The City and Running Away in “Dexter”

Last updated on: August 9, 2012 at 11:09 pm by Matthew Tan

The City and Running Away in “Dexter” 2012-08-09T23:09:00+10:00 Matthew Tan

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A previous post suggested that Christian theology requires a more thorough exploration on the theme of running away, firstly because it remains a prominent trope within various forms of popular culture, and also because theology itself contains the template of running away properly, against which the Church can both sympathise with and critique secular notions of escape. What has not yet been explored is how running away has seeped into the texture of quotidian living in the City of Man in a postmodern context.

A strange yet potent source of raw material for such a reflection can be obtained from a scene in the TV series Dexter. The series’ main protagonist, Dexter Morgan, has a conversation with Miguel Prado, the city’s Senior Assistant District Attorney. The conversation begins with discussing the death of Miguel’s brother, but turns to the subject of the location of his soul post-mortem. Whilst ultra-scientific Dexter resists providing an answer, Miguel speculates that the soul, being immortal, must exist and continue on in some other person. This dialogue, when set against the backdrop of the city of Miami, provides an oddly fecund point of reflection about a person’s desire in urban postmodernity, which in turn ties in with the previous post’s argument for a theology of running away.

According to Graham Ward, the city in postmodernity has morphed to become more adaptable and able to accommodate financial, economic and cultural fluidity. Once the epitome of Modern rationality and the drive to create a sense of constancy, the city is now, with its bright lights, night clubs, adult stores, cinemas and shopping malls, oozing a culture whereby outlets abound for persons to act on their desire to run away. However, it seems that such outlets for escape, whilst becoming more diffuse, are merely allowing an escape that is more localised and microscopic, so much so that the endpoint of one’s escape goes no further than the shopping bag, movie image, dance partner, or sexual encounter.

Why such cultural themes are relevant for the theologian can be gleaned from the thought of the Jesuit social theorist, Michel de Certeau. In his Practice of Everyday Life, de Certeau wrote that the postmodern person is one that is always geared towards “being other and moving towards the other”. One can sense de Certeau’s Catholicism and Trinitarian sensibilities, for in the Trinitarian economy Father, Son and Spirit are engaged in an economy of other-centred movement, as one gives of oneself to another in an act of love. In a way, this Trinitarian image forms the template of running away that one constantly finds first in the Scriptures and in the writings of Christian mystics like John of the Cross. Running away is always seen as an act of love which decentres the self-sufficient individual and relocates them in another person. In Christian theology, particularly in the thought of Augustine, the impulse to run away finds its ultimate endpoint in the eschatological Christ, at the closing of the age.

As earlier mentioned in that previous post, we see parallels of this escapatory theme running through some elements of pop culture, whether in songs like Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run or in TV shows like Dexter. However, whilst postmodernity seems to acknowledge that the self has to find an outlet that located in another, the postmodern city appears to aim those desires at crassly material, rather than eschatological endpoints, locking desire in an enclosed material cage (oddly encapsulated in the beginning of this music video by the synth-pop group Arkarna). Postmodern culture seems to want to avoid any recognition that the restlessness that drives one to consume stems from a valid, God-given impulse that wants to rest in something that transcends the material, nothing less than God himself. So long as these desires for a transcendent endpoint remain unfulfilled – or more accurately, misdirected – the impulse to run away becomes similarly frustrated. When this happens, the story of running away in pop culture ends in one of several ways: indeterminate running, despair, or (as in the case of Dexter) lashing out in seemingly cathartic acts of violence.

It is only the transcendent and eschatological horizon, embodied in Christ the Last Thing, that can properly end the story of elopement that one vainly longs to see consummated in products of pop culture.

http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post

pop culture

Previous Post

August 2, 2012

The Christian, Cities & Difference

Next Post

August 16, 2012 The Ecclesiology of Getting the Flu

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category architecture art Augustine Belloc Benedict XVI bible blogs books bourgeois Christianity Campion College Chesterton Christianisation Church and Culture Church Fathers citizen conference conservative consumer culture cybernetics Desert Fathers discipleship distributism drinking ecclesiology economics education environment Evagrius of Pontus formation Foucault George Weigel Girard Graham Ward http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post interfaith Jacques Ellul John Chrysostom Julia Kristeva Latin liturgy mall marriage monasticism Music Narrative news philosophy polis politics pop culture postmodern city postsecular prayer prostestant quote Quotes Radical Orthodoxy resources Rome Rule of St. Benedict saint Saints secular sociology theological anthropology theology transcendance Uncategorized videos William Cavanaugh

Select a Month December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 October 2009 February 2008 December 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was Samson's mother?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Manoah's wife Delilah Hannah Ruth