The Passion of Superman

July 8, 2006

I've had enough of Jesusification in movies. How many times could they hammer home the point that Superman is like Jesus? He has a miraculous birth. He comes to do good for human beings. He dies only to be resurrected.. making his resurrection flight against the background of a brilliant sunrise. Lois Lane writes an article at the end on "why the world needs Superman." At the end Superman reassures her that he will always be present. There is also the scene in which Superman ascends above the earth and is overwhelmed with the cries for help.. you must read the passage about Jesus weeping over Jerusalem to follow the import there. I wonder if they got Gerson to help with the screenplay? It is as if Hollywood has decided that "values voters" and Mel Gibson fans must be catered to whenever possible.. and that just reminds me why mainstream cinema is so uninteresting. Cut it out!

From another point of view it may say something about America's view of Jesus that he is a figure so easily assimilated to superhero plot-lines.

No matter how bad these superhero films are, they carry some cultural interest with them. There is the oddity of a distrust of technology and skill. Of course the film entrusts itself entirely to special affects.. so that is not what I mean. Within the movie Lex Luthor is a brilliant (though evil) man who is out to harness new technology. Superman on the other hand is the "natural".. straight out of the heartland of America.. true blue.. born with his powers.

In many of the other superhero films that I have seen, there is a similar breakdown among the characters: techno-savvy and artificial bad guy.. naturally powerful good guy. But who are we in America? Are we not the people who trust more than anyone else in the power of technology to meet our needs? On the eve of war don't magazines feature layouts explaining the artificial technological boosts with which our soldiers are equipped? Don't we rely on scientists and researchers to make our lives easier? Yet if you watch our superhero films you would think that all hard-working techno-savvy thinkers are bad guys, and that good guys are naturals.. From the vantage point of a few centuries that will be curious indeed. There is something in our superheroes that is foreign to our own character.. as if we were longing for something.