Reading List: It Sure Can Happen Here

When I was growing up, one of my favourite miniseries ever was V (the original). I think I liked the sequel even better, because in that one, we finally win! Humans beating the evil aliens was pretty much the main message I got out of it. I was too young to catch any subtext to the story, namely its Nazism/Holocaust allegory. It seemed blindingly obvious when I was older. I mean hey, c'mon:

But to little kid version of me, once I saw lizard faces, motherships and cool blasters, what more was there to see? It was only when I rewatched the shows in my adolescence that I picked up on the message hiding (just barely) under the surface. Suddenly, adolescent me thought this was the most profound thing ever put on television. At that age, I still wasn't exactly deep.

As I grew older, not only did V's central allegory seem way too on the nose, it also seemed to lack relevance. Ethnic cleansing and genocide were certainly out there in the public consciousness, but here in the Western World, the idea that people could so easily allow an insidious movement to subvert the basic human decency of people well aware of what happened in World War II seemed painfully quaint. Overdone.

And yet here we are. I'm not even going to bother listing all the things going on in the world, because if you don't even know, this blog probably isn't for you. Writing that might have seemed dated a few decades ago is now totally of the moment.

Respect

Fusion had a piece today about Stan Lee promoting a new lapel pin designed to encourage "cross-cultural respect." Its design is a simple image of two hands shaking, one black, one white, with the word "Respect" emblazoned across the top.

With the profusion of so many lapel pins promoting every message imaginable, this is one of the more admirable. And it reminded me of something the legendary comics creator wrote in his famous "Soapbox" editorial back in 1970. Here's a link to a scan via Boing Boing. In it, he quite simply states that "Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today." Trolling fanboys should take note. He's been interested in spreading this message to people through many different media for years and years. And while his message today might seem too Pollyanna-ish for those who feel social justice requires a more aggressive stance, it's a message I can respect.

And I'll try to forget about Stripperella.