Chapter 6: I want to believe in the Snyder Cut. I confess I tragically can’t.

I want to believe in the Snyder Cut, I really do.

But, considering all that Director Zack Snyder has done in the past, I have mixed feelings about his newest endeavour. I have enjoyed some of his films. I think because they look pretty. They have flashy moments.

You know; Zack Snyder has good ideas. I can appreciate what he’s trying to achieve. Except, that sometimes his pretentiousness gets in the way of his intentions. Sometimes there are moments; fragments within his movies, where he gets drunk with power. He falls prey to the workings of his ideas.

Instead of giving them some thought, sometimes he just lets them run without a purpose. Sometimes things just happen and I know that he is trying to portray deep and insightful refractions of life and existence. I know he exaggerates but these moments that were inspired by a burst of brilliance fall flat half flying and half floating. 

I don’t know how to believe in the Snyder cut

I want to believe in Zack Snyder’s vision and in the Snyder cut. I was still in high school when I saw Man of Steel in theatres. Now, I have just finished my undergraduate degree in English Literature. I see things differently know. When it comes to stories, I see what is there; but, I also see what is not there. I have learned to read between the lines and throughout them. A gesture or a statement is not without meaning. All writing is political. All stories have intention and meaning.

I perform critical readings without wanting to. It doesn’t matter if I’m reading a book or watching a movie. I see and hear and feel what is there; but, most importantly I feel and hear and see what is not there. I can appreciate what the artist is doing and sometimes I get a glimpse of what they were doing. Sometimes I don’t. And others I can only guess.

Some works are easy to read. Others are not so straightforward with their message. However, as Flannery O’Connor once said, and I’m paraphrasing here: “Some people have the notion that you can read a story and jump into the meaning.” But, people forget. We as audiences of the twenty first century forget that you cannot extrapolate the meaning out of a couple of scenes and dialogue and descriptions and narrations. “The story is the meaning. The author writes the story or the movie or the play because it is the only way to say what they want to say.”

I really want to believe in the Snyder cut. Except, that everything is telling me that I shouldn’t believe in the Snyder cut

I want to believe in Zack Snyder’s vision; His quirkinesses and sometimes depressive view on superheroes. Not because I like it, but, because I find it interesting. It is said that when we write of aliens, or in this case Superheroes, and we write about the things they do, we are thinking about why they do it. However, we are also writing and asking to ourselves, why don’t we; as humanity, do or don’t do things like them.

If superheroes are modern myths then we are not writings about fictitious beings. We are writing about ourselves. We are the stories that we tell ourselves. So, what happens when we start telling to ourselves that our so called heroes are not heroes at all. That they kill? That the only difference between them and the so called bad guys are semantics?

I want to believe in the Snyder cut; but, my heart tells me otherwise.

What happens when we glorify violence and tell to ourselves that good guys kill? That the ends justify the means? That Superman kills, the smiling all time superhero, snaps necks and invades foreign countries just because he couldn’t be bothered to find an alternative?

What happens when we glorify a billionaire beating up poor people who recur to crime in order to survive and then has no problem in mowing them down when machine guns? How could I believe in the Snyder cut?

It makes me think that Zack Snyder is not subverting tropes. But, instead he reaffirms violent and dangerous world views through what can be considered “innocent” characters of fiction. He applies “politique” as François Truffaut states; to Superman and other heroes, in order to inject their stories with themes that, according to the director matter. I cannot believe in the Snyder cut!

In Zack Snyder’s vision he turns happiness into violence and calls them equivalents. Goodness is a blurry concept. Superman might kill you. Batman might shoot you or sentence you to death by shanking. And that’s alright. “You are living in a fucking dream world!” Well, actually. No. I am living in a world where the police and the military justify atrocities in the same way that Batman and Superman justify their so called fictional violence. I live in a world where I have to believe in the Snyder cut.

I live in a world where the army can kill me or where the police can just trample over my human rights in the name of what is good just because our heroes of modern myth allow it.

Remember, we are the stories that we tell to ourselves.

me.

Our colourful heroes kill without repercussions. Batman shoots and kills anyone whom he considers a criminal. Superman obliterates anyone who threatens his interests. All in the name of what is good. Because might makes right. 

Recommended readings: