Obligatory disclaimer… no, wait. Secondly, the ‘Harley
Quinn’ cartoon TV show’s great, no doubt about it. Firstly – real life sucks.
No matter what you try, no matter what you try to figure something out, real
life will derail you, and then-
Pause. Let us talk about the Biblical parable of the
prodigal son. No, we will not talk about the TV series of the same name,
because I found it to be forgettable and meh; we are talking about the actual
article. In it, the titular character lives his loving but traditional family,
screws his life completely, returns home with tail between his legs,
(metaphorically speaking), and is celebrated with a fattened calf, because, as
both the narrator, (the Savior?), and the father of the family tell the
audience and the other son, who dutifully worked at the family business all the
time while his bro wasted his chance, Heavens are happier at one repented
sinner than over many more people who neither sinned nor repented to begin
with.
…You know, who sinned and then repented? Judas. Yes, that
guy. Does it mean that he also ended up in Heaven and not, you know, in Hell,
according to Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’? Just asking, but the truth is that in the
‘Prodigal Son’ parable everyone is an asshole.
Let us elaborate. The titular character is an asshole
because he had wasted all of his potential, literally and otherwise, and ended
up being good for nothing but to herd pigs. When Jacob the patriarch, (son of
Isaac, father of Joseph), ended up being a shepherd, he ended up making a
fortune and married to Leah and Rebecca, (and not to mention a couple of
concubines on top of them). The prodigal son? He did jack squat, other than
bitch and moan about his fate & come crawling back to his family, as the
parable intended to. Man, the Savior sometimes could be a jerk storyteller!
However, the rest of the family is not much different from
the titular character…only they are. While he was doing nothing, they were
doing the same thing repeatedly – running the family farm, (because of the
fattened calf reference, because otherwise we got nothing to go on here). Yes, that
is often hard, repetitive and boring, which is why the prodigal son ran away.
And then he just partied hard and this is it, possibly because that is the only
thing he had ever done? With his father if not outright enabling him, then
certainly babying him, because he is the baby of the family, maybe? Pause.
Yes, something similar happened to Joseph back in the Old
Testament, only our man Joseph did become the viceroy of Egypt or something
similar, and revealed himself to be a bad ass. The titular character is an uninitiative
waste of space and his father is okay with it, he is that forgiving. At least
this time he gave his other some cock and bull excuse, dimly aware that this
time he might have gone over the line.
…This isn’t the point of the parable? See above, cough Judas
cough. St. Augustine supposedly once said that he believes in Christ and
Christianity, because it is absurd, (or that
absurd?). Fair enough, but proportionally, St. Augustine was closer to the time
when the Gospels actually got written, (following the Word of God) than to our
time in this time and space continuum, and it tells.
…So what does that have to do with me? Nothing, save that I
am doing my best to find a regular job, (I may be no Old Testament Joseph, but
still), and am having zero luck. My family, on the other hand, seems to be
shoehorning me into the position of the parable’s older son, who works almost
for nothing save for room and board. Did I tell you that I hate my life?
Because I do. Arthur Fleck (cough Phoenix cough) was a genius if he was able to
rework his life from a tragedy into a comedy, because I certainly cannot.
…Yes, I know that Joker in all of his incarnations is anti-hero
at best and a villain at worse, as he was, or rather is, in the ‘Harley Quinn’
cartoon, which is doing all the same things that the ‘fantabulous emancipation’
film has done, but at a slower pace. Then again, it is a cartoon series, not a
single-shot film, so it can afford to be prolonged.
One aspect that is affected by this is the Harley-Ivy
relationship: the S1 finale ended with Ivy being dead, and/or resurrected, I am
not sure. I.e., whatever relationship Harley and Ivy will have, this will be
taken slowly, I suspect. Then again, DC is not Marvel, it doesn’t have Disney
backing it up, (yet), so it’s not surprising that Ivy and Harley may be going
the ‘Elsa met Honeymaren’ routine. Hell, Joker is outright absent in the ‘Superman:
Red Son’ movie, and it is still a good one. (It just came out this February).
…Yes, SRS is focusing more on the Superman’s corner of DC’s
Elseworlds than Batman’s, (cough spoilers cough), but still, the laughing
prince of crime tends to pop up in unexpected places, but we digress. (SRS is
not a bad animated movie either, incidentally). The point is that my life
lately sucks more than it usually does, more family sucks more than it usually
does, and I see no way out, period. I do not intend to be either the good or
the prodigal son, while we are on the subject. For better or for worse, I am
just trying to be myself, regardless as to what this entails, down to the end - now if only all my ads on LinkedIn, and Glassdoor, and Indeed, and Monster, and so on would come to a fruition. (Sad
face emoji).
…This is it for now, see you all soon.
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