters.

00:32:12.720 Uh, and then DC has maybe always kind of gone a different direction, but it definitely went in direction post Nolan of this, you know, grounded, realistic film.

00:32:25.300 Where even a figure like, uh, Ra's al Ghul, who is, you know, magical and mythical is kind of brought down to earth and he becomes a, you know, Nietzschean terrorist or something in, in, um, Batman begins and everything is grounded.

00:32:44.560 So, you know, Bruce Wayne is a real guy living in modern Gotham.

00:32:49.740 He's using technology, but it's, it's a very, you know, real thing.

00:32:55.160 The magic, the, the, the camp, the silliness is, is removed.

00:32:59.880 Uh, and then Marvel kind of went another direction.

00:33:02.480 They, they became wildly successful with this.

00:33:04.920 They've sometimes had some, you know, somewhat serious films, but overall the, the, the tone is extremely white.

00:33:12.840 Zack Snyder is different than Nolan.

00:33:15.900 Um, he is not really trying to ground the comic book characters in reality.

00:33:24.280 Like what would it be, be like to be Batman?

00:33:26.860 I mean, Batman's maybe the only one you can do that.

00:33:29.160 I think he, on one level wants to create a moving comic book.

00:33:34.060 So his, you know, and you can see this from his first, uh, really successful film 300 where, you know, he's doing a faithful rendition of the actual comic book.

00:33:46.780 He did this again with Watchmen.

00:33:48.200 I mean, it wasn't entirely just a reproduction, but it was very faithful.

00:33:52.940 And he tried to almost create film as like moving, you know, as opposed to film as like a fly in the wall, looking at realism.

00:34:02.640 It was almost like stylized film as almost like living comic book.

00:34:10.420 I don't know if I'm finding the right metaphor, but I think you, you know, it's like a, the, the, the image itself, you recognize it as a composed artistic image, almost like a moving painting.

00:34:22.940 And he definitely, he did this with 300 with, um, Watchmen.

00:34:28.260 Um, you know, there are a lot of realistic elements to, um, man of steel, but he's, there's also many just, you know, painterly elements.

00:34:36.700 You could say these images of like Clark or Superman being crushed in this mountain of skulls and his hand coming out and all of these really, you know, stylized composed images.

00:34:48.740 Um, he is a, he's a much more visual filmmaker in that sense than Nolan is.

00:34:54.180 I mean, Nolan has a visual language, but with Zack Snyder, it is all about that.

00:35:01.160 He actually, Zack Snyder actually came from music videos, interestingly, and that might've had an effect on him, but it's just his style.

00:35:09.900 And it's also deadly, serious, bombastic, badass, you know, rippling muscles and punching and, you know, all this massive explosions and all destroying buildings and stuff like that.

00:35:25.180 I think that turns some people off, uh, but it's, it, it is this kind of serious.

00:35:32.020 And, and I think there's also this aspect of Zack Snyder that a lot of leftists pick up on and, and, and they, they're, they've been doing this recently.

00:35:41.380 I, I was perusing YouTube, uh, a couple of months ago and I was just searching for Zack Snyder and you get these very, uh, detailed and in many ways, very thoughtful and per persuasive left wing videos on how Zack Snyder is a fascist filmmaker.

00:35:59.860 And I don't think they're, I mean, I think they're wrong maybe on some things, but I don't think they're wrong in the general.

00:36:07.120 I mean, he is a very sincere, bombastic artist who wants to show gods among men, um, and these, and authority figures, um, in a, uh, a new, a different, a certain type of authority figure in a good light.

00:36:27.480 He will actually go after the CIA and, um, Batman v Superman.

00:36:33.300 He'll, he'll do little things like that, but he, he wants to show kind of like mythic violence and he invites you to give into it.

00:36:43.440 And, um, I, I think that might not be the whole story, but I think that is true.

00:36:47.980 I think there, he is a kind of right wing filmmaker as it were much like Christopher Nolan, actually though in a different way.

00:36:54.480 Um, and this can be compared to the silly, goofy, multi-culti left wing films of Marvel movies, which of course, all of the millennials just love and which also I should add glorify the CIA, the American government, such as in that film, black Panther, but we don't have to go there.

00:37:17.460 Um, but yeah, I mean, I have to, when I first saw a man of steel, I was, I mean, I generally liked it, but, um, I felt that in some ways it was, it was, it was rather loud.

00:37:30.460 And, uh, the Christ imagery was kind of maybe too on the nose and there was all, you know, these big punching and throwing people into buildings and explosions.

00:37:44.620 I, I just, I got a little exhausted by it when I first saw the movie.

00:37:48.480 So I certainly didn't dislike the movie.

00:37:50.480 I actually liked it, but it was a bit much.

00:37:53.200 You could say, um, I rewatched it a number of times since I first saw it and I have liked it more and more.

00:38:02.560 And I've also begun to appreciate Zack Snyder who puts the, this, a kind of detailed attention into every scene, every, almost every scene is evoking something.

00:38:16.360 It's evoking a theme of the film.

00:38:19.460 Sometimes it's on the nose.

00:38:20.660 Like when, you know, Superman is literally in a Christ pose in outer space or, um, uh, you know, when, um, Zack Snyder evokes like Stanley Kubrick and Watchmen and those scenes in the nuclear, uh, war room.

00:38:37.460 Um, I mean, he, but he's, he's evoking imagery, either themes from the film or iconic American 20th century imagery, almost in every scene and everything is very tightly composed and meaningful.

00:38:53.540 And so I think it does pay worth, it pays rewatching these things and kind of catching the reference or looking at some of the layering that he's doing.

00:39:05.200 And I've, I, I have to say I've, I've come to a point where I, I not only appreciate men of steel quite a bit, I think it's actually a great film.

00:39:13.580 And, um, and we're going to start talking about some of the themes of the film in a bit, but, um, I, I've also just appreciated Zack Snyder as an artist.

00:39:21.820 I mean, he's, he has his limitations.

00:39:24.380 He has his temptations, you could say to be bombastic and use slow-mo and have all this bad-ass Conan the Barbarian style stuff.

00:39:35.200 Maybe that's not a fault.

00:39:36.480 I don't know.

00:39:37.300 Uh, but he, he has his, you know, limitations, but, but I actually do think he is a great visual artist and, and, and I appreciate him and his films.

00:39:47.020 Yeah.

00:39:47.460 The, uh, the, um, the Christ, uh, you know, that he's a Christ figure is pretty, is pretty evident in the film.

00:39:55.780 And yeah, I'm in not even, I mean, it's not even in a bad way.

00:40:01.440 I mean, as you, as you, you're just describing, because it's sort of like on some level, it's a bit of a, you know, from a Christian perspective, it's a little bit of a, you know, people describe him as a fascist.

00:40:12.480 That's definitely a stretch in my view, but he, he, um, he is sort of trolling Jews to a certain extent because he's taking, you know, not in, I don't even know that all Jews would necessarily object.

00:40:26.600 And probably many would not object to his treatment of Superman and, and they'd like his treatment of Superman.

00:40:32.260 I mean, obviously the thing was produced in Hollywood and it got the backing of the studios and, you know, so it wasn't, it wasn't that controversial in, in its way.

00:40:41.680 Um, but there is, I think that, um, Christians, Christians watching it, who can perceive, uh, this sort of Christ metaphor, which again is pretty blatant, uh, probably take a certain delight and do feel that he's kind of taken, he's taken this Superman character in a way from Jews, right?

00:41:00.720 They, they invented a Superman, of course.

00:41:03.160 Um, right.

00:41:04.020 And, and he's, and he's, and he's made him maybe into a more positive figure.

00:41:09.800 He's made him effectively into a Christ figure.

00:41:12.780 Um, and you can see this, I mean, there is a, and I, and I, some of it could be a kind of subconscious reaction to it, but he does, I've noticed online, he does have this very kind of like devoted, which I think that you're kind of, you might even be sort of part of this, like sort of hardcore, like zeal it.

00:41:28.960 I'm the leader of the release of the Snyder Cut movement.

00:41:33.240 No, uh, I, I, uh, I know I, I, there is a group.

00:41:37.740 Yeah.

00:41:38.200 There is a group and I, and I'm not sure any other filmmaker has such a following.

00:41:43.720 Christopher Nolan might be the only one.

00:41:45.220 He's very popular and has his fans.

00:41:47.980 I think what's kind of unique about Zack Snyder is that he is so divisive among the audience and critics.

00:41:55.880 And so like man of steel had, I mean, whether you want to put any stock in this at all is up to you, but man of steel had a 50% rotten tomatoes score.

00:42:08.280 So rotten tomatoes, like aggregates, you know, reviews from means mostly mainstream sources, but also some kind of online vloggy sources.

00:42:17.860 And, um, that was from critics or that was from critics.

00:42:22.840 Yeah.

00:42:23.120 Audiences, audience scores are much higher because he gives the audience in a way what they want, just like badass, you know, things exploding and, you know, Superman to these huge muscles and, you know, punching people.

00:42:35.960 Yeah.

00:42:36.120 He gives the audience what they want on some level.

00:42:38.880 Uh, but so he's much more popular audiences, but he's very divisive among critics.

00:42:43.720 And I think among just people like, you know, the Twitterati you could say.

00:42:48.000 And so I don't think Christopher Nolan has these leftist, like communist making you like hour long YouTube videos about why Zack Snyder is evil.

00:43:00.460 I don't think Christopher Nolan has such a detraction.

00:43:03.800 He's extremely divisive.

00:43:06.480 I think that's a kind of remarkable thing about him.

00:43:08.800 And so, and that's good and bad.

00:43:10.580 Like the critics jumped on him after Batman v Superman and all these kinds of things are like Zack Snyder's over.

00:43:18.680 He's terrible.

00:43:19.620 We hate him, blah, blah, blah.

00:43:21.860 And then, but he also has these fans that did something remarkable.

00:43:26.640 And it's kind of what, you know, sparked us to do these podcasts on, you know, on, on this series of films.

00:43:34.220 Uh, but these fans who just endlessly for three years were tweeting, you know, Zack released the Snyder cut.

00:43:43.220 Zack Snyder was robbed.

00:43:44.700 His grand epic vision was destroyed by the studios.

00:43:49.160 And they, and they would do all of these really interesting, like YouTube videos on like looking at what, you know, how Justice League was put into theaters.

00:44:00.060 Cause Zack Snyder's, um, adopted daughter committed suicide and he, he, in, in the, the, but at the same time, there's always this pushback against him at the studio.

00:44:09.100 And so Zack Snyder kind of basically said no moss at some point, he just couldn't go on.

00:44:14.960 Josh Whedon from Marvel came in to finish the project.

00:44:18.180 And what he ultimately did was just radically change it.

00:44:21.060 And he turned it into a Marvel movie.

00:44:23.120 It didn't work.

00:44:24.080 It lost money.

00:44:24.900 It was a disaster justice league from 2017 has just been forgotten as a, just movie that no one cares about.

00:44:32.560 And so there was this movement of like, there actually is this great film out there.

00:44:36.480 And let's like examine like early trailers and behind the scenes footage.

00:44:40.480 And like what we know from Zack and Zack Snyder would kind of like release images from the film.

00:44:45.440 Um, and they created an online movement that I guess, unlike the Trump online movement was actually successful.

00:44:55.840 And so they got what they wanted.

00:44:58.280 I mean, the Snyder cut is being released tomorrow as we're recording this.

00:45:02.740 And he got another, you know, 50 million to go finish the project.

00:45:09.240 And, um, from what I can see, uh, the early reviews are that it's, it's great.

00:45:13.960 I mean, it's bombastic and mythical, but it's great.

00:45:17.900 And, uh, his fans won, you know, so there you go.

00:45:23.220 Some, you know, if you try to, um, you know, limit immigration and change foreign policy through an online political movement,

00:45:31.200 you'll fail and get co-opted by the GOP.

00:45:34.420 But if you're Zack Snyder fans, you'll achieve total victory.

00:45:38.540 That's, that's the lesson that I see.

00:45:42.020 So, yeah.

00:45:43.100 So divert your, uh, efforts to more meaningful causes is what you are.

00:45:47.980 In a way.

00:45:48.820 Yes.

00:45:50.560 Um, but what I, what I would say though, about, um, I mean, I think that some of the criticism of Snyder is deserved as just as a filmmaker, right?

00:46:00.480 So I, I, I think that he, um, you know, this, so, and Nolan is guilty of this in ways as well, but he's, he's actually, Nolan is, um, has some scenes in his films that are genuinely like very kind of evocative or emotional and evocative.

00:46:20.400 Um, whereas I think that, um, I think that, uh, uh, Snyder is more, he can be a little more mockish as a filmmaker and some of it's a little cornier, um, as compared to a Nolan film.

00:46:34.600 So I think that there is a kind of a tonal element that's not as strong, or I find in the Snyder films, whereas I think Nolan, no, Nolan feels like the, it just feels like a more sophisticated presentation.

00:46:47.500 And there's, there's kind of more style, I think, to a Nolan film.

00:46:50.840 Uh, you say that, uh, visually that I think that, you know, I, I mean, I think both filmmakers are very visually gifted, uh, uh, definitely.

00:46:57.640 But, um, so I would say that I think that they, I think he can be criticized from a purely filmmaking perspective.

00:47:03.960 Now, I, I think that, I think that there is, I, you know, I would guess that there's also a kind of political or even religio-political dimension to the, uh, sort of hatred of him.

00:47:14.260 Because there's a kind of, there's a sense that like, oh, there, here, here we go again.

00:47:18.360 It's kind of Christian filmmaker.

00:47:20.100 He's got this sort of Christian sensibility and, and he's kind of depicting Jews with the bad guys, or he is in this film, uh, uh, to some extent.

00:47:28.360 Thank you very much.

00:47:29.380 This film is, look, if you actually, we'll get into it.

00:47:34.180 Uh, if you actually outline what is going on in this film, you could make a strong argument that this is a wildly anti-Semitic film.

00:47:45.840 Uh, it, now it's from a, a certain type of Christian anti-Semitism.

00:47:50.460 So it's, it's enveloped by Judaism, you could say, in the way that Christianity is. 0.95

00:47:56.120 But nevertheless, um, you know, I don't know what to say.

00:48:01.180 Krypton had its chance.

00:48:02.740 That is what Superman utters while he literally slices through the birthing chambers for kryptonite and ends his own race. 0.78

00:48:14.160 I mean, you know, when you're watching this film and you're, you're kind of overwhelmed over the visuals and, you know, spaceships crashing through buildings and these amazing fights and so on, you might not see that.

00:48:31.020 But if you actually look at, you know, read the script, so to speak, and see what's going on, think about what is, what is the implication of this plot?

00:48:42.640 Um, it becomes something very different.

00:48:46.820 Um, so do you want to add to that or, or should I kind of jump into the, to the whole plot?

00:48:51.820 No, I think it's, I think that's correct.

00:48:54.020 I mean, it's, uh, it's correct.

00:48:56.260 And, but there, it's more complex than that, obviously, of course, because as it turns out, he ends up being basically the embodiment of, uh, the krypton.

00:49:05.920 He's, he contains the codex within his blood.

00:49:08.920 Yeah.

00:49:09.460 So he is, he's the way of continuing krypton.

00:49:12.640 Now, ostensibly though, I don't know if all the, uh, maybe all the krypton, you know, I'm sure there, I'm sure some kryptonites survived because they have to have sequels, of course, but, um, or some kryptonians.

00:49:25.080 Yes, some kryptonians.

00:49:26.220 We'll get to that in the next podcast.

00:49:27.800 Yeah, yeah.

00:49:29.500 But, um.

00:49:30.200 Batman v.

00:49:30.740 Super.

00:49:30.980 But, uh, by all appearances of the film, it would seem that they, he basically extinguished the last of the, uh, kryptonians and, um, he, uh, but on the other hand, he contains krypton within his blood and in a, in a kind of very like sort of, uh, emphatic and definitive way, uh, you know, as described in the, as described in the film, he contains basically the essence of krypton, the krypton races in him.

00:49:59.980 He, he, he, he, he is the embodiment of what they call the codex, right?

00:50:04.860 Which becomes their, I mean, you, you probably can get into the description, but that's, this is the way that this race is effectively bred is through this codex.

00:50:13.480 And, uh, and he's the embodiment of that codex, um, as described in the film, but, but, uh, ostensibly though, he would have to breed with humans, right?

00:50:23.740 To continue, right?

00:50:25.020 So in other words, he would have to make a wife of Lois Lane.

00:50:28.320 And so he would, um, in any case.

00:50:31.540 Yeah.

00:50:32.120 Well, so let's go there.

00:50:34.040 So the, the, the, the, the film opens in, uh, in a, in a 20 minute kind of prelude that takes place on krypton.

00:50:45.920 And, uh, it's interesting because I, um, I actually saw some of these, um, Superman, the, the Richard Donner Superman movies when I was a child.

00:50:58.440 I don't quite know how I saw them because the first one came out in 1978, I believe.

00:51:04.180 So it was the year I was born.

00:51:05.800 So I don't think I saw it that early.

00:51:08.120 Uh, but I, you know, back in the late seventies and early eighties before VHS, they were replaying movies more often at theaters.

00:51:16.360 And, uh, so I, I remember seeing like, um, the empire strikes back at the theater in the eighties when it would come back and be replayed.

00:51:27.540 So I think that's probably how I saw it, but, uh, and then I probably watched it on VHS or saw it on television or something in the late eighties when I was like 10.

00:51:37.960 Uh, but it left an impression and that impression was ice and this ice world of krypton.

00:51:43.720 And, and, uh, you know, I think Snyder and his writers, so when they wanted to do something different, so they created a, a kind of more organic world, but it's a kind of avatar like world with all these creatures and so on.

00:51:56.300 And, um, but also I, I, I don't, again, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say it's a Hebraic world.

00:52:04.940 You have the writing that is present in particular, uh, seems to evoke that in some way.

00:52:13.280 And, um, the, just the, the kind of council of elders that Jor-El is speaking before also evokes that.

00:52:23.200 Um, you know, it's not hard and fast, but I, I don't think I'm wrong, uh, on that.

00:52:28.840 And, um, so the whole problem that is going on is, is kind of, it's, it's twofold and you actually see the, the problem, the drama of the film in the first five minutes.

00:52:42.900 So basically Krypton's core is collapsing and Jor-El is giving this news to the council of elders and just saying, everyone here is already dead, but I need control of the codex and I can save our race.

00:53:00.860 So the, the, the, the fundamental issue of the film is whether the Kryptonians can save their race.

00:53:10.000 I mean, it is an existential racialist film from its opening moments.

00:53:15.620 Then you have a parallel figure to Jor-El, which is general Zod, and he actually has the same exact motivation.

00:53:24.800 And he is, you know, he can tell, you know, again, we don't know what exactly is going on, but we can kind of sense that there's some looming catastrophe.

00:53:33.940 And Jor, and Zod also sees that things are collapsing, that the society is breaking down.

00:53:40.860 And so it's time for a coup d'etat and just a takeover.

00:53:44.740 He, you know, kills some council members, dissolves the council and is, is engaging in a coup.

00:53:50.840 And Jor-El can't go along with it.

00:53:53.480 And it's, you know, Zod asked him to join him and it's kind of like, we're not opposed.

00:53:59.240 We are both, we both see that, that our society is dying and that the politicians are useless and we need to do something.

00:54:08.040 And they kind of have two different ways of doing something.

00:54:11.580 And then I think Superman will have a third way, which is very different than what his father is suggesting.

00:54:16.540 And it's, it's obviously different than what Zod wants to accomplish.

00:54:20.320 Um, and so Zod attempts to take over and, um, Jor-El's opposition seems to be kind of ethical, democratic, you know, you're, you've taken up the sword against your own people, blah, blah, blah.

00:54:34.700 But he seems to, there seems to be some fascination with birth in the sense that, you know, Krypton is this rigid society where every single member is bred to be something.

00:54:51.680 So everyone is bred to an occupation effectively.

00:54:55.900 And Zod was bred to be a general.

00:54:57.780 Jor-El was bred to be a great scientist and so on.

00:55:01.280 And, and that they've, they've reached some point of rigidity and, and in some ways, the, the rigidity of the class structure and genetic structure is, is the cause or the ultimate background of its collapse.

00:55:15.600 Um, and so Jor-El also wants to break out of this, but he sees Zod as a problem because, you know, you want to choose the bloodlines and Zod is saying, we're going to sever the degenerate bloodlines that brought us to this place.

00:55:28.280 And Jor-El wants a, a, a different path, which is a, a, a free birth that is a natural birth of a child.

00:55:37.980 And they also, because their planet is collapsing, they also are going to send this child off that they're going to implant the codex.

00:55:48.060 So Jor-El wants to get a hold of the codex codex and, and, and by whatever means necessary, ultimately, and implant it in this child and send it off to another world, much like a message in a bottle.

00:56:03.020 So the whole, again, just to reiterate that the conflict of the story is how the Jews, the Jewish race will survive the Krypton race, you know, they're Jews.

00:56:17.160 It's how they will survive.

00:56:18.960 And there are kind of two paths.

00:56:20.740 The one is the harsh kind of nationalistic, hard path of Zod, uh, which will ultimately entail just, you know, conquering earth and destroying the people on it. 0.99

00:56:35.340 And the other path is through this child who will embody the best of both worlds.

00:56:42.460 You could say he, he's a child that will be apart from Zod, apart from the old world, and he will be given to another race and as a gift. 0.98

00:56:56.360 And so there, there's a definite, and I, and I think for Zack Snyder, this is all but explicit in the way that he films the text.

00:57:04.200 And I think it was absolutely central to the way that he was conceiving it.

00:57:08.900 Uh, but it is the old Testament and the new, it is the old Testament of law and rigidity, that old world and the new of bequeathing the, the essence of this incarnate essence.

00:57:24.780 In fact, um, incarnate, it's the word made flesh.

00:57:28.900 It's the word made flesh, right?

00:57:30.740 Yeah.

00:57:31.920 Which is take on this.

00:57:33.720 I I've given you a lot to, yeah, I know.

00:57:35.400 So, which is, which is the line that appears in John, which is the new Testament.

00:57:39.160 So it's the understanding that Christ or the son of man has become, um, the word has been made flesh.

00:57:46.400 So that's exactly what he's sort of depicting in this film.

00:57:50.460 Um, yeah, I mean, it's interesting.

00:57:52.460 It, it, it, you know, one, I don't know if it's kind of inconsistency in the film, but so what is being depicted in this sort of, um, these breeding pods, right?

00:58:01.900 So, uh, you know, uh, whoever has seen the film knows what I'm describing, but, uh, to those who have not yet seen the film, um, you know, essentially there's all these, these pods that are kind of similar to matrix.

00:58:12.920 If you've seen the film and there's, except that they're, they contain fetuses, people that are not born yet.

00:58:17.900 And there's these kinds of trees that contain these pods and they're being bred artificially in these artificial wombs as opposed to people having, you know, natural births.

00:58:27.900 And, um, but it, what's, what is described in the film is a tri, uh, tripartite, um, class system effectively of, uh, basically priests, spiritual leaders, warriors, and laborers.

00:58:42.360 That's how it's described in the film.

00:58:43.860 Um, which is interesting because Jews don't necessarily contain that, uh, that structure within them.

00:58:49.920 So that, yeah, so that might be a kind of, yeah, I mean, I think, I think that there are, I think it's more, um, I mean, you have religious classes of Jews and you have effectively, you know, secular Jews.

00:59:02.660 So I think that there is a kind of within Judaism, there is a kind of like laity, but there is in a way, it's sort of kind of, it's one of the strengths of Jews is that they are in a sense, kind of a more democratic, uh, there is a kind of more democratic structure to Jews,

00:59:17.900 or there is a more sort of ambiguous sense of hierarchy among Jews.

00:59:22.460 I mean, there, there is obviously a kind of religious hierarchy with rabbis and this sort of thing, but, um, it's not, it's not a sort of, uh, it's not what we imagined that kind of, you know, or what people in the, uh, um, dissident right often kind of fantasize or alt-right or whatever we're calling it.

00:59:40.640 They fantasize the, um, of a, uh, this sort of, this three tiered structure with like these priests, and then you have the warrior class and then you have the labors, um, you know, to the extent that that ever existed in a kind of like perfect way, um, you know, is, might be dubious, but, uh, it, that is not what's, what Judaism really resembles.

00:59:59.640 Judaism is kind of more complex and fluid and, and interesting in a lot of ways, you know what I mean?

01:00:05.440 Well, it's a priestly class, but it's in many ways, a slave class. 0.56

01:00:10.300 I mean, uh, the people of Exodus and they, they might very well have existed.

01:00:16.140 There might've been an actual people, uh, that were, became known as the Hebrews in ancient Egypt, um, at the end of the bronze age.

01:00:26.060 And, uh, this is a downtrodden group.

01:00:29.740 It's, it is interesting.

01:00:31.420 Well, yeah, yeah.

01:00:32.440 So, I mean, actually what you could say is that you could say the ancient Israelites did contain a warrior class, which I think is the case, right?

01:00:40.280 Um, so you could say that, um, it's the Hyksos that they were, they were often related to the Hyksos in ancient Egypt.

01:00:48.440 It was a Hypu, I believe is, well, yeah, we don't have to get lost on these. 1.00

01:00:53.120 It's the, yeah, I think it's, um, I'll look it up well, but, and we'll come back to it and I'll, I'll just let people know.

01:01:00.340 But, uh, I, I think it's the Hyksos, um, maybe that's not the correct pronunciation, but I'll, you'll get the correct pronunciation later.

01:01:08.560 Um, but effectively, you know, there was, um, a tribe that is often identified with the ancient Israelites and, you know, reading the Hebrew Bible, it's clear that there are, there are different tribes.

01:01:20.900 And one of the tribes is Judah, right?

01:01:23.500 Uh, and one of the, and so there were other tribes and we can imagine that, you know, that they are effectively serving different functions.

01:01:30.260 And, um, you know, one of the ideas is that Yahweh, who I argue basically represents Jewry or the tribe of Judah.

01:01:36.960 And there's sort of etymological reasons and there's clues in the Hebrew Bible why you would believe that, but effectively Yahweh and Judah, Yahweh becomes a symbol of Judah, I argue, or the tribe of Judah.

01:01:47.860 Um, and, but Yahweh is also known as the Lord of hosts, right?

01:01:54.640 So the, the idea is that he's ruling over a host, um, and the word for host in the Hebrew is also an army, right?

01:02:02.800 So you could understand him as kind of ruling over warriors or like a sort of janissary class even in, and he, Yahweh represents something more priestly, something that's directing the tribe, right?

01:02:14.760 As it were.

01:02:15.260 So you could argue that in that way, you could argue that there are, at least among the ancient Israelites, you do have a kind of structure, you have a ranking.

01:02:24.720 I mean, clearly Judah ranks above the other tribes. 0.88

01:02:27.360 He's the lion, for example, right?

01:02:30.360 Um, in any case, so, and I think there is actually one theory that that's effectively happened.

01:02:35.120 That's what happened to Jews is that they were conquered, right?

01:02:38.080 So this whole idea of this, the lost tribes, right?

01:02:41.380 And, um, in, you know, uh, the, uh, British Israelites, which is a kind of, uh, sect of Christianity, believe themselves to be descendant of like the lost tribes, the lost, these 10 lost tribes, um, when ancient, when the ancient kingdom of Israel was destroyed.

01:03:00.700 Um, so there is a theory that the Jews basically represent a group that's been a sort of head that's been severed from its body, right?

01:03:10.020 And I, and I think that's, that's actually a kind of idea that, um, Nietzsche even entertains.

01:03:15.940 So there is an idea that they represent a kind of priestly class that's been separated from its sort of body, its normal body.

01:03:23.300 And, and as a consequence, they've become, you know, they've become, you know, people who are effectively guests among hosts in other lands, right?

01:03:32.880 Um, as this priestly class, it operates in a different way that operates through religion, through a kind of sorcery or through culture, right?

01:03:41.280 As opposed to, um, uh, in the more, you could argue the more direct ways in which Arians interact and often the more kind of warrior like ways in which Arians interact.

01:03:51.180 All right. But in any case, I think we're, we're off the topic. Uh, but that's kind of a minor point, you know, so, you know, that's a minor point in the film.

01:03:59.080 Well, okay. Just to go back to this. I mean, I think it's, it's kind of fascinating because in some ways Zod is imaged as this Aryan badass and the fact that they have a tripartite structure and so on is, is interesting. 0.55

01:04:14.780 But then there's other ways of the warrior class. It was at the end. He's a general, he's general. Yeah. So he's of the warrior class. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think Zod just means God? That's how we're supposed to read it? Or is that, do you think that's a reference to something?

01:04:27.300 I, yeah, I was, I was like, I was snooping around before the podcast to try and figure that out. I, I, I basically came up with zero. Like I don't have a strong, there is, uh, uh, yeah, I think there's a Hebrew word that means Zed or say, you know, like, so the, the thing with Hebrew is,

01:04:44.780 uh, uh, the same word can be given a different vowel, right? Because Hebrew doesn't have vowels. So it can be given a different vocalization and essentially be the same word. Uh, uh, but I will, uh, let's come back to that though. I'll look at it.

01:04:59.100 Okay. Well, it's, it's not, it doesn't matter that much. It might mean like council or like, it might even mean like secret, um, some secret or council or something like that. We'll come back to it.

01:05:09.780 At least in English, it reminds you of God. So you sure would it make of that?

01:05:15.720 Reminds you of Zog. Zog as well. Yes. The, uh, that, um, I don't know what you're talking about. It is. Do people use that term on Twitter? I've never seen. Um, but, uh,

01:05:27.780 I have actually forgotten what the meaning of Zog is. I don't know what you're talking about either.

01:05:32.740 You don't know what you're talking about. I think it's a, I think it's a meme of some time. Yeah.

01:05:38.140 These kids use these things. I, I'm too old to even recognize it, but yeah.

01:05:43.280 So like, it's one of those memes, right? Like, which I think means laugh out. Like some light loud.

01:05:51.120 Right. So Zog is similar. It's, you know, yes. Yeah. 0.96

01:05:55.360 Yeah. I wonder what, yeah. Um, but, uh, so he is this badass, but, and so he, he kind of resonates with

01:06:05.480 Arianism, but I, I think also it, and maybe this is a bit of a forced reading, but you could kind of

01:06:12.120 read it as also Jewish, particularly in the kinds of things that he says. So, um, the, the problem with

01:06:20.280 Krypton is that the core is collapsing and you could almost imagine like, I, I don't know,

01:06:27.700 some Bibi Netanyahu type raging about the end of the American empire in like 2070 or whatever.

01:06:34.120 It's like the core has collapsed, you know, in the sense of like the core people of America that

01:06:40.620 keeps this thing going has collapsed. Now, maybe that's a bit of a forced reading of my own take

01:06:45.700 on it. Uh, that, that would be fine. Uh, but there, there's at the very least, you can say that

01:06:52.040 it's this, you know, it's a decaying society and it evokes more of a kind of Aryan society than it does, 1.00

01:07:00.720 um, a, a Jewish one. Uh, but so, so that's the, the, the central conflict. And then, 0.99

01:07:10.900 you know, Superman is sent to earth. He, as we know, he winds up on camp in Kansas and, um, his

01:07:19.220 crash landing is, is not shown on screen in this film. It's famously shown in the

01:07:25.820 Christopher Reeve version. Um, and he is raised by Martha and Clark Kent. And I would say it's,

01:07:36.660 it's very clear that these are Gentile figures and they are, um, I think also they're shown a great

01:07:44.580 deal of sympathy. And I think also kind of sophistication in, in, in the context of who

01:07:53.480 they are. I mean, uh, Jonathan Kent is a farmer from Kansas. He is not an, an erudite person,

01:08:00.620 but he's also someone who actually is deep and complicated and has a very strong moral sense.

01:08:07.860 And so does Martha also not, not only being a good and loving parent, but is also someone who is

01:08:13.760 moral and, and sophisticated in, in, in her context. I think Snyder treats them in a very sincere way.

01:08:23.400 Um, and Jonathan Kent's real issue is, you know, are, what will the world, you know, how will the

01:08:33.100 world accept you? And also in a way, who will you be? So there's a, there's a scene where, um, the

01:08:40.840 young Clark Kent is being bullied. Um, you know, uh, they're not on a playground. They're, they're

01:08:48.160 somewhere else. He's, he's being bullied by these guys. He's actually reading, he's reading a

01:08:53.280 copy of Plato's Republic, uh, while doing that. I don't know if you caught that, uh, but make of

01:08:58.900 that what you will. Uh, but so he's reading Plato getting bullied and, you know, and he doesn't

01:09:05.220 fight back and he kind of resisted. And actually one of his older bullies who, you know, used to be

01:09:11.340 a jerk to him, but actually Clark saved, he rescued when a school bus crashed into a river, he became 0.73

01:09:17.340 Clark's pal and kind of like the, the good earthling, you could say who, who Clark sees in 0.99

01:09:24.620 him, what all earthlings can be. And Jonathan Kent comes up to him. He says, you know, whether

01:09:30.080 you're good or bad, you're going to change the world. And so it's a, it's a kind of twofold

01:09:35.000 thing. It's how would the world react to a superhero, but then which, which Perry White,

01:09:43.160 the, um, the editor of the daily planet says that played by Lawrence Fishburne, you know,

01:09:48.240 how people would lose their mind if they knew that someone like that is out there. He says

01:09:51.780 something to that effect. Jonathan Kent is like, you know, who are you going to be Clark? Are you

01:09:57.020 going to be a good person, a moral person when you reveal yourself and effectively, you know,

01:10:06.240 change everyone's notion of what it means to be human and what it means to be moral. And in some

01:10:12.600 ways, take over the world, whether by force, which Superman could do if he wanted to, um, or as a,

01:10:23.080 a moral exemplar. And, um, so it's Jonathan and Jor-El, both of Clark's, um, father figures or,

01:10:33.140 or literal fathers are, are similar or, are, are, are parallel and actually very, very similar as well

01:10:39.960 in the sense that they want him to embody someone. And they both understand that he has kind of,

01:10:46.520 he's part of two realms, the, the old Testament and the new Testament as it were. So in, in a very,

01:10:52.500 I, I, I thought very moving scene where the young boy, um, Clark learns that he's an alien and he came

01:11:00.120 from somewhere else. Um, you know, you know, he says something like, you know, well then, you know,

01:11:06.240 you're, you're not my dad. And, and, and, and Jonathan says, no, no, I, you are my son and so on.

01:11:11.600 And he, he, he does love him. And, but he says, you also have a father by another name. And I think

01:11:19.020 that the, and, and Jor-El says, you know, you're, you can embody the best of both worlds. So I think

01:11:25.060 both of these father figures are leading Clark into a Jesus-like position of connecting the old

01:11:36.060 and new Testament, connecting the Jewish world with the Gentiles, connecting Krypton with earth. 0.90

01:11:43.560 Yeah, no, I think that's, that's absolutely the correct reading. So when he says that, you know,

01:11:48.620 you, the father, uh, his real father, um, says, you know, you're a bridge, you can be a bridge between

01:11:54.700 two peoples. He's describing a bridge effectively between Jews and Gentiles, which is, which is

01:12:01.600 remarkable when you think about it, because in the film, the metaphor for Jews, and this is a film

01:12:07.740 being made by a Gentile, they're super, they're literally supermen. So Jews are understood as 1.00

01:12:12.460 supermen, but he's building a bridge between these supermen and ostensibly these unsuper Gentiles, 1.00

01:12:20.420 inferior Gentiles effectively. Right. Um, so that itself, you know, and I don't even know if that's

01:12:28.500 something that, um, I don't even know if that's something a guy like, um, um, Snyder would spend

01:12:38.200 much time thinking about, but there is a kind of very insulting, you could argue insulting and maybe

01:12:44.000 insulting is a kind of, uh, yeah, maybe it's the correct word, but there's a kind of insulting

01:12:49.060 positioning to that is that they are the supermen and we were, you know, Jews are basically represent

01:12:57.780 a kind of superior race capable of creating a, you know, a savior, for example. Um, but also capable

01:13:04.960 of just dominating us generally, right. As, as it's depicting the, as it's depicted in the film. Uh,

01:13:11.300 now if, if sort of the evidence of how Western civilization has gone recently, it's, it's, it's actually

01:13:18.140 kind of hard to dispute the, uh, the sort of truthfulness of that metaphor or the sort of the

01:13:23.100 reality of that metaphor. I mean, it is kind of, in some ways there is, there is some kind of painful

01:13:27.780 truth, uh, involved in that, but, uh, he, but what he, but the film in that way becomes kind of, uh,

01:13:35.320 a form of moralization for Jews, you could argue. Right. Um, and you know, and, and, and, and in a way,

01:13:44.300 and I don't think, because I think it's Snyder, of course, understands these things differently than,

01:13:48.200 than Jews do. And I think that his perspective becomes one, basically it's, it's, um, Christ 0.98

01:13:55.100 against the Pharisees, right? Now in the word Pharisee itself, um, means like separated ones.

01:14:02.180 That's effectively what's being described, that they're separate from, um, uh, they're, they're tribal

01:14:08.020 effectively. Right. And the dispute there is one between, uh, tribalism effectively, racism,

01:14:14.420 as it were Jews that don't want to, you know, become part of a faith that includes Gentiles,

01:14:20.700 which is what Christ wants. Christ wants to expand the franchise and mix basically with Gentiles 1.00

01:14:26.640 ultimately. Yeah. Right. So it is, it is basically a conflict between, uh, Magneto, right. And

01:14:34.180 Professor X or a conflict between, and this is the, uh, comparison that Stan Lee made himself,

01:14:40.440 a conflict between Malcolm X, uh, you know, when he was a separatist and, uh, uh, MLK between, um,

01:14:49.880 uh, Martin Luther King. Right. So that's the conflict and what in Christ represents something

01:14:55.020 similar. He represents the Martin Luther King, the one that wants to integrate, who wants to,

01:14:59.680 and mix. Right. And, you know, the irony of course in, is that I think that, and this is a very kind

01:15:07.960 of Christian view is that, you know, in a way the Christian is in a, in a, it doesn't work out this

01:15:15.160 way in, in, in Christianity sort of has this design. It doesn't sort of allow it to happen, 0.77

01:15:20.060 but there is this kind of fantasy and, you know, this is a sort of fantasy that Christians have,

01:15:24.760 like a guy like Jay Dyer, for example, would have is that all the Jews would one day convert. This is 0.67

01:15:30.720 a sort of, this is the, the prophecy would all become, um, Christians, right. And therefore would 0.85

01:15:37.420 be sort of admixed and integrated into the Gentile body. And that would be sort of the answer to the 1.00

01:15:44.160 JQ as it were, right. Or that would be the solution to the JQ is that they would become part of the Gentile 1.00

01:15:50.840 body. And, you know, their numbers are, are, are relatively insignificant. So that if that were

01:15:57.900 to occur, if they were essentially to become all Christians, then they would, they would effectively 0.72

01:16:02.960 disappear as a people. Right. Um, now they, they wouldn't ultimately, because the whole mythos of

01:16:09.680 Christianity depends on the existence of Jews. The whole, I mean, Christianity itself becomes 1.00

01:16:15.200 incoherent without Jews, without Jews, Christianity doesn't even make sense. There, there, there sort 1.00

01:16:21.240 of has to be Jews for Christianity to exist. Right. Um, I mean, Christ himself is a Jew, right? So 0.94

01:16:29.880 something, so for Christ to exist, there has to be Jews, right? Yeah. There has to be something 1.00

01:16:35.680 called Jews and, and, you know, in Christianity, uh, has not, Christianity has not been effective in

01:16:42.600 converting Jews. Right. And I don't think that ultimately that was not the design of Christianity. 0.50

01:16:47.360 Christianity is designed in this sort of Caducean way where Jews can be Jews or they can convert to 0.92

01:16:54.120 Christianity. They can do one or the other. And when things get a little hot for Jews, for example,

01:16:59.180 in Europe, they can become crypto Jews or, you know, they can become Christians that are crypto Jews and can

01:17:04.780 ostensibly convert into Judaism or they can remain outside of Christianity. You know, this is, this is 0.85

01:17:11.360 allowed by Christianity. Christianity is, it's, it's a, it's an act of free will. It's an act of choice

01:17:18.000 to come to Christ, to come to God, to believe in Jesus, to accept Jesus as your savior. That's always

01:17:23.560 been the case. Right. Um, I mean, obviously there have been violent conversions in the past, but

01:17:29.040 mostly the history shows in Europe, uh, with Christians and Jews, the Jews have been

01:17:34.700 allowed to have a kind of existence, uh, among, uh, in serving a kind of function and role in,

01:17:41.500 you know, medieval Europe, for example, among Christians where they're handling the money,

01:17:45.920 they're doing the stuff that's ostensibly undesirable for Christians to be doing. Um, 1.00

01:17:50.540 and so Christianity ultimately doesn't, uh, solve the JQ, the JQ in the way, um, guys like Snyder

01:18:01.440 appear to be imagining. Right. And it doesn't really have that design. Christianity is an act. You 0.97

01:18:06.740 can't, you, you, you know, you know, that's Christianity is not about, for example, the violent

01:18:14.500 conversion of Jews. And I think it doesn't solve it in the way that delusional people like Jay

01:18:21.580 Dyer or E. Michael Jones thinks it's going to solve the Jewish question. And we're just going 0.75

01:18:26.500 to convert them all and they'll all just change through Christ or something. I mean, I think it 0.98

01:18:31.040 doesn't, I'm not sure that's quite what Snyder is suggesting. Um, I, I think there, you know, as I

01:18:37.500 mentioned earlier, there, there is an element to this that is, you know, if you, if you accept that,

01:18:44.380 you know, Superman is a Jew, which is not controversial at this point, and he is destroying 1.00

01:18:50.940 Krypton saying that Krypton had its chance, it's over now. I'm going to genocide all these, you know, 0.93

01:18:58.240 Kryptonian test tube babies in your scout ship. And Zod is, is understandably horrified by this notion, 0.99

01:19:05.680 you know, no. Um, then you could say that it's antisemitic, but I think again, why the film is

01:19:12.700 effective and why it resonates is that he's not really doing that, that he is embodying Jewry in

01:19:21.540 the sense that the codex, the entire Jewish lineage is embedded in his individual cells. And he is now 0.86

01:19:31.800 going to be a God on earth, maybe a God that has, there, there's some atheists to this God,

01:19:38.120 as you'll, as we'll see in, in Batman v Superman, there's kind of some anti Christ, uh, people out

01:19:45.500 there, but you know, we, we watching this film, we kind of eventually know that he's going to be the

01:19:51.740 Superman who is the super, you know, who is Superman, who was a God among us. And the, the way he

01:19:58.260 ultimately becomes God, there are all these scenes in the film of him kind of being born. I mean,

01:20:03.780 the, the opening scene has no dialogue. It's, it's just of him being born of, of, of, you know,

01:20:10.900 there with Jor-El and his, his mother. Um, and then there are these other scenes of him kind of dying

01:20:18.080 and, and coming back again, um, where he'll, you know, he, he goes down to, I guess like Southern

01:20:25.020 India or something where he's fighting the other world engine that's going to create, you know, turn 0.99

01:20:31.040 earth into Krypton. And he's being chased by all these, you know, kind of horrifying tentacles and

01:20:37.060 things like that. And then he's, he's laid low. And, um, then he just gained, he generates all of

01:20:45.220 this power and there, there's a clear just crucifix on the screen, um, when he is doing that of this

01:20:52.480 light beam coming from above and this kind of like explosion or waves going horizontally.

01:20:58.980 And then he fires himself up into this thing and is, is kind of born again. Then it happens again

01:21:06.640 when, um, he, um, attacks Zod's ship and, um, he kind of, there's almost a scene that resembles,

01:21:15.380 um, Christ exiting the cave where there's been this terrible crash and Superman kind of gets up

01:21:22.500 and pushes aside this, you know, rolls aside this, this door and he's back. It's very evocative of

01:21:30.120 him as Christ, um, rising. Uh, and then I, I think the, the ultimate, you know, ending of this,

01:21:38.280 and I, and I'm, I'm relying to a degree in a very, uh, thoughtful video that I watched. Uh,

01:21:43.480 I think it's called a thesis on man of steel. Um, I'll link to it. It's, um, these guys,

01:21:48.720 this guy who does very thoughtful video essays. Um, and he did one on man of steel and it was very

01:21:54.060 good, but the, the ultimate birth of Superman is him killing Zod and then letting out a scream

01:22:00.480 very much like he let out a scream when he was in a baby and he is being born into Superman,

01:22:07.860 but that does entail kind of ending the old Testament, at least the old Testament as it was

01:22:15.060 just severing the old world killing. Um, and then kind of rising as the embodiment of Krypton on earth 0.71

01:22:27.080 as a God, as Superman, finally, not just this kind of wandering Gentile who might randomly save people 0.99

01:22:35.200 as he was doing in adolescence, uh, you know, never holding down a job, but you know, some

01:22:41.280 hotspot crops up and he goes and saves it, but he, he finally becomes Superman by, by again,

01:22:48.520 killing the old Testament, but then ultimately fulfilling it at the same time. And this kind of

01:22:54.400 Hegelian synthesis, you could say, I'll pay boom. I don't mean to be too pretentious here, but

01:22:59.080 that, that, that is what he is accomplishing and, and for, you know, Christianity as the ultimate 0.51

01:23:05.260 fulfillment of Judaism as Nietzsche conceived it as well.

01:23:11.340 Yeah. Uh, anyways, so I think I was being a little inarticulate before, but I'll, so I'll go back to

01:23:18.640 the point, the reason, because obviously there have been forced conversions with the inquisition,

01:23:23.100 uh, for Christianity, but the, you know, but really it kind of doesn't matter because that,

01:23:30.240 you know, Jews operate in Krypsis. So even if a Jew is a Christian, he remains a Jew, right? Or he has, 0.98

01:23:36.500 he has the choice of remaining a Jew. So it doesn't, you know, it doesn't really solve the, 0.66

01:23:41.480 the JQ as it were in the way that Christians fantasize. And the truth is he has, he's given 0.58

01:23:47.200 advantages for remaining a Jew. He's incentivized to remain a Jew. There's incentives to remain a Jew. 0.94

01:23:52.860 You know, there, they are a successful, cohesive people. Um, so why wouldn't he remain a Jew? Even 1.00

01:24:00.340 if he is, even if he is forced through a period of persecution to pretend that he's not a Jew,

01:24:06.120 right? So this is how Christianity ultimately fails. And, and, you know, I think that, um,

01:24:12.900 so I do think that that, I do think in my reading of the film is that this is, this may be kind of

01:24:19.160 part of the fantasy of what Snyder is going for is the idea that Judaism can be sort of folded into

01:24:25.400 Christianity, right? Folded into the body of literally into the body of Christ, right? Um, 0.82

01:24:31.720 which would be, um, um, Superman. I mean, and there are also, you know, in,

01:24:38.560 and the idea that he, that he represents effectively, uh, the, the word made flesh

01:24:45.360 is made very clear in the language of the film as well, in the sense that, uh, the word codex

01:24:50.580 can be a reference to, like you look in the dictionary, it can be a reference to the scripture

01:24:55.400 specifically, right? So, um, so that word codex is chosen in a very kind of, um, you know,

01:25:02.360 at the very least code, which is language or logos. Well, the first definition of it is

01:25:07.840 an ancient manuscript, right? Yeah. And like the second definition is specifically of the scriptures,

01:25:12.600 right? Yeah. Um, so, uh, the other thing, and I wanted to circle back to, as I promised I would,

01:25:18.360 so I was completely wrong about the Zod thing. I was thinking of a different word. I was thinking of

01:25:22.860 Zod. Um, again, the pronunciation might be incorrect, but the, um, Zod though, in, I think that I have

01:25:31.440 found a word that might be the one, the word that was being used, assuming that was a different

01:25:35.660 Jewish writer that created Zod. Um, but it seems likely since Hebrew was used, um, in the, with the

01:25:44.440 earlier characters from, uh, Krypton that he would also be naming him, uh, through Hebrew. So it seems

01:25:49.800 likely that the word is also Hebrew. Um, I, the phonetic spelling is, uh, for this word I'm thinking

01:25:55.940 of is Zod. So it's very close. Um, it's the transliteration is Zod or Zid. Um, but again,

01:26:04.220 you know, it could easily be, you know, there's no vowel, so it could easily be Zod. Um, but this

01:26:11.020 word Zod or Zod means, uh, act presumptuously, act presumptuously, act arrogantly, um, boil

01:26:19.580 to boil up, seethe, or be rebellious, rebelliousness. So that might, you know, uh, become overly

01:26:27.380 proud. So that might actually be the meaning. And it's not a, it's not, it's, it's kind

01:26:32.580 of more of a, it's sort of more characterizes him than it does tell us anything more interesting

01:26:38.120 about him. You know what I mean? Um, oh, but so yeah, what I would say is I think that

01:26:46.560 in the film, I think there is actually some consciousness too. And I don't, I, I doubt

01:26:51.720 that, um, though, who knows? I mean, I, I think, you know, Snyder, I think Snyder probably

01:26:57.780 has some familiarity with Nietzsche just based on the film and how, and it, there does appear

01:27:02.740 to be some cognizance that maybe the original metaphor was, you know, which it certainly

01:27:07.600 was in my mind, a reference to Nietzsche's, uh, Uberment or Superman, because one of, one

01:27:13.080 of the lines he, that idea of a bridge, I mean, that is a kind of idea that appears in

01:27:18.020 Nietzsche, but it's used very differently. It's not, it's not a bridge between Gentiles 0.96

01:27:22.640 and Jews. He, he says, man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman, a rope

01:27:29.700 over an abyss. Right. Right. So Zarathustra says that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's

01:27:36.860 where it appears. Um, yeah. And, uh, you should differentiate between Zarathustra and Nietzsche

01:27:42.520 just to, not to be pedantic, but you know, Zarathustra is a character. It's not quite Nietzsche.

01:27:48.580 Yeah. No, but I think the sentiment is Nietzsche. It's a Nietzsche sentiment. It's a Nietzsche

01:27:53.780 sentiment. Um, so, uh, bridge though. Uh, so I, I don't know if he might've been getting

01:28:01.420 just the word bridge might've had some origin, right? Because that is a famous line. I don't

01:28:06.620 know. Yeah. Well, Zack Snyder himself, I, I've looked into him a little bit. He seemed

01:28:11.020 to come from a very, uh, he came from an artistic background. I think his mother was a photographer.

01:28:17.520 So you can see a lot of that in his, his visual composition. Um, and he, um, he, but it was

01:28:25.720 a Christian background. Um, but he is not really quite a Christian. He's kind of a post-Christian 0.97

01:28:34.000 himself. I've never sensed that he's anti-Christian or a Christian. I think he's a kind of post-Christian, 0.65

01:28:40.900 but he seems to evoke a lot of these things. I mean, in, in his first film, Dawn of the Dead

01:28:47.040 was a remake of a zombie film. Um, they're, they're, they're first off while the apocalypse

01:28:53.500 is going on, you have this preacher come on the television. Who's this kind of like fundamentalist

01:28:59.180 preacher of like, you know, there's no more room in hell. So they're walking among us kind

01:29:03.820 of stuff. And, and that's almost depicted like in a, I don't know, like in a, an affirmative

01:29:09.440 light, uh, you know, he, he, he, he's not opposed to those, uh, types of things. Um, he also seems to

01:29:19.140 have a, an interest in Ayn Rand from what I can tell. So he has this unfinished script for the

01:29:28.840 Fountainhead, which he wants to film. And, um, so I, I, I think if he's, I mean, I, Ayn Rand is

01:29:37.300 obviously a totally different thinker than Nietzsche, but she was kind of Nietzschean in a vague sense

01:29:43.220 and certainly read Nietzsche and understood, maybe misunderstood Nietzsche. Um, but he, he seems

01:29:50.320 to kind of, you know, frequent in those ideas. I don't think he would be, he's a literate person

01:29:56.600 as well. I don't think he would be unaware of that concept of a bridge in Zarathustra.

01:30:01.020 And it's interesting that he, he takes that kind of, you know, Nietzschean sentiment and then,

01:30:08.320 you know, kind of like retroactively superimposes it onto Christianity as like,

01:30:14.940 you know, it's actually a bridge between the old and new Testament. Uh, yeah, I, I, you know,

01:30:20.400 to be honest with you, I think that there is some, I, again, I appreciate him as a filmmaker and I

01:30:24.600 think the film is definitely interesting and worthwhile, but I think that there is a little

01:30:27.880 bit of some muddled thinking going on in the film, but, and we, you know, maybe it's easy for you and

01:30:32.880 I to say this because we are effectively Nietzschean in an outlook. Um, so it, so it's, it's one of these

01:30:39.980 things where maybe the guy doesn't totally get Nietzsche because he kind of like rejected Nietzsche.

01:30:45.740 You know, he went away from Nietzsche, but he got a taste of it. And, uh, it, so it could be one

01:30:50.900 of those things, which we've encountered, which we've encountered in, uh, you know, the old, right

01:30:55.420 before where people are not totally familiar with Nietzsche and they're kind of, they're kind of,

01:31:00.620 uh, you know, speaking in, in these sort of broad strokes about what they think Nietzsche was going

01:31:06.300 for. And I, like one example I would, because, you know, and again, if we assume that Jews, uh, the, 0.55

01:31:12.600 um, uh, you know, Zod's force represents Jews, which I think is, you know, which is a pretty clear, 0.88

01:31:19.320 in my mind metaphor that's going on. It's the Pharisees against Christ. And in one way that

01:31:25.580 it becomes very obvious is that they, initially they ask, you know, they, they say, we'll spare

01:31:30.920 the earth if you sacrifice this guy. So he's put in a very Christ-like position in the sense that

01:31:36.780 he's going to sacrifice himself to save the world, right? He's going to give himself over

01:31:41.680 basically to, um, uh, the Pharisees to be killed extensively, or that's what, that's what he 0.74

01:31:48.920 believes is going to happen. It turns out that their plans for earth are much more sort of

01:31:53.100 sinister and they won't be satisfied with that. Right. Um, but he's put, so it's, it's clear

01:31:58.980 that he's a Christ figure and it's clear that they're, they're cast in the position effectively

01:32:02.440 of Jews. Um, but there were, you know, there, there's one thing. And so I, in a way, because

01:32:09.860 and I think that's my, he, in a way we see the Jews, these Jewish figures, Zod's army in

01:32:16.700 a way appear, they kind of take on these sort of Nietzschean traits or that are not necessarily

01:32:22.920 kind of Jewish traits. Uh, so there, there is, there is a little bit of a kind of muddled 1.00

01:32:27.300 thinking there in a sense that, um, I'll give you one example. And again, I think it's a,

01:32:31.500 it's, it's, it's a misunderstanding. It's a, it's a kind of cartoon of Jews and it's a sort

01:32:38.020 of misunderstanding of a Nietzsche, Nietzschean perspective. And the following is, uh, he has

01:32:42.660 this sort of dialogue with this, you know, there's this kind of badass, uh, chick that's 1.00

01:32:46.940 in Zod's army, uh, the female. Oh yeah. Yeah. And while they're following her on Instagram

01:32:51.540 at one point, I would, yeah. She's pretty cute. Yeah. Yeah. I, I have a major crush on

01:32:57.220 that. She's a German girl, but don't tell anyone. She's like one of the, she's like one 0.77

01:33:02.420 of the, one of the Bond girls for you, I bet. Right. Yeah. You need me, you need them

01:33:09.020 in good film. You need these hot women to be in good films before you really, really 1.00

01:33:13.380 get turned on by them. Right. But in any case, whereas I'm more, uh, my, my standards

01:33:19.720 are quite lower than that. They just need to be a nice piece of, you know, but in any

01:33:26.680 case, this girl, she, in, in this dialogue, um, she says, um, uh, you know, well, you know,

01:33:35.340 you, you're basically, you have become in a kind of evolutionary way. You've become

01:33:40.640 maladaptive because you have morals now. And I don't know if she uses the word 0.86

01:33:45.480 morals. Maybe she does use the word morals. Does she? Yeah. Or she has pity, but what 0.95

01:33:49.640 she's really saying. Yeah. Well, I actually think she uses the word morals, but what she's

01:33:54.960 really talking about is Christian morals, which are, as we've discussed before, related

01:33:59.200 to pity, uh, and are distinct from Roman morals. Right. So, so in other, in other words, it's

01:34:07.020 a kind of straw man that we've seen developed in the old, old right, for example, because

01:34:11.320 Nietzsche was not against morals. He was for Roman morals effectively. Right. Yeah. Right.

01:34:18.200 So it's, it's in master morality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Master morality. So she basically, there's

01:34:24.820 a kind of straw man that's developed in that scene. Uh, but in the other kind of layer or

01:34:30.440 other, um, the other layer of that is that, well, she represents a Jewish character ostensibly.

01:34:36.380 Right. So he's depicting the Jewish characters as having no morals or basically, which is not,

01:34:42.680 of course, not true. They have, but what it means is Jews are, have a kind of in-group morality

01:34:48.580 where they view each other in a kind of, they're sympathetic to one another and they, which is

01:34:54.920 a kind of healthy and evolutionarily adaptive way of being is that they have this sort of

01:35:00.000 in-group morality, um, where they are more sympathetic to their own people and their own

01:35:05.160 group and they're moral to their own group. Right. Um, so it is a kind of mischaracterization

01:35:12.080 like that scene didn't sit that well with me, but it also, it reminded me of, um, the book

01:35:19.880 upon which a blade runner is based, uh, do androids, uh, dream of electric sheep set the

01:35:26.300 full title. Yes. Uh, and in that book though, uh, the androids, uh, who will later be called

01:35:33.820 replicants in the film, um, are depicted as these sort of heartless, moralist people. And

01:35:41.100 they also are indicated, I mean, Philip K. Dick appears to have been indicating them as Jews

01:35:46.440 effectively. Right. So they become a metaphor for Jews. And I'm talking about the book, things

01:35:50.860 change in the film. The film is an adaptation and it takes on different meanings, but in the book,

01:35:56.260 basically the same insinuation is being made about the androids or replicants that is being made about

01:36:03.460 Zod's, you know, group of Zionists or group of Jews or whatever. And he basically, uh, Philip, 0.58

01:36:10.500 so I think it's a kind of, there's a, it's a kind of sort of unfair and unsophisticated view of Jews,

01:36:16.500 right? Because what we're talking about, we're not talking about Jews being immoral or not having

01:36:21.080 morals. We're talking about them having, uh, being particularists, having in-group morality,

01:36:26.840 right? So there's a distinction to be made there, I think. Right. And also, and promoting the morality

01:36:33.040 of pity like no other race before. Yeah. It's sort of inflicting it on out groups, 0.99

01:36:38.460 right? Inflicting pity on out groups. Um, but I guess in, in, I guess it's correct in the sense 1.00

01:36:44.160 that, you know, if we're understanding moral as, as on some level, Christian morality and pity,

01:36:49.320 it is true in the sense that they Jews have no pity for us, right? I mean, that's evident, 1.00

01:36:54.980 but we, we, you know, we've never asked for their pity. We don't want their pity. We're Aryans. We

01:36:59.120 don't give a shit. Right. Um, but so it could be true in that sense. It, but you know, I think 0.99

01:37:04.860 that's kind of a slave view if that's what the guy is arguing or suggesting. Um, so I mean, I think

01:37:12.480 that that, that was worth pointing out, uh, outside of that, I mean, I think we've covered a lot of

01:37:17.800 bases. The, I think we, we've forgotten anything or we've left anything on the floor. Oh, well,

01:37:23.700 one thing I wanted to say is who's, how would you interpret Lois Lane in this? She, she's, I, again,

01:37:31.920 I remember the Richard Donner Superman where she's a, you know, a bit of a catty kind of arrogant 0.86

01:37:42.540 journalist type. She's a lot less so in man of steel, although you, you see a little bit of that,

01:37:49.180 but she's much warmer. I mean, she decides not to run a story. I mean, she kind of on some level

01:37:57.520 violates journalistic ethics of like not printing the truth. She, she decides to not run with the

01:38:03.740 story on Clark Kent and Superman because she understands him and believes in him and loves

01:38:11.440 him. And, uh, you know, that, that's not exactly what the kind of thing you would expect from a,

01:38:17.660 uh, you know, a, a buzzfeed, uh, journo, uh, but, or from the lowest lane of, of the Richard Donner

01:38:24.900 films. And I don't know, I mean, I, in the, in the video essay that I referenced earlier, I, he,

01:38:30.800 he suggested she's a Mary Magdalene type. I mean, obviously Martha, um, Kent is Mary, uh, and Jonathan

01:38:40.580 is Joseph in this metaphor. Uh, but she, do you, do you think that is correct? Maybe even the red hair 0.53

01:38:49.480 has something to do with that? Uh, you know, it could be the case. I mean, it's not, you know,

01:38:55.100 I, I, I, because I've studied, uh, this, you know, parable before, and I've looked at the names,

01:39:00.780 for example, um, that could be the case. Um, what I was going to say though, uh, to your remark,

01:39:05.900 which I think is pretty funny is that, uh, um, I think Richard, if you were able to fly and shoot

01:39:11.740 lasers out of your eyes, uh, the journalists would give you a fair, more of a fair shake.

01:39:19.420 That's true.

01:39:21.840 So I, I think they, I think you would find, you know, some, some female journalists. 0.77

01:39:26.780 Yeah. I think that that would, uh, that would be a quite something that would probably be a good

01:39:35.560 thing, I guess. Right. But, um, so yeah, I mean, so is she, does she represent effectively Gentile 0.74

01:39:44.660 woman? I think that that's a possible reading of it. You know what I mean? I, I didn't, I wasn't,

01:39:49.520 you know, as far as, you know, usually there's a lot of clues and names and I did, I didn't really

01:39:55.520 find a lot of clues in her name though. And this is going to sound kind of, um, you know, out there

01:40:01.080 for people listening, but names are, you know, these comic book characters and characters in,

01:40:07.960 uh, Jewish films and, um, you know, that are written by Jews. Often the names are very meaningful.

01:40:13.160 If you fold our series, you know that. Um, so, uh, it's, and we've already pointed out that Clark Kent

01:40:19.920 is a meaningful name, but then, so the name Lane, I don't know, it actually could have some sort of

01:40:25.280 vaginal significance because I've noticed that trend. I've noticed that trend looking at these

01:40:30.680 names, that there are names that basically have vaginal significance and that could be one of them.

01:40:35.200 You know what I mean? So, you know, she's a kind of breeding stock or breeding resource or whatever.

01:40:41.540 Uh, yeah. In, in the comics, um, Superman and Lois Lane will have a child. Um, I don't,

01:40:48.800 I don't know if that's going to come up at any point, but, um, we'll see.

01:40:57.420 Yeah. But, uh, yeah, you know, I, I, Amy Adams, I think is pretty cute, but she's kind of, 0.80

01:41:02.900 she's definitely like the girl next door in my opinion, whereas she doesn't really have movie 0.92

01:41:08.160 star looks, but if you, if, if you knew the girl in real life, you'd be like, wow, that's a great,

01:41:13.180 that's a good looking girl. And she's got a good attitude basically. Right. 1.00

01:41:16.520 Yes. Yes. Yeah. She, she's like what you would want in a, in a good wife. Yeah. 1.00

01:41:23.300 It's a classic girl next door, I guess. Yeah. But she's not, she doesn't have an allure 1.00

01:41:28.220 or kind of seductive, untouchable quality that maybe you would think of in a movie star.

01:41:35.200 No. And I think that's all the nerds love her too. I've noticed because, uh, on Twitter,

01:41:39.920 I think I followed one of the, uh, just because I thought I, I found it to be kind of a

01:41:43.800 anthropologically interesting. People were so obsessed about the Snyder cut. So I followed

01:41:49.300 a couple of the, a couple of these, uh, zealots that are pushing for, uh, the, the, um, Snyder

01:41:54.540 cut and, uh, they were obsessed with Amy Adams. Right. So these nerds, yeah. Because I think

01:41:59.980 she seems accessible. Right. So the nerds are right to her. Cause it's like that actually

01:42:05.860 could be a chick. Maybe they could date. Who's kind of a nerdy girl in reality. 1.00

01:42:10.200 Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm obsessed with, um, Antia Trawa. I just went back to her. I'm

01:42:19.340 obsessed with the, um, the general, the villainous hench woman says she was, she was pretty

01:42:25.080 cute. You have an evolutionary defect morality. And as we know, evolution always wins. If you

01:42:35.060 oppose us, we'll kill a million. You oppose, you continue to oppose us. We'll kill a million 1.00

01:42:39.360 more. Like you had me at kill a million. 1.00

01:42:46.380 Yeah. But famous last words, love one in the end, Richard. So there, you know,

01:42:51.680 she's a tough one.

01:42:53.040 アユニ don't run out.

01:43:02.520 She's lost.

01:43:03.000 She's lost.

01:43:05.000 Well, she loves you.

01:43:08.820 She wants it.

01:43:11.520 Yeah.

01:43:13.580 Yeah.

01:43:17.400 Mm.

01:43:18.860 Mm.

01:43:19.180 We'll be right back.

01:43:49.180 We'll be right back.

01:44:19.180 We'll be right back.

01:44:49.180 We'll be right back.

01:45:19.180 We'll be right back.

01:45:49.180 We'll be right back.

01:46:19.180 We'll be right back.

RadixJournal - March 30, 2021

Superchrist — Unconscious Cinema： Man of Steel (2013)

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript