Hallo! We are in Holy Week! After Sunday I shall be back on Tumblr, if you were worried about that. It is kind of cool to have the free time I would have used updating Tumblr to do other things, so we’ll see if I can figure out a way to balance things a bit more.
Because Sunday is Easter, I wanted to do something that was connected to that?
Jesus Imagery in Fiction
For Reasons, I was thinking again about Zack Snyder and his DC movies lately. Once again, the more I think about his DC films, the more I realize that while I admire his ambition, his execution leaves a lot to be desired. I am very glad I’m not seeing his version of the DC Universe, what with Darkseid killing Lois and then Superman turning evil, only for it to be reversed through time travel nonsense.
[There was also a point in which there was a Clark-Lois-Bruce love triangle? He dropped that idea before the project was scrapped but I just want to put that out there.]
A huge part of Snyder’s take on Superman is the barrage of Jesus imagery throughout his films. Superman is Jesus, he tells us quite a lot through visual shorthand. I’m not one of those people who looks at any character with spread arms and says, “That’s a Jesus pose!” because spreading your arms is a natural thing to do if your sent sprawling. But with Snyder? It’s really in your face. It’s not just that Snyder is trying to draw a parallel between Superman and Jesus, which is easy enough to do with the basic mythology of the character, but to sort of hammer into your head that this man is TOTALLY modern Jesus. The villain of Batman v. Superman has it as his motivation that he hates the idea of God so takes it upon himself to kill Superman.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think that this really works for two reasons: one, because there’s not really enough time for Lex Luthor’s characterization to set in, and for Superman’s reputation to be firmly established. Second, because Superman… isn’t Jesus? Not even a little bit?
Alright, yes, Superman is sent from above to Earth to act as a hero, adopted by a human family and saves people. But he doesn’t, in Snyder’s version, pick up disciples, he doesn’t seem to try to tell people how to live better lives, he doesn’t make radical statements of morality, he just… saves people. Which isn’t bad, of course, but the assertion that Superman is a good stand-in for Jesus or for God because he’s powerful seems pretty heavy considering that there isn’t much reason for it.
[Also, obligatory notice: Superman was invented by two Jewish guys. The whole “My parents sent me in a vessel to save me from the disaster facing my people, and also my family name is ‘El’” is totally an obviously Jewish thing, taking inspiration from heroes and prophets like Moses and Daniel. I think it’d be really cool if instead of throwing a bunch of Christian imagery, someone would do a Superman story respectfully and accurately using Jewish motifs instead.]
It’s also worth noting that I think the idea of mankind’s savior going evil because his love gets murdered is really, really stupid, whether it’s done with Superman or some other Messianic figure.
In short, Snyder is using Christ imagery for the purpose of gravitas, but it doesn’t really fit, except superficially. To be fair, he’s not the only person doing this. There’s a scene in the _Solomon Kane_ movie (a film I am actually quite fond of, despite this one bit I’m going to complain about) in which the title character is, I kid you not, _actually crucified_ so that you get the idea that he’s saving mankind. What does Solomon Kane have in common with Jesus? Uh, not much else.
I suspect that this is another symptom of “A lot of people don’t understand religion very well.” I thought about this during the week while rewatching the Folding Ideas review of Book of Henry, in which Dan Olson describes the Jesus story as “Jesus dies, and makes everyone’s life better,” which is a massive oversimplification which makes me think he’s missing the importance of the details–then again, if he does, it doesn’t detract from the point of that video, and it’s likely that Colin Trevorrow misses the point, too.
I’m not against using Jesus imagery in fiction–but I think there has to be something more to the visuals or characters other than, “This person is just like Jesus! See, there’s a crucifixion pose!” Drawing a parallel here or there is okay, but if it makes sense. Because comparing your hero to the deity of an active, major world religion? That’s really heavy stuff, and you shouldn’t throw it around unless you actually know what you’re doing.
And Snyder definitely didn’t.
—
No comments:
Post a Comment