Pictured: Prague reproduction of the Golem. The most famous golem narrative involves a 16th-century rabbi of Prague.
Golem
A golem is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. According to Moment magazine, "the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism. It can be a victim or villain, man or woman—or sometimes both. Over the centuries, it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair.
Etymology
The word golem occurs once in the Bible in Psalm 139:16, which uses the word golmi; my golem, that means "my light form", "raw" material, connoting the unfinished human being before God's eyes. The Mishnah, the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions, uses the term for an uncultivated person: "Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one". In Modern Hebrew, golem is used to mean "dumb" or "helpless", or a pupa. Similarly, it is often used today as a metaphor for a mindless lunk or entity that serves a man under controlled conditions (Voodoo / Zombie), but is hostile to him under other conditions. "Golem" passed into Yiddish as goylem to mean someone who is lethargic or beneath a stupor.
The oldest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam was initially created as a golem when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud by those close to divinity, but no anthropogenic golem is fully human. Early on, the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. Sanhedrin 65b describes Rava creating a man (gavra). He sent the man to Rav Zeira. Rav Zeira spoke to him, but he did not answer. Rav Zeira said, "You were created by the sages; return to your dust".
During the Middle Ages, passages from the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation) were studied as a means to create and animate a golem, although little in the writings of Jewish mysticism supports this belief. It was believed that golems could be activated by an ecstatic experience induced by the ritualistic use of various letters of the Hebrew alphabet forming a "shem" (any one of the Names of God), wherein the shem was written on a piece of paper and inserted in the mouth or in the forehead of the golem. A golem is inscribed with Hebrew words in some tales (for example, some versions of Chełm and Prague, as well as in Polish tales and versions of the Brothers Grimm), such as the word emét ("truth" in Hebrew) written on its forehead.
The golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph in emét, thus changing the inscription from "truth" to "death" (mét, meaning "dead"). The earliest known written account of how to create a golem can be found in Sodei Razayya by Eleazar ben Judah of Worms of the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Samuel of Speyer, a 12th century Tosafist, liturgical poet, and philosopher was said to have created a golem. One source credits 11th-century Solomon ibn Gabirol, an 11th-century Andalusi poet and Jewish philosopher in the Neo-Platonic tradition, with creating a golem, possibly female, for household chores. In 1625, Joseph Delmedigo, a rabbi, author, physician, mathematician, and music theorist, wrote that "many legends of this sort are current, particularly in Germany.
The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century rabbi of Prague, also known as the Maharal, who reportedly "created a golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava River and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations to defend the Prague ghetto from antisemitic attacks and pogroms (19th- and 20th-century explusion from prosperity of the Russian Empire)". Depending on the version of the legend, the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled or killed under the rule of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor. The Golem was called Josef and was known as Yossele. He was said to be able to make himself invisible and summon spirits from the dead. Rabbi Loew deactivated the Golem on Friday evenings by removing the shem before the Sabbath (Saturday) began, so as to let it rest on Sabbath.
One Friday evening, Rabbi Loew forgot to remove the shem, and feared that the Golem would desecrate the Sabbath. A different story tells of a golem that fell in love, and when rejected, became the violent monster seen in most accounts. Some versions have the golem eventually going on a murderous rampage. The rabbi then managed to pull the shem from his mouth and immobilize him in front of the synagogue, whereupon the golem fell in pieces. The Golem's body was stored in the attic genizah of the Old New Synagogue, where it would be restored to life again if needed. According to legend, the body of Rabbi Loew's Golem still lies in the synagogue's attic. When the attic was renovated in 1883, no evidence of the Golem was found. The attic is not open to the general public.
All of these early accounts of the Golem of Prague are in German by Jewish writers. They are suggested to have emerged as part of a Jewish folklore movement parallel with the contemporary German folklore movement. The existence of a golem is sometimes a mixed blessing. Golems are not intelligent, and if commanded to perform a task, they will perform the instructions literally. In many depictions, golems are inherently perfectly obedient. In its earliest known modern form, the Golem of Chełm became enormous and uncooperative. In one version of this story, the rabbi had to resort to trickery to deactivate it, whereupon it crumbled upon its creator and crushed him.
Popular Culture
Popular culture is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects.
Take Hart: Morph
Take Hart is a British children's television programme about art, presented by Tony Hart. It took over from Vision On, and ran from 1977 until 1983. The programme featured Hart and the animated Plasticine character Morph, and other characters created by David Sproxton like 'Smoulder the Moulder', which was a lump of mould which would create props by 'spraying' them out of a spray can. As well as demonstrating small-scale projects (the type that viewers might be able to do), Hart also created large-scale artworks on the TV studio floor, and even used beaches and other open spaces as 'canvases' (to be viewed from a camera-crane). This idea was later adopted by Art Attack, which began in 1990.
Morph the character was initially seen interacting with Tony Hart, beginning in 1977, on several of his British television programmes, notably Take Hart, Hartbeat and SMart. Morph was produced for the BBC by Aardman Animations, later famous for Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" music video, Wallace and Gromit (featuring Wallace, an eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic beagle has no dialogue, communicating through facial expressions and body language), and Shaun the Sheep. Morph appears mainly in one-minute "shorts" interspersed throughout the Take Hart show. These are connected to the main show by having Hart deliver a line or two to Morph, who replies in gibberish but with meaningful gestures. Morph can change shape. He becomes spheres in order to move around and extrudes into cylinders to pass to different levels of his environment. He can also mimic other objects or creatures.
Morph's 30th birthday was celebrated in 2007 by creator Peter Lord and celebrity fan and comedian Phill Jupitus at events for the Encounters Film Festival in Bristol. In March 2009, shortly after Hart's death, a flashmob of Morph characters was organised in London outside the Tate Modern art gallery. In 2015, a Morph experience opened at Land's End. The Land's End signpost was rebranded "Lamb's End" with original sets, models, and characters from a range of Aardman productions. Released between 20 March and 2 October 2015, HD-restored versions of The Amazing Adventures of Morph appeared on YouTube; and in the summer of 2015, Morph returned to TV on CBBC with the 15 new episodes.
Loved Ones
The Loved Ones is a 2009 Australian horror film written and directed by Sean Byrne in his feature directorial debut. The film follows a teenage boy named Brent who finds himself at the mercy of a classmate's (named Lola Stone) demented party after he declines her offer to attend the school dance. Brent wakes up bound to a chair. His captors are Lola and her father Eric, who have decorated their house in imitation of a prom. The three are sat at a table along with a lobotomized woman [Golem] they call Bright Eyes who turns out to be Lola's mother. Lola injects Brent's voice box with bleach, destroying his vocal cords making him unable to scream or talk [muted]. Lola then brands Brent by carving her initials onto his chest and sprinkling salt on it.
An anthropomorphic account is applied to the film using a soundtrack song written and performed by Kirsty Chamers, titled: Not Pretty Enough. In 2017, the song was selected for the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia collection of historically and culturally important recordings.
“Am I not pretty enough? Is my heart too broken? Do I cry too much? Am I too outspoken? Don't I make you laugh? Should I try it harder? Why do you see right through me?”.
Junkee Media, formerly known as Sound Alliance reviewed:
"2009's The Loved Ones, a horror film about an obsessed stalker, put Kasey Chambers' hit in the mouth of its villain. But it wasn't subverting the song; it was just making the subtext into text. "Not Pretty Enough" is a ballad about over-stepping boundaries and weaponising self-hatred. The creepiness is already there. It’s a gloriously uncomfortable tilt into the painful things about love.".
Eric opens a trapdoor on the floor, revealing a basement cellar [the box] with the previous abductees still alive. Lola drills through the centre of Brent's forehead and prepares to lobotomize him by pouring boiling water into the hole. Brent pushes Eric into the cellar, where the starving and now deranged (and presumably lobotomised) captives tear him apart. An unhinged Lola pushes Brent into the cellar and throws everything she can get her hands on at him. Brent finds a flashlight and a hammer among the thrown objects and uses them to defend himself against the captives. Lola then smothers Bright Eyes with a pillow, out of jealousy. The film ends with Brent escaping, with the help of his girlfiend Holly. As they flee the scene driving a police car, Brent runs down and drives over then reverses over Lola, killing her instantly.