superman gets all biblical on us

The upcoming Superman Returns is drawing a lot of attention to the Superman as Christ metaphor. Anteneas attuned to this sort of thing were surely alerted when, in the preview, Superman's father (voiced by Brando, originally for the 1978 version of Superman) is overheard saying:

They can be a great people Kal-El. 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.


If you've never thought about this before and you want to read about how Superman and JC are parallel figures, some guy wrote a seemingly scholarly essay about it. Before we dig in to the real point of this essay, here's one good example of how they're similar according to Anton Karl Kozlovic, whoever he is:

Superman was an alien immigrant, and like a diaspora Jew, he was forced to leave his starry home (a threatened Krypton) to find a new life amongst strangers in a strange land (Earth). Later, he would again leave his home (Smallville) to live in the Arctic wilderness (ensconced inside the Fortress of Solitude). And then for a third time he would leave his Arctic home to live in a bustling urban city (Metropolis) going about his heavenly Father'’s (Jor-El'’s) work. Likewise, Jesus left his celestial home in the heavens to come to the Earth realm. Later, he left his rural home Nazareth (an ancient Smallville) to wander through desert wildernesses, followed by missionary work throughout the Roman-dominated world while doing his heavenly Father'’s (Yahweh's) work.

And here's a lesser example:

"Interestingly, Christopher Reeve had bright blue eyes. This is part of a long tradition of celluloid saviours having blue eyes. For example, Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings had 'dreamy blue eyes.'"

So that's all very interesting, sure. I didn't know they picked Reeve because of his lovely blue eyes. However, I'm not concerned over whether this metaphor actually works. Instead, I'd rather waste a few minutes thinking about why a Jesus/Superman metaphor matters in the first place. Because my first reaction was, even if it's a perfect metaphor, so what?

CNN delivers a well-rounded summary of the Superman as Christ comparison, which is a worthy a read of you're interested. It also gives us a look at the evolution of his symbolisms. According to the article, Superman was created by a pair of Jewish men in the 1930's who were "inspired by the Old Testament story of Moses and the supernatural golem character from Jewish folklore." During the same time, Superman is also said to have been "a hero of the New Deal, aiding the destitute and cleaning up America's slums." It goes on to say that "by the 1950's, fears of postwar urban lawlessness had turned him into a tireless crime fighter." However, based on my limited research, the idea of Superman as Christ didn't seem to emerge until the 1978 movie starring Christopher Reeve.

So basically, Superman was created as a character of strength and justice for the Jews, and was reinterpretted over and over to fit the crises of the times. There's a Superman for every season apparently. He's your Personal Superman. Take this for example (from the CNN piece): "Some have also seen the hero as a gay icon, forced to live a double life with his super-self in the closet." Obviously the Superman character has built a history of becoming a symbol for whatever people want him to be. Shaq thinks Superman symbolizes himself:

Wow.

Anyways, if I created Superman and he was intended to symbolize Jewish strength, would I be pissed that other writers took him away from that? No less to symbolize the Christian Messiah?

This reminds me of those English professors I had who tried to apply deep symbolic meaning to every story, play, sonnet, limerick and essay we ever read. Sometimes I was convinced they were just making stuff up. "Green Eggs & Ham" in college would surely stir a discussion about feudalism in the Dark Ages.

I think profs love to do this because, when a story carries a deeper weight in its subtext, it gives the story a level of literary legitimacy. For instance, Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" comes to mind. While I admit now that my prof was right, at the time I hated the book so much that I was unwilling to believe it carried any significance. For me, it was almost impossible to read, some random narrative about a tough-minded dog. I mean, I could write a book about my cat and his struggles for daily survival, and although it would probably lack London's Gander Mountain prose, it would still be about the same things, right?

Of course, "Call of the Wild" isn't just about dogs and wolves and dogs becoming wolves. COTW is a product of its time, a story about Darwin's Survival of the Fittest theory, and it was controversial enough that it was banned by some institutions (I have no source material for you, so...you're kinda gonna hafta trust me here).

Now I don't question COTW's literary legitimacy - it seems pretty clear that London wrote it with Survival of the Fittest on his mind. Rather, it's when college professors insert meaning into things that were never intended by the author...that always made me want to drop out of college (which is what I always remember thinking they were doing with COTW). But this time, I swear that seems to be happening with Superman.

You see, Superman is the lamest of all major superheroes, and the writers back in '78 understood that - unless they could add a greater mystique to his character - he would fail to connect with audiences. He's too good, too infallible for people to root for. Superman is the Yankees and the Lakers. That's why, if Batman and Superman were ever to fight in a movie, everyone would root for Batman. Everyone.

So the writers decided to aim big, to give the Superman story a subtext that would resonate with the general public. Here's a blip from Anton's essay proving that I'm not making this up:

Scriptwriter Mario Puzo (The Godfather) originally constructed Superman: The Movie as a mythologic story based on a "Greek tragedy."” Later, other writers were hired and the script reshaped at director Richard Donner'’s insistence. Donner initially disowned Superman'’s religious origins. However, many years later, Donner gladly admitted to the Christic subtext: "It'’s a motif I had done at the beginning when Brando sent Chris [Reeve] to Earth and said, 'I send them my only son.'’ It was God sending Christ to Earth."” It was a dramaturgical decision that made good sense, for just as Superman was literally a super-man, Jesus was "the ultimate Super Jew of his day," "the Christian super-hero,"” the pop culture "“God with us."”

In other words, it's a cheap way to give a corny superhero more weight and more meaning than was ever intended. It's the difference between a novel about my cat and London's "Call of the Wild." Both are difficult to get-up for since neither story features animals that talk. But at least COTW is about something. My story wouldn't be about anything. And in the same way, they want us to believe that Superman Returns is about something bigger than meets the eye. But the thing is, I still can't figure out if Superman deserves such a treatment.

M. Night Shyamalan's love-it-or-hate-it Unbreakable - a dramatic film about a security guard who discovers that he's nearly indestructable - "explores the way that humans use comic books to explore mythic dimensions of the real world. The film works on a second level, for within the film itself comic books are in a real sense man's last link to an 'ancient way of story-telling'" (thank you again, Wikipedia). Listen, I like Unbreakable. I like its pacing, I like the acting, and I like the idea of an average guy discovering he's a superhero. But this stuff about comic books exploring the mythic dimensions yadda yadda yadda...is crap. I only bring up Unbreakable because it seems to highlight an increasingly held belief that comic book heroes are truly valuable literary characters on the level of Beowulf or the Red Crosse Knight. At the very least, comics are increasingly being recognized as credible pieces of art, especially graphic novels like "Maus," "Ghost World," and "Sin City." The comic world, much like the videogame world, is maturing. The target audience has shifted from children to adults. And I guess the question is, if these mediums continue to evolve, what's stopping Superman from being considered the modern equivalent of Beowulf? You'll see. I'll bet you $30 somebody's going to make this claim soon.

(I saw X-Men 3, I'm going to see Superman, and I'll probably buy a Nintendo Wii later this year. I'm not looking down on anybody. I'm just saying that Superman isn't Beowulf. Beowulf represents not only an evolution in written storytelling, but also captures a clear shift in religion in England, which would go on to cement Christianity as the world's most widely practiced religion. Superman can't really hang with that, not to mention that the prose-style of the actual Beowulf poem is lightyears ahead of any Superman comic).

I feel like I'’ve said a lot without saying anything concrete. So I'’ll say this: the screenwriters in '’78 put 2 + 2 together, noticed that the Superman character shared some basic parallels with Christ, and they decided to point that out. And now, between Passion of the Christ and Chronicles of Narnia, Jesus's presence in movies is on the public'’s mind. For whatever reason, the brains behind Returns decided they'’d sprinkle Christ into their Superman, with the potential result of luring "“red state" moviegoers with the "“they lack the light to show the way"” line. They've given Superman a weight, even if it'’s superficial and maybe even slightly gimmicky. Nontheless, as a general moviegoer, I'm fine with this metaphor, and am in fact, more than fine with it, just as long as we don'’t take Superman too seriously from this point forward, being sure not to confuse him with truly important literary characters.

That said, taking Christ out of the picture, I think framing Superman as having the burden of showing humanity "the light" makes him much more intriguing, and I believe if it weren't for this Christ hullabaloo, I think Superman might be ready to take a leap to the top of the superhero foodchain, where Batman, Spiderman and Wolverine have been reigning supreme for the past 15 years. Truth be told, I'm not sure most moviegoers are going to give two dumps about Superman-as-Christ come this Wednesday. I've just convinced myself - just right this second - that this entire post might've been a waste of time, and that Superman's about to become the king of the universe simply because he hasn't been given a respectable treatment since Superman II, and people are curious to see the Man of Steel fly again.