A few months ago I wrote a post explaining how Johnny Cash was an American icon, and he is (to me anyways). And there is another icon that isn't real but for some of us, represents an ideal about what is really important.
I just returned from watching Superman Returns and let me tell you, it was an incredible movie. To see Superman in the first screen gave me goose bumps- even though he is a fictional character in a franchized movie that is concerned with making huge sums of money, I still look at Superman like I did when I was a kid reading comic books about the Man of Steel.
I look at Superman as the epitome of truth, justice, and the American way. He is good natured, good hearted, and, ahem.. quite the handsome hero. It was nice to revisit those warm fuzzy feelings again tonight. Brandon Routh did a superb job playing Superman.
I saw a book years ago that was part of a series of books called, The Gospel According To _______. There was one called The Gospel According to Peanuts (about Charlie Brown's gang) and there was one dedicated to Superman. I didn't buy that book but watching the movie one can easily imagine what it would say. In the movie, Superman is likened unto his father and the son became the father (go see the movie, I won't spoil the surprise). Jor-El (Superman's father) gave Kal-El (Superman's Kryptonian name) to earth to help save it because Jor-El believed the inhabitants of the earth were good people when they held to and lifted up an ideal. Superman is the ideal that keeps earth together. Much like Jesus was given by God for us--and when we hold him up as an ideal (or more than one), then we can all be saved.
On the one hand, I appreciate such spiritual messages as this movie provided. But, I am also careful to remember that the creators of Superman were Jewish and never intended for Superman to used in this way, to carry the Christian message through Jor-El and Superman. As a result, it makes me suspicious when such themes are attached to my American icon. I doubt Superman, if he had his say so, would agree to such a thing. Not because its idolatrous (because afterall Superman is fiction) but because it betrays his humanity--he isn't perfect nor intends to be so--he is just doing what he thinks he should do or, as he took stock in his abilities, what he is capable of. In some ways, Superman is like us--we go about doing good, not because we were chosen to be the saviors of the world but because God created us to do and be good. And that's the Superman that inspired me as a kid--and its the Superman that continues to inspire me today.
Friday, July 14, 2006
An American Icon
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
I have a friend who really, really wants God to be Superman, to be faster than a speeding bullet and to snatch those bullets out of the air before they hit kids at Columbine or to snatch planes out of the air before they crash to the ground or into tall buildings.
It's funny how we want God to be Santa Claus or Superman or any of a pantheon of fictional human creatures who live forever, but will always be limited to what we can imagine for them.
Yeah, you're so right, RevJen. It is unfortunate that we mentally make God into an imagine that we can better relate to (as opposed to the old fogey stuff in the Bible). In doing so, we are limiting either what bigger things God may become or, we make God into something entirely different than what is possible.
And yet, I wonder how many of us, even in our grand and sometimes complicated theology do a little reimagining of God ourselves. For instance, there are some who have the doctrine of the 'age of accountability' so as not to imagine God sending children to hell before they have had an opportunity to understand God. Liberals keep an element of that perception in our liturgy of infant baptism.
Okay, so I realize that sometimes it's important to do some creative re-imagining of God. But it begs the question: In what other ways we, you, me and others, do it too?
Post a Comment