posted July 28, 2006 12:26 PM         

Is the new Superman meant to be Jesus?

By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine

Is the Superman Returns movie meant to remind us of the Bible? And if so, is it blasphemy?

Well here's the story.

An all-powerful father sends his son to Earth to save mankind by showing them the "light". The son is able to perform miracles. He "dies" and is born again.

Sound familiar? It might do, it's the plot of the new movie Superman Returns. And in the blogs and internet forums there has been a maelstrom of debate on the parallels between Superman and Jesus Christ.

Superman has a long history of Judaeo-Christian symbols, but this time the film's makers have taken it to a new level.

CHRISTIAN ECHOES?
Stabbed in side with Kryptonite - like Jesus stabbed with spear
Empty hospital room - empty tomb of Jesus
Falls to Earth, arms outstretched - Crucifixion-like
Cradled in mother's arms - like Michelangelo's Pieta
Superman says world needs saviour
Superman's five years in space echoes the Ascension
Shown with weight of world/sin on shoulders

• At one point Superman falls towards the Earth in a pose that vaguely echoes the Crucifixion.

• He is stabbed in his side with Kryptonite in an echo of the stabbing of Jesus by a Roman soldier.

• A female nurse rushes into the hospital room to find it empty just as Jesus tomb was found to be empty by female followers.

And there are Christians in the US who believe that the symbolism is now sufficiently obvious that the film can be incorporated into religious teaching.

Stephen Skelton is the author of the Gospel According to the World's Greatest Superhero and has prepared guidance for pastors wanting to use Superman Returns in their sermons.

Sex and violence

"You would have to be blind to miss what they are doing in terms of the Christ imagery," says Mr Skelton, a Christian with a background in showbusiness, "there is a big foot in the door."

American churches have not generally been well-disposed towards Hollywood, with its laissez-faire attitude towards sex and violence. But the West Coast Babylon has recently offered two films which have been manna to churches, The Passion of the Christ, and the Chronicles of Narnia.

One or two voices have said how can we see Superman as a Christ figure when he is fooling around with Lois Lane when she is committed to another person - that simply comes from pushing the parallel too far

Stephen Skelton
Christian author

Some more traditional churchgoers may be under-whelmed by the use of movies to sell the Gospels, but Mr Skelton is unrepentant.

"That is a modern idea that we are somehow dumbing down the Gospels. This has a huge biblical precedent. In Acts 17:28 Paul quotes from a hymn to Zeus. He is using a pagan deity... the least we can do is take a second glance at Superman.

As well as the imagery, there is plenty in the dialogue. Superman refers to himself as a saviour, while baddie Lex Luthor talks about the man with his pants on the outside as a God.

Average cinemagoer

The film borrows Superman's father's speech from the first movie and gives it a prominent place, with Marlon Brando intoning: "They [mankind] 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."

But as far as the imagery goes, what is "blatant" for those with a background in Christianity, comics, art or criticism, may be a little more opaque for the average cinemagoer.

[quote]You wrote that the world doesn't need a saviour, but every day I hear people crying for one"

Superman to Lois Lane[/quote

Mr Skelton says director Bryan Singer told him the scene where Superman's adoptive mother cradles him in her arms at the start of the film is a deliberate echo of images from the Renaissance of the Virgin Mary and the dying Christ such as Michelangelo's Pieta.

But it is easy to find oneself wondering whether there isn't a note of blasphemy in the film. If Superman is so clearly meant to be Jesus, why is he making goo-goo eyes at Lois Lane, who has found a long-term partner in the hero's five-year absence from the planet.

"One or two voices have said something - how can we see Superman as a Christ figure when he is fooling around with Lois Lane when she is committed to another person. That simply comes from pushing the parallel too far," Mr Skelton explains.

And Mervyn Roberts, a broadcaster and Anglican vicar, says although he has not seen the movie it is unlikely to be blasphemous or be difficult for a Church that has largely shrugged off the Da Vinci Code.

"The truth of the Gospel will come through. Superman is very much a kind of iconic image of the saviour figure that is seen throughout history.

"So the Superman movie, unless it specifically makes references to Jesus Christ in a negative sense, a direct insult to the person of Christ, identified an insult against God, it is just putting through that image."

'Gritty' gospels

But there are going to be plenty of Christians who do not find their hearts warmed by the use of religious imagery in a blockbuster. Superman hardly comes to Earth with an amazing message, and Jesus's purpose was not preventing man-made earthquakes.

Giles Fraser, parish vicar at Putney in London, says it was one thing to use the film to draw children into the Church by glossing over the "incredibly gritty" nature of the Gospels, but quite another to do it with adults.

"Using it as evangelism for adults is completely ridiculous. It is making Christianity into this rather wholesome nicely, nicely affirmation of American values, the morphing of Jesus into the American hero."

The black and white image of good and evil was not compatible with orthodox Christianity, Mr Fraser says.

And for all the Christian symbolism, it might be the case that there is no one religion that lay claim to the Man of Steel. Rabbi Simcha Weinstein has written a work, Up, Up and Oy Vey about the massive Jewish influence on the comic book industry particularly in its early years.

JEWISH LINKS
Both creators were Jewish
Superman and father's name sound Hebrew
Parable of Moses evoked
Condemned by Nazis
Story of immigration/assimilation

Many have noted that as well as being created by two Jewish authors, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman and his father's Kryptonian names both end in the Hebrew name for God, Kal-El and Jor-El, and that Superman's departure from Krypton can be taken as an echo of the story of Moses' childhood.

The Nazis went out of their way to condemn Superman, with Goebbels writing a polemic in April 1940 in Das Schwarze Korps, an SS newspaper.

Viewer's discretion

And even the Buddhists are getting in on the act. An article on the Buddhist Channel compares Superman to a Bodhisattva, "a great being who aspires to unconditionally help all beings be free from any suffering".

Danny Fingeroth, author of Clark Kent in Disguise: Jews, Comics and the Creation of the Superhero, says there is a certain inevitability to the reading of religious references into superheroes.

BUDDHIST PARALLELS
Meditates above Earth
Draws on Guanyin Bodhisattva
Has gone on soul-search
Distracted by worldly love

"While they have loaded the Superman movie with Christian imagery and dialogue it is still at the discretion of the viewer to see it that way.

"There is religious imagery because of the very nature of the superhero mythology - somebody with great powers who uses them to do the right thing.

"One of the appealing things is that while they may remind us of certain religious figures or ideas the fact that they are not of any one religion is what has allowed them to be embraced around the world.

"And if you like Superman rather than Batman it is unlikely you will get into an argument with someone and end up dead."