“And so the Holy One sent them out of Eden to till the ground from which they’d been taken” (Genesis 3.23).
Mars, as we’ve seen this summer, is a difficult and dangerous place. We’ve seen a population decimated by atomic war (Rocketship X-M), a world filled with deadly flora and fauna (The Angry Red Planet), and a cold, lifeless world that is filled with perils (The Martian). It’s sent invading forces to conquer us (The Great Martian War: 1931-1917), to destroy our weapons (Invaders from Mars), and to steal the Spirit of Christmas (Santa Claus Conquers the Martians). But this week is perhaps the most disturbing picture of the Red Planet, a picture of a world that has come to steal our most valuable and precious resource. Mars, you see, needs women.
Mars Needs Women is a real title from a real movie released in August 1968. Somehow, over the past fifty years, no women have been born on Mars (there’s a bit of an explanation, but it doesn’t make much sense). In order to keep from dying out as a species, four Martians have come to Earth to find “ideal” specimens of human women and take them back to Mars.
Tommy Kirk (The Absentminded Professor, Swiss Family Robinson) is the leader of this expedition, apparently because he’s the only one of the team with a personality. Upon landing, the crew separate, acquire human clothes, and begin to stalk women. Yes, that’s as creepy as it sounds, and, in fact, worse. The Martians have the ability to hypnotize humans and get them to do what they want them to do.
Kirk’s character meets Dr. Marjorie Bolen (played by Yvonne Craig who, among other things, played Batgirl/Barbara Gordon in the old Batman TV show) and is smitten with her. Their interaction on screen is the best part of this silly film. They have chemistry, and it’s the only Martian/woman interaction that isn’t uncomfortable.
Shot over two weeks on a twenty-thousand-dollar budget, the movie is a master class in padding out a film. There’s numerous shots of people walking into rooms and down hallways. We are treated to several minutes where the camera’s focused on a speaker through which the Martians are speaking. And then, since that didn’t fill enough to justify a theatrical release, there’s also several minutes of stock footage showing airplanes taking off and flying.
All the above being true, I enjoyed watching this movie. Not because its good but because it’s so silly and so illogical that you find yourself not wanting to look away to see what goofy action might be coming next. It’s also so sexist that it almost comes across as a parody of sexism. Example: when we first see Dr. Bolen exiting a plane, a television reporter mentions that she’s a real pretty lady without those glasses.
If at this point you’re wondering just how a movie this absurd ties with anything in Scripture, don’t worry, I did as well. But then, after the final scene before fading to black, the following words from Konstantin Tsiolkovsky are superimposed over a picture of the cosmos and read “Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.” It has nothing to do with the film that went before it, but it fit in with something I’ve been thinking about.
Looking back across the movies we’ve covered this summer, there’s a recurring theme of innocence. Well, innocence may be understating it. Call it naivety. In multiple films where humans have set course for Mars, we’ve seen our wild-eyed explorers come face to face with a world far stranger and, at times, more hostile than they dreamt possible.
The Marian landscapes of The Angry Red Planet and Red Planet were ones of abundant life that took the lives of many of their crews. Rocketship X-M found a world that had destroyed its civilization, regressing its populace to pre-historic standards and aggression. For all its absurdity, Mission to Mars dared show us that we were not the first nor the most advanced species in the solar system.
Here on Earth, young David MacLean saw his childhood innocence swept away with the arrival of a Martian spacecraft in the field near his home. Europeans encountered an adversary in The Great Martian War: 1913-1917 that was more advanced than they thought possible. And in Capricorn One? Well, perhaps any remaining innocence after the scandal of Watergate disintegrated like the capsule on its return from Mars.
Eden is described as a paradise: a place without need, without shame, and in full communion with the Divine. It’s loss, emphasized by the angel and the burning sword at its gates, was a great sorrow to the first humans. One that has been lamented in writings for several thousand years now. Oh, if only we could return to such a state of such naked innocence.
But this brings me back to Tsiolkovsky’s quote. All of us began (literally or metaphorically) our lives in cradles. We existed in a particular state of innocence about the world and our own selves, and in such a state we were protected. The sides of our cradles were deep, preventing us from falling out of them.
Eventually, we outgrew them. Cradles gave way to cribs, which gave way to railed beds that, eventually, stood boundless in the night. We could climb or roll out onto the floor and the darkness all around our beds. And the more freedom we encountered, the more our innocence gave way to experience.
Yes, without that protection, we faced injury. Restless, we might fall onto the floor. Standing up and walking, we could trip or stub our toes. And without a light, we might lose our way; because, a familiar place can become strange in the dark.
But none of us stayed where we were. Sure, any one of us would love to spend more time in our beds, but we get up and shuffle into a world that discourages innocence, and, particularly, naivety. Tempting as it may be to shelter ourselves from the world, to build up a cradle to keep things out, that’s not the world Jesus walked through. And asked us to follow.
Throughout his years with us living, breathing, sleeping, and eating, Jesus spoke of a Realm that looks so different than this world. Yet for all its beauty, this was no Eden. Jesus’ words painted a portrait of a place that has given prominence to love and abundance rather than hatred and the scarcity of greed. But nowhere in that Realm was a sense or return to innocence. In fact, it seems to me that the entry into this reality required the opposite: a clear-eyed knowledge of the world as it is, and the broken shards that form it.
This might strike some of you as disappointing. The cradle, the crib have a temptation. The idea of our bodies being warm and our minds untroubled by the world can sound very good. But, just as that protection was never meant to surround our bodies forever, neither were we designed to live in some endless state of innocence. We were meant to step out of the cradle, to put on our clothes and make our way out of the garden and enter a wider world.
Yes, there are dangers there. But there are treasures as well. It will change us, but it will also make us more of who we truly are.
Jesus, lead us beyond innocence into knowledge of the world that surrounds us; so, we might be part of making all things new.