LAUSR

Many of us are in shock because of the way 2017 has transpired and the attacks by the current administration on such vital enterprises as health care, immigration (most ironic, since we are a nation of immigrants), and the protections for our fragile environment, to name just three. The selfish interests of a few prevail over the common good. In myth this is the time of the rise of the hero. Moses, for instance, is called forth in the Hebrew biblical tradition to lead his people against the tyranny of Pharaoh, Christ emerges at a time when the Roman emperor has deified himself, and Mohammed emerges as a key figure on the Arabian peninsula to similarly lead his people. In our own time the need for such avatars is often expressed in the fantasy worlds of comic books and film. For instance, the following quote comes from a 1920 film adaptation of a Johnston McCulley story: “Oppression—by its very nature—creates the power that crushed it. A champion arises—a champion of the oppressed—whether it be a Cromwell or someone unrecorded, he will be there. He is born.” The champion in this case is Zorro, who is featured in novels, film, and television throughout most decades of the 20th century. In the 2017 summer season we were also reminded that the champion who is born may very well be a “she”; in this case that she is Wonder Woman. (In a previous article I discussed another such “she,” the character Rey in the new Star Wars trilogy.) Wonder Woman is a figure from the DC Comics (Extended Universe) world, and the movie had a big impact on the summer’s mythos, a pleasant surprise to many. I have wondered if part of the success of the film was the loss in the previous year’s election of Hillary Clinton to a misogynist businessman who fed—and feeds—the darker fantasies and fears of people in regard to those like Clinton, who sought to live beyond his shallow rhetoric. Diana is an Amazon warrior who lives in her own secluded world on the island Themyscira, and then is moved to come forth to help fight what is unjust in our world. The Amazons are training to defeat Ares, the god of war, who has defeated the other gods of the Greek Pantheon. In psychological terms and the metaphor of another modern myth, Diana seeks to bring balance to the world, because one aspect of it is very much out of control. Directed by Patty Jenkins with an excellent cast led by Gal Gadot, the film has stirred deep emotions in many people, and many women in particular, especially at the moment Diana is moved to cross the “no-man’s land” between the