Another movie cashes in on Jesus
No, I'm not talking about Narnia. But listen to this voiceover from a movie preview I just saw:
“Even though you have been raised as a human being, you are not one of them. They could be a great people…they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you, my only son.”
No, it's not Jesus Christ we are talking about here. It's Superman.
And I don't for one second think that this kind of language is accidental. I mean, the idea of a supreme being sending a savior to earth to care for inept human beings, someone who is both human and super-human... These are ideas ripped right out of the New Testament and repackaged in a shiny blue jump-suit with a red S on the front.
I'm not suggesting this is something new with this particular movie incarnation of the Superman character, but the preview really rubs me the wrong way.
“Even though you have been raised as a human being, you are not one of them. They could be a great people…they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you, my only son.”
No, it's not Jesus Christ we are talking about here. It's Superman.
And I don't for one second think that this kind of language is accidental. I mean, the idea of a supreme being sending a savior to earth to care for inept human beings, someone who is both human and super-human... These are ideas ripped right out of the New Testament and repackaged in a shiny blue jump-suit with a red S on the front.
I'm not suggesting this is something new with this particular movie incarnation of the Superman character, but the preview really rubs me the wrong way.
posted by Jonathan Ziman at
7:11 PM
3 Comments:
This comes as no surprise to me as I have always thought that Superman was created as a sort of Christ figure- a retelling of the story.So I went to Google and typed in Superman as a Christ figure and there are a lot of sites out there discussing this.
Of interest to you may be Christianity Today- entry for sept.04- on Christopher Reeves- they discuss the parallels in that article.
Also, dialbforblog/com/archives/190 who briefly discusses the original superman story.
At any rate, I don't find this so offensive. It's not that the Superman story is trying to replace Christ. Superman is a comic strip character that it's writers consciously or subconsciously get inspiration from the greatest story ever told.
By
Anonymous, at 4:21 PM
I agree with Lee. I am not offended. There are a long list of movies that portray a view of God. I find them helpful as a springboard for a discussion of who God is.
Stuntman
The Truman Show
Bruce Almighty (what I Jim Carey doing in all these movies that portray a view of God?)
By
Anonymous, at 12:53 PM
Thanks for the comments. You are both right. I think I got a bit too worked up here!
I guess I am feeling sensitive right now because I am in the middle of some intense study of Jesus Christ and the historical facts surrounding his birth, death and resurrection. So, I am feeling overly protective. (Chill out Jonathan, it's just a movie...)
Obviously there has been a very long tradition of incorporating Biblical stories, themes and characters into all kinds of different art forms, and this new Superman movie isn't really doing anything much different.
That said, the trailer does still bug me on some level in a way that The Truman Show never did. And, I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe I'm just jealous that he can fly and I can't.
On a separate but related note, I just finished reading the book "Christ the Lord" by Anne Rice. Wow. Great book. Some of the history may be debatable, but hey, this is fiction, not a textbook. But, she approaches the material with great care and wonderful detail. Not much happens by way of plot, and yet it is still a page-turner. It will be interesting to see how the story progresses - I'm assuming she is working on more books on the life of Jesus.
Funny how a fictionalized account of the life of Jesus doesn't bug me, but a movie that draws loosely on themes of redemption drawn from the New Testament does. I wish I could understand myself better.
By
Jonathan Ziman, at 5:35 PM
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