Response to "Superman Jesus"

This is a reply to Felicia P’s response to my earlier post. Both posts can be found:
Felicia P’s Post: http://305upinflames.blogspot.com/2012/02/superman-jesus.html
My Post: http://gospelaccordingtobuddychrist.blogspot.com/2012/02/jesus-ill-be-back.html

I really wanted to reply to Felicia P’s response to my earlier post from this week. The last argument she made by “playing Devil’s advocate” for Koslovic was really interesting and I feel like it is a great starting point for further discussion. Felicia and I both agreed on a number of issues apparent in Koslovic’s argument. The deficiencies of his extensive list as well as the issues that stem from it were our points of agreement. However, Felicia proposes an innovative answer to my question about why people would look for a Christ figure in many famous film protagonists through the use of such broad characteristics as those used by Koslovic. Felicia responded to this question by stating that Christ figures make it easier for individuals to connect with Jesus through a more relatable form. 

However, this raises some questions. I find her point easy to agree with because often our most favorite movies demonstrate some form of good conquering forces of evil. These famous heroes tend to have the most complex and tumultuous missions which make the stories so appealing. Relating them to Jesus seems natural and easy because of his own similar path.

 

Felicia’s statement “it allows audiences to be associated with their own ‘real-life Jesus’” really struck me. Maybe it isn’t so much actually Jesus that we are looking for in these characters but some indication that a hero’s struggle will always be validated by some other form of good. Perhaps we try to find this “Christ figure” because Jesus himself has the greatest hero we could ever recognize. At their bare bones, I feel like hero stories all follow from the same structure. Notions of courage, self-sacrifice, goodness, responsibility, love and peace have the potential to be in all great hero narratives. Jesus may just be the most recognizable hero which is why we feel the need to see him reflected in other protagonists. This may sound negative but maybe because he is chronologically first, he becomes the standard to which we compare other supposed “Christ figures” in film.