This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
The new Amazon Prime show, Good Omens, is in the news as a new low for the cancel culture but should be in the news for its contemporary positive message to humankind.
A group of religious folks are against its brilliant and humorous portrayal of good and evil, or God and Satanism. The funny thing about that group is that they are so out of touch that they couldn't properly name the media service provider right, thinking it was on Netflix.
But don’t let that overshadow its storytelling goodness, or more accurately, the nice and accurate. The nice and accurate are four characters that pair up to stop the apocalypse from occurring in Lower Tadfield England. Good Omens uses strength of character and friendship in our own modern world to highlight an important societal trend of separating into teams and the way we interact with the other team. I think we can all learn from this fabulous story and alter our approach when it comes to interacting with one other.
The angel Aziraphale and the demon Crawley started a 6,000-year-old friendship in the Garden of Eden. You can’t get more opposite than good and evil, angel and demon, or witchfinder’s apprentice Newton Pulsifer (descendant of a witch hunter) and occultist (witch) Anathema Device. From different parts of the world, the pair Aziraphale and Crawley, and the pair Device and Pulsifer, fight the four horseman (bikers) of the apocalypse.
These characters show we don't have to be on separate teams, that we should work together despite our differences. Your differences don't have to always be at the surface ready to unleash in a trigger-happy fashion with a machine gun of angry words. We can all have our differences and coexist and work together peacefully when we need to.
We as humans are young like toddlers, compared to 6000 year-old beings, barking our opinion-rage all over the place. We should learn as humans that we are always going to be different, with varying views and opinions, so why not just work together the best we can to survive on this deserted island of a planet instead of yelling at each other until our voices are hoarse. Why do we even have to be on teams? Can’t we just be and let it be?
“I've actually been giving that a lot of thought, the whole choosing sides thing. What I think is that there obviously has to be two sides. That's the whole point, so people can make choices, that's what being human means, choices. That's for them. Our job as angels should be to keep all this working so they can make choices.”
That quote is from Aziraphale as he was talking to a group of angel superiors who approached him about consorting with the other side. He’s an angel speaking about humans, but these words can apply to humans who want to try to be better humans. We don’t have to choose sides. We can make choices, but we don’t have to be on sides always butting heads with other teams.
