4. Superman And J.C., Sitting In A Tree...
Superman is like Jesus Christ? Thank God (pun intended), there was a mural of the big guy behind Clark Kent when he was having a crisis of faith. In a church. At the tender age of 33. The same age Jesus was when He was rocking out most His greatest hits catalog. I would've missed it otherwise. Snark aside, let me start with this: I'm an agnostic. Also, if there's one thing I hate, it's a preachy atheist. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with religion. I just think that a lot of people are really crappy to each other. Crappy people are no better or worse because of their religious beliefs, though it is distressing how easily they can pass off their bad intentions with it. That being said, most of my personal philosophies come from the original Star Trek and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, so I don't have much room to talk about personal beliefs. I can see the religious debate regarding Man Of Steel both ways. Is taking the creation of two Jewish men and turning it into an analog for Jesus Christ another example of America's need to homogenize? Or are the parallels between Jesus and Superman too obvious to ignore? I don't know - but it's a debate worth having. Since I'm a secular humanist, I see both Jesus and Superman as mythological figures - and both figures are there to say what we can achieve when we are intelligent and brave and kind to each other. That's never a bad thing. If anything, I don't see why the parallel needs to be made at all. Superman is a modern myth, one that's strong enough to stand on its own two feet. I don't see where Snyder is going with all of his obvious Christ imagery. It serves no purpose in Man Of Steel's story, thought it could have. And Superman serving as a stand-in for Jesus gets all the more troubling when you get to my next bullet point, entitled...