I'll be doing some more work on The 40 Year-Old Virgin when I delve into the Solar love stories, but I wanted to point out some timely symbols that I noticed tonight. This movie may seem like a trifle to many people, but I found it to be absolutely jam-packed with esoteric references.
The title itself immediately reminded me that Orthodox Jewish men were not allowed to study the Kaballah until they were forty, which got me interested in the film. I can't decide if the symbolism is intentional, subconscious or Synchromystic. I only know it's not coincidental.
The other thing that caught my interest is that I remembered coining the term "40 Year-Old Virgins" more than ten years ago when writing on comics and I can't remember whether it was for an internet posting or for a piece for a magazine. I read tonight that this phrase goes back a long time in comics, but I can't find anything on the net referring to it dating earlier than July 1998, which is after I remember coming up with the phrase.
I'm afraid it might have been for an old AOL message board, in which case my bragging rights are gone. I've had some phrases nicked from me over the years, so I'm a little touchy about it.
Anyhow, here's a sampling of the interesting images from this very interesting film:
This is from the film's opening montage, where Andy does his sit-ups next to a life-sized cutout of the Mummy, which of course ties directly into the Osirian Mysteries. Starting with Stoker's Jewel of Seven Stars, I've come to see all mummy movies as parables of the re-emergence of the Egyptian mysteries taking root in the modern world.
The very next shot we see Andy as a disembodied head in a bath, giving us a nice John the Baptist icon. This ties exactly into my theory that Baptist worship is actually based on the Osirian Mysteries themselves, repackaged for a new audience. The sequencing here blows my mind.
After breakfast, Andy rides out his bike, wearing that familiar X cross (in a nice Solar red) that the Mithraic Solar cultists revered. This corresponds exactly with my timeline- from Egypt to Israel then to Rome.
We've been seeing a lot of butterfly symbolism being explored in the Synchrosphere and here The 40 Year-Old Virgin doesn't let us down.
Just as with the ridiculously blatant Baptist propaganda film, Star Trek: Nemesis, we get plenty of 17 symbolism on the DVD of this film, which we'll be looking at closely in the near future.
