The New (52) Roman Missal

It struck me the other day that DC Comics has a lot in common with the Vatican: one organization tells us stories about a superhuman paragon of truth and justice sent to save the world, and the other publishes comics about Superman.

See what I did there?

(Yeah, it's gonna be another sacrilegious post. Buckle up, dear readers.)

The similarities don't end there, of course, or this would be a pretty short post. As my nerdier readers already know, DC Comics recently introduced their New 52 initiative – a company-wide reboot of all their ongoing titles that's designed to bring in new readers (whether or not it's been successful depends on whom you ask). Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has also shaken things up with the recent debut of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal – a new English translation of the Mass that's designed to be closer to the original Latin text (whether or not it's been successful depends on whom you ask). Both events have generated a lot of debate, because if there are two groups of people who despise change, it's nerds and Catholics (and possibly also Republicans).

So! Here's my run-down of the important points of the New 52 and the new Roman Missal. Turns out there's a lot of overlap between the two.

Point 1: Don't panic; it's still business as usual.

Nothing much has changed, really. Sure, there are some surface changes – the new costumes, updated backstories, that “and with your spirit” crap – but you're still getting the same basic stories of kicking ass and breaking bread. Batman is still Bruce Wayne; Jesus is still the only begotten Son of God. The important things never change. As a very wise website once told me, “Status Quo is God” – which brings me to the next point:

Point 2: Old is the new New!

The New 52 and the new mass translation aren't actually steps toward the future so much as steps in a larger plan to recapture past glory – DC Comics and Pope Benedict are both big fans of something I like to call “retrogressive progress” (i.e. “nostalgia masquerading as the wave of the future”). In DC's case, we've already seen that idea in practice with their legacy superheroes: newer incarnations of Batman, the Flash, the Atom, and many others have been killed off / pushed aside so that their Golden- / Silver-Age versions can make triumphant returns from retirement / the grave / both. The New 52 is an extension of that idea: instead of letting continuity move forward naturally, DC has re-started their entire universe – ostensibly to reach out to new fans, but also in large part so they can go back to the way things used to be. Remember when Barbara Gordon was a badass wheelchair-bound tech support genius who led DC's foremost all-female superhero team? Me neither! Now she's Batgirl again, because Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown aren't the original article so who gives a shit.

Similarly, the New Roman Missal is meant to “fix” the English translation of the mass, which has been working perfectly well for longer than I've been alive. The modifications are meant to bring the text back to a more literal translation of the Latin, which I really don't have much of a problem with because I know what “consubstantial” means – even if my word processor apparently doesn't. A few minor quibbles with the text aside (I don't care if “chalice” is the literal translation of “calix”; “cup” works better because Jesus probably didn't have an actual chalice with him at the Last Supper), I don't think that the new mass is a particularly big deal. You have to memorize new responses? Deal with it. I memorize stuff for a living, and most of it isn't even in English. My only real problem with the new translation is that it's a mole-hill which is swiftly being made into a mountain, while other important issues are being largely ignored.

What issues, you ask?

Point 3: Women.

Um... yeah.

Another thing that DC and the Vatican have in common is that they have no idea how to deal with women, and all the "new directions" in the world haven't done anything to change that. To be fair, though, who does know how to deal with women? Their ovaries and hormones and shit are way out of hand. First we let them vote, and then they want to be treated as equals in the eyes of God and portrayed in comics as something other than busty, hip-cocking sluts who buy their crime-fighting outfits at Strippers' Discount Warehouse.

Bitches, man. Amirite?

Sarcasm aside, I'm just going to come out and say it: we should put our common humanity before our gender. While men and women have different bodies and (frequently) differing behavioral patterns, we all have feelings and desires and talents that often have nothing to do with what set of genitals we were born with. There's no reason in the world why writers and artists can't treat fictional women as more than a pair of improbably large breasts, and there's also no reason why women should be unfit to be altar servers or even Catholic priests (aside from “BECAUSE WE SAID SO”). News flash: just because certain things “have always been that way” doesn't mean they have to stay that way.

Point 4: People have strong feelings on the subject.

Considering my usual reader demographic, there's probably about a sixty percent chance that something I said in this post offended you. If that's the case, please direct your angry replies here.

Peace be with you... and with your spirit.

Operagasm: Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

One of the upsides of choosing to write my Music History term paper on a notorious Soviet opera is that it gives me loads of material for one of these posts. Dmitri Shostakovich's second opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, is just straight-up insane – and it's got enough explicit sex and violence to make Carmen look like The Merry Wives of Windsor. Seriously, Lady Macbeth is like an episode of Dexter in operatic form. The only real difference (aside from the gender of the protagonist, the whole “being set in pre-revolutionary Russia” thing, and just about everything else) is that Katerina Izmailova, the titular murderess, doesn't kill other serial killers – just her father-in-law, her husband, and anyone else who tries to come between her and her hunky new boyfriend that raped her but now she's crazy in love with him and oh my god Shostakovich what the fuck is wrong with you.

So, yeah. Maybe not so much with the whole Dexter comparison. I mean, Dexter Morgan might be an unrepentant serial murderer, but at least he only kills people who deserve it (mostly). But Katerina, on the other hand... there's no way we could be expected to sympathize with her, right?

Wait. We are supposed to sympathize with her? ...huh.

Waaait. She's the only character in the opera who's portrayed in a remotely sympathetic light? ...huh.

Waaaaaaaaaiiiiiiit. Shostakovich dedicated this opera (about a woman who cheats on and then straight-up murders her husband) to his new wife?

Um. Wow. Talk about getting a one-way train ticket to Saint Awkwardsburg (actually, since we're talking about the Soviet Union, it'd probably be called Uncomfortablegrad instead).

In any case, Shostakovich based his opera on Nikolai Leskov's 1865 horror story of the same name – and to his credit, the operatic incarnation of Katerina is more sympathetic than the original, but only because she doesn't murder quite as many people as she does in Leskov's story. Seriously, her main heroic virtue can pretty much be summed up as “She's still a murderous sex addict, but she could have been even worse!”

How much worse, you ask?

In Leskov's story, Katerina's third victim was Fedya, her late husband's adorable young nephew – and legal heir to the Izmailov family's property – whom she smothered with a pillow against her ample bosom. (And before anyone asks: no, I'm not making that up.) Shostakovich, however, opted to leave Fedya out of the opera entirely, because “the killing of a child, however it might be explained, always creates a negative impression.”

Holy shit, really? I guess I should probably get another hobby.

Really, though, the only thing I get out of that statement is that Shostakovich had actually seriously considered having his sympathetic heroine murder a little boy, and only decided to leave it out because he couldn't think of an adequate justification. For those of you unfamiliar with modern social mores, here's a handy-dandy primer on the subject:

TIMES WHEN IT'S OKAY TO MURDER CHILDREN

1) When the child is the Antichrist.

2) When the child is a zombie.

3) When the child just WON'T STOP CRYING

4) When the child is involved in any of the High School Musical movies.

Actually, that last one really only makes me want to kill myself – but I think I've made my point. As previously mentioned, however, Shostakovich left the sexualized child-murderin' out of the opera, meaning that Katerina only has three murders on her conscience instead of four. (I'm starting to like her more already!) And to further ameliorate the moral questionability of his heroine, Shostakovich also decided to make everyone else in the opera a complete asshole.

Of course, audiences ate that shit up. Lady Macbeth had everything an opera-goer could want: great music, sex, violence, and... yeah, that's pretty much all anyone could ask for. Lady Macbeth was a worldwide sensation for the better part of two years. There was just one problem:

Soviet Critic: I love the idea for your new opera, man. I especially like how the only remotely likeable character in your opera is a serial killer.

Shostakovich: Yeah, it's like... social commentary or something. Here, have some more vodka.

Soviet Critic: Don't mind if I do.

Shostakovich: She also has a bunch of sex.

Soviet Critic: Nice.

Shostakovich: And she enjoys it.

Soviet Critic: NOW WAIT JUST A DAMN MINUTE

Um... yeeeeah.

Most of the negative reactions to Lady Macbeth had a less to do with the violence than with the opera's sexual content – apparently, triple homicide is no big deal as long as no one has to listen to any musical depictions of a male orgasm. Shostakovich's opera offended a fair number of people at home and abroad, but it remained an overwhelming popular success until January of 1936, when Josef Stalin attended a performance of Lady Macbeth in Moscow.

He hated it.

Two days later, an article appeared in Pravda, the official state newspaper, attacking Lady Macbeth for being ugly and cacophonous and also morally reprehensible because sex. The opera was immediately blacklisted and was not performed again in the Soviet Union until 1963, ten years after Stalin's death.

Now, the very fact that Stalin suppressed this opera is enough to make most Western audiences automatically like it – mostly as a kind of cultural “fuck you” to the USSR. On the other hand, one could also think of it this way:

Lady Macbeth is so thoroughly depraved and disturbing that it managed to offend one of the worst mass-murdering assholes of the twentieth century.

Really puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

........

Damned if it's not some awesome music, though.