Terrapin Tables

Saying Superman is based on Christ is a misapplication of the literary "Christ figure" motif. If you've ever taken a college English class, and I might have had one or two, you're familiar with the basic recurring idea of the solitary, strong figure sent to save some group from danger at his own peril. It's called the "Christ myth" because Christ is a very early, highly visible, widely recognized, and universally understood version of this story. Often Christ was the influence, but that does not mean that all similar arcs are Christian allegory.

Since Christians believe the stories of Christ to be a truth that is fundamental to the structure of human society, they, in turn, see Biblical tales as the inspiration for all similar stories. Rather, each stems from basic human traditional storytelling. It's like saying Jimi Hendrix's music was the precedent for Stevie Ray Vaughan's. While that's a more or less accurate statement, like Jesus and Superman could be argued to be, you have to agree that neither would have done shit without guys like Robert Johnson.

Singer's quotes in the story are pretty germaine to this, and pretty much say what I just said only with a measure of succcintness (not a word) that I tend to avoid.

Also, I should mention the idea of fathers and sons - like God to Jesus and Whoever to Superman - recurs as well. This isn't due to Christianity serving as the explicit model for such stories, but rather the traditional role of men as the stronger sex (widely used in every culture, including our own up until the '60s, so this isn't me being sexist) and the nature of a father's guidance shaping the role of his son.

I looked it up, and Superman's dad is Jor-El. "Superman's Dead" is an Our Lady Piece song. "Silverman's Dead" would probably be the unanticipated sequel to Comedy Central's favorite Saturday afternoon movie "Saving Silverman." Pat likes to paint.

I spelled "germane" wrong, but I can't edit posts so I couldn't fix it.

Posty posty.

And here I thought Superman was more like Hercules.

Exactly, there were stories just like Jesus' long before he ever strapped on a sandal. Stuff that was already ancient in the early Christian era. I should have mentioned Achilles.

One of my early arguments against Jesus-as-fact was, "well, how is Jesus/God any different than Hercules/Zeus?," to which the answer was, invariably, "because Jesus was real." You just can't argue with that after a while.

As far as the historical Jesus debate, I'd be willing to bet that there actually was a real man who started Christianity, much the same way that I think there probably was a historical basis for King Arthur. But just like King Arthur, I think a lot of myth grew up around this man, and like Chris said, a lot of incorporation of previous myths. Hell, you can see something similar in more recent history. Just look at Latin America, and how all the patron saints of the Catholic church have taken on the roles of the previous gods that culture worshipped.

I had a "Medeival History" class in college that turned out to be only about Christianity. I fugured castles and knights and shit when I signed up, but whatever I needed the credits. Anyway, Christianity was essentially a direct readtion to Roman law, class structure, etc. That's why those "Jesus was the first hippie" shirts are around, because true early Christianity is about compassion and sharing - no churches were supposed to be built, everyone helped each other out as a rule, it was almost Communism - because everyone was so freaking poor compared to the guys having big Roman orgies and eating grapes while slaves fanned them. But that idea has died, and now Jesus hates homosexuals and likes to murder people with brownish skin. And it all boils down to selfishness, power, and greed. Frank Zappa, a way wiser man that he gets credit for, wrote that Communism failed because the second word out of every child's mouth, after "Mama," was "mine." I think the same applies to any altruistic endeavor - eventually someone will exploit it and those who follow it.

So it's possible Christianity developed around a then-revolutionary idea rather than a man, but like King Arthur we can't really ever know for sure (we don't have Excalibur, a big round table, or to my knowledge any objective first-person contemporary acccounts of anything Jesus did). I hate what Christianity (and most Christians) has become, but real Christianity sounds like a beautiful thing, and if there were a real Jesus I'm sure I would have thought he was an awesome dude. Or a ginormous pussy.

And I should note I halfway feel like an ass with the "I studied in college" crap, it's just my way of saying I've discussed these ideas in an intelligent setting rather than picking them up off some backwater website run by crazy people (like this one). Unfettered academia has done a lot of great things, but too often in the Liberal Arts categories it has just led to the refinement and exposition of pure bullshit. Some conservative radio host said in some documentary I watched that "an idea as bad as that one could only be the result of a college education," and I immediately knew what he meant.

Calling Superman an Iasion figure or a Horus figure or whatever you want to call it just doesn't have the same panache or achieve the same recognition. People will see the movie however they want to see it. It does seem like it would be difficult to argue that Superman is a Republican. I don't recall reading too much Nietzsche in college, but the examination of the respective Supermen seems interesting.

"Difficult to argue Superman as a Republican" indeed, since he's an anti-capitalist crusader for the helpless little people. If the closest he's come to a pro-establishment stance is when he came out in favor of war rationing (fucking tire theives) then he's my kind of guy.

Now I'm confused, is Superman gay or is he Jesus?