Oh Stories, Stories: I’m Not That Innocent
C.K. Robertson’s contribution to this text, entitled Sorcerers and Supermen:”Old Mythologies in New Guises” makes as the central story behind the comic book era of the 1950s the story of Arthur Pendragon. Reading like an abbreviated history of European religions, all the way from the Roman and Greek pantheons to the likes of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, the primordial belief in heroes helps humanity to overcome “fear and denial of death” (34). The separation between culture and religious belief is at best, a false myth in Robertson’s view. Superman (oh God help us all since he is Jesus literally and all….) became a U.S. American Christ figure (39) while Batman, the boogeyman, more like Michael or any other archangel who brought destruction to the Canaanites criminals. Robertson concludes his essay with much praise for Marvel films–he seems to have forgotten X-Men Origin: Wolverine and The Hulk(2003) starring Eric Bana. Selective memory I guess.
My biggest problem with this chapter is that there is far too optimistic of a view that religion is a cultural project. I do not buy it, as I have argued in my posts on the construction of the nation-state, and it is a left over of Occidentalism/Orientalism. The eagerness and almost uncritical embrace of religious beliefs as being totally cultural is highly suspicious. No story is innocent, and the idea that Superman could be seen as an equal to Jesus the Christ, circa Nazareth, 2nd Common Era, in the eyes of even fundamentalist U.S. American Christians is very very very problematic, as if cultural values were some how universal. Universalism, when placed over and against particularity, ends up being oppressive, no matter in how liberal or progressive terms you articulate this universalism in. I do not believe that the Ancient Near Eastern way of viewing their myths is the same as ours; in the aforementioned essay, I felt like that Robertson was implying, that there was no difference between ANE storytelling , let’s say and American/Western poetics.
Furthermore, I do not believe that being religious is “inherent” or “natural” or “biological” within populations; it just happens to be a choice that human beings make when they collect together.
Oh, and the whole Marvel over DC Comics thing because of the X-Men movies and Blade, just was not persuasive. X3 was awful, not faithful to the X-Men canon (Robertson’s critique of Tim Burton’s Batman), Elektra and Daredevil are considered 2 of the worst superhero movies of all time, oh, and the 2 Fantastic Four movies– EPIC FAIL.
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- James McGrath’s Religion and Science Fiction: Introduction (politicaljesus.com)
- James McGrath’s Religion and Science Fiction: Chapter 1 (politicaljesus.com)
- The September Bibical Studies Carnival: James McGrath’s Sci Fi Trilogy (politicaljesus.com)
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