Queer Gnosis

By Troy Williams

I just marathon watched the first season of Heroes – and thanks to a friend’s DVR caught myself up on Season 2.  The show is a gay boy’s
dream.  Millo Ventimiglia’s super-power is obviously to be the most beautiful human male
ever. The show echoes the hopes of post-modern futurists who believe that a
new evolution in humanity will
save our collective asses as we march toward our cataclysmic end as a species. There must be something in the airwaves.  The Sci-Fi Channel’s
re-imagined Battlestar
Galactica also has a dark dystopian edge.  This series depicts humankind’s struggle to survive the complete collapse of society.  Both series are exploring if humanity can rise above bleak conditions and save itself from destruction.  And inevitably, the enemy they face is themselves.   

Artists, filmmakers and comic book writers are tapping into our current zeitgeist and reflecting the collective anxiety that many of us feel about the tenuous fate of humankind.  And depending on your
political bent, villains are perched everywhere waiting to destroy.  For the Left it’s the fascistic tendencies of the Bush/Cheney regime.  To the Right it’s the Islamofascists plotting our doom (the best comic book villains always have fascist tendencies).  It doesn’t take much to feel grim about our world situation.  Anyone slightly paying attention has need for alarm.  The world’s oil production is set to peak by 2010.  Many reputable scientists and social thinkers argue that we are soon to face the inevitable breakdown of our way of life.  The American lifestyle is simply not sustainable and the stress points are starting to show.  First will come an economic collapse due to energy scarcity, followed next by the breakdown of our global food production. Add to that planetary climate chaos and mass species extinction, and well, you get the picture.  Society as we know it is facing a crisis point and what will emerge after it all goes down is anyone’s guess.

So yeah, a super-hero to save humanity right now would be nice.  And if he looks like Peter Petrelli, then all the better.  Heroes holds to the idea that ordinary people can do extraordinary feats.  And if enough people gather together they can avert the annihilation of society.  “Save the cheerleader, save the world”. 

Futurist and inventor, Buckminster Fuller was obsessed with the question: "Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?" I’m not sure he ever answered that question to his satisfaction, but it does seem to be the thematic core of Heroes and Galactica.  In that sense, TV, movies and comics have become our modern mythologies.  They tap into our deepest fears and reveal our greatest hopes.  They wrestle with our existential dilemmas in a palatable, albeit fictionalized form. 

But there is a danger in how we engage our myths. There are often malevolent Archons that distort truth with deception.  Conservative religions and political strategists have fostered an unhealthy and excessive dependency on external saviors and heroes.  They perpetuate the delusion that we should look outside ourselves for power.  Many frightened Americans look to President Bush to protect us from terrorists. Some of us look to religions to spare us from the wrath of vengeful gods. Many of us look to lovers to save us from loneliness. We are always struggling with self-doubt and self-loathing.  We are vulnerable creatures perpetually in need of redemption.  We too often look to others to rescue us from real or imagined monsters. We are still (to invoke the great Bonnie Tyler) "holding out for a hero till the end of the night". But the real question is, who will save us from the monsters of our own creation?

Because here is the brutal truth:  Jesus aint coming back.  President Hilary Clinton will perpetuate war.  Climate change is going to wreak havoc on the planet.  Life in the very near future is going to be hell. There is no hero “out there”.  We are all we’ve got. And the sooner we accept this reality the sooner we can seriously get onto solving our problems.

Now despite all the above, my default state is optimism.  I love the words of Molly Ivins: “One reason despair is not an option is because things can always get worse, and then what’ll we do?”  Exactly.  I’m a queer potentialist.  I’ve always been able to see the power and possibility of our people.  And I believe that as the world takes a turn, we can step up and make a difference.  It is possible that things might actually get better after they get worse. 

Joseph Campbell made the connection between outer myth and inner power.  In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he explains, “It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse.  Every one of us shares the supreme ordeal, and carries the cross of the redeemer.”

Our elected and religious leaders don’t have the answers.  We do.  We have to ask ourselves how will we
survive as a people?  How will we each contribute positively to a better world?   That is our mission. And for starters let’s pull Jesus off of his cross. It’s time we started suffering for our own sins.   And by that I mean finally taking responsibility for the mess that we ourselves have caused. Satan isn’t fucking up the planet.  We are.  We must be leaders and social innovators. We must be ready to help our society transition into something new and better. Our global problems seem overwhelming.  It’s a lot more inviting to shut down, get stoned and distract our minds with shopping and America’s Next Top Model marathons on MTV. There’s a time and place for all that.  But there is also a time for waking up and taking action.  Now.  We can make our world a safer, better place.  This is our destiny – to be productive contributors to humankind.  Let’s save ourselves first and maybe the world will follow.