They’re excellent teaching devices, I think – especially for teaching the young, but even occasionally for older folks. When I am feeling the stress of everyday politics and international tensions, I turn to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to watch some movie that I have already seen a dozen times. I’m seeking comfort and solace in the familiar and predictable, of course.
Last night, we began rewatching Avengers (2012) that has a beautiful soundtrack composed by Alan Silvestri. The reason that I chose that movie is that there is a scene in which the antagonist, Loki, commands people attending a musical event in Germany to get down on their knees before him. Frightened, they do, of course. Then, an elderly Jewish man, a survivor of the Holocaust, I think, stands and challenges Loki’s claim that humans want to be subjugated. The elder says that he has known men like him. Loki replies that “there are no men like me.” The elder replies that, “There are always men like you.”
We turned the movie off before it ended when we went to bed last night. This evening, I restarted the movie so that I could see the ending that I have seen so many times before. Susan watched it with me. There is a scene in the war in NYC where The Hulk meets Loki face-to-face. Loki says something like, “Enough! I am a god, and you creatures are beneath me …” and The Hulk takes him by the arm and proceeds to wipe the floor with Loki. “Petty god,” says Hulk. Susan mentally pauses the scene.
“It’s Trump,” she says. He thinks himself superior, above the rest of us, invincible, and he really needs us (as The Hulk) to wipe the floor with his sorry ass.” It’s a metaphor, of course.
I love this gal.
I never metaphor I didn’t like.