Just Looking ...

Watching an episode of the “X-Files” recently, I became interested when it involved the Golem, a Jewish mythological creature. In the episode, some anti-Semitic teenagers killed a Jewish man named Isaac, who was then apparently summoned back to life as a Golem by his widow to seek revenge and kill the teenagers. It turns out, as a user pointed out on TV.com, that the show did not accurately portray the Golem outside of the fact that a Golem does indeed traditionally seek revenge. The episode review notes the error in having Isaac, a deceased human, as a Golem since, in fact, a Golem is traditionally composed of inanimate material such as mud or clay. Other miscues the review identifies are how the Golem was defeated by erasing the Hebrew word for truth from its hand instead of its forehead, and that the Golem was summoned by the widow instead of a Rabbi. I found this all very interesting.

The “X-Files” usually features stories of the extraterrestrial or aliens. Countless other movies and media do this as well. Perhaps aliens can be a candidate for “the prime fantasy of our time”. There seems to a distinct culture and way of talking among “believers” and “abductees” Prof. Kalmar had suggested time travel as “the prime fantasy of our time”. Interestingly, alien abduction is often said to involve time loss. Just something to consider.

Wikipedia Entry on the Golem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem

TV.com review of the "X-Files" episode "Kaddish":
http://www.tv.com/the-x-files/kaddish/episode/578/summary.html?tag=ep_guide;ep_title;14

Labels: extraterrestrial, fantasy, golem