Monday, November 10, 2003
Before there was Harry Potter...
The religious wackos used to pick on The Wizard of Oz.
Here's my favorite paragraph, because it does such a whiz-bang job of tying what the author of this... er... article... believes to be the book's "message" ("harmony of heart and mind") in with today's media:
Wow. MacGyver had occult leanings. Who knew? But then, his power to escape from seemingly impossible predicaments with little more than a wad of chewing gum and a plastic drinking straw was fairly uncanny.
And here all this time I was thinking that The Wizard of Oz was an allegorical argument about U.S. economics and the gold standard. [BTW, I find the poem about "When McKinley gets the chair" rather chilling, considering the McKinley - electric chair connection (apparently the video isn't real, so don't worry; you're not seeing what you think you are).]
The religious wackos used to pick on The Wizard of Oz.
Here's my favorite paragraph, because it does such a whiz-bang job of tying what the author of this... er... article... believes to be the book's "message" ("harmony of heart and mind") in with today's media:
A similar message ("The Power Is Yours") is delivered today by Ted Turner's (1990 Humanist of the Year) "Captain Planet" cartoon program on television, where Gaia (the spirit of "Mother Earth") gives five "planeteers," separately the powers of fire, wind, earth, water, and heart (communicated telepathically). Captain Planet himself is actually a crystal in human form, and the five planeteers use the power of their occult magic rings, (with crystals) working together (in harmony) to save "Mother Earth." An episode of ABC television's MacGyver"...had a similar segment where the four elements were used together to find "the eye of Osiris." Another two-part episode of "MacGyver" involved using the Mummer's rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie" in a search for the Holy Grail.
Wow. MacGyver had occult leanings. Who knew? But then, his power to escape from seemingly impossible predicaments with little more than a wad of chewing gum and a plastic drinking straw was fairly uncanny.
And here all this time I was thinking that The Wizard of Oz was an allegorical argument about U.S. economics and the gold standard. [BTW, I find the poem about "When McKinley gets the chair" rather chilling, considering the McKinley - electric chair connection (apparently the video isn't real, so don't worry; you're not seeing what you think you are).]
permalink posted by The Vintage Reader @ 10:06 PM 
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