My friend Walter, who has a healthy obsession with films and television depicting pretty much anything connected to paganism and the occult, shared this link with me this week. It's a photo of an upcoming episode of Smallville that will feature the goddess Isis.Awww....isn't Isis PRETTY?
Walter called this" jaw-droppingly awful," and maybe he was referring to the story line in which Isis (who is really Lois Lane, temporarily transformed, apparently) will use Clark's body to revive her mummified lover Osiris (I mean, that is kind of offensive to those modern pagans who worship Isis as a more benevolent goddess, not a bloodthirsty goddess of sacrifice) , but I dunno...compared to the depiction of Isis that I remember on television from my Saturday mornings as a kid...this looks like par for the course.
Isis was a companion show to Shazam! and both shows were an important text in the formative years of millions of American kids born, say, between 1960 and 1970.But what's perplexing is the use of an Egyptian goddess as an agent of murder. Moreover, having said evil goddess possess the pure, sweet and good Lois Lane...this is a rather prurient, sophomoric and not very creative storyline, really. Any why Isis? I mean, why not a goddess associated with death or sacrifice or destruction, like Kali? Or even Cerridwen? I remember Isis being portrayed as a very kind, positive, compassionate goddess. Then again, that was the 1970s, era of disco and homegrown pot and roller skating in Central Park. I guess she had to evolve into a dark-hearted bitch to reflect the unfriendly times we live in.
I miss the creative, wonderfully entertaining kids' programming of yesteryear. It does seem as though today's programs are devoid of any real invention or sense of fun. I mean, remember those Sid and Mart Krofft shows? How trippy and wonderful! Sigmund the Sea Monster was my favorite; and it looks like it will be coming to the big screen. How will it fare, outside its 1970s-era context?
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