It's summer time and that means we have a spate of comic book movies - Green Lantern, Captain America, Thor - and related sci-fi/fantasy movies like Harry Potter. Look for people camping out for midnight screenings, grown men taking a long lunch to see them the next day, Happy Meal ties ins and soda cans emblazoned with the latest hero. WHY are these movies are so popular? Why do the studios keep making them? Well, the obvious answer to the second question is that they consistently rake in the big bucks. But that just begs the question: Why do they resonate with us? What itch do they scratch?
Okay, back to the question at hand. Why do these movies resonate with us? Why are they "rebooting" the Spider-Man franchise next year when they first Spider-man came out in 2002? Why do 130,000 people (in odd costumes) pack out Comic-Con, the annual comic/sci-fi convention held each year in San Diego?
I think these movies fill a basic need for mythology, which our culture is lacking. Mythology helps us probe important issues, sound out what is right and wrong, and feel our way forward in a dark and confusing time where truth has gone missing. We are searching for real heroes.
JRR Tolkien convinced an unbelieving C.S. Lewis that Christianity was a myth, but one that "just happened to be true." As the one True Myth with its True Hero gets farther and farther from our collective consciousness, we grope for others to lead the way and settle for Captain America, Wolverine or Toby Macguire in tights.
Myths resonate with us because they mirror the story that God is telling through history, how his Son sacrificed himself to reconcile humanity to himself and usher in a new kingdom of righteousness and justice.
How many times do you see our comic book and fantasy heros sacrificing themselves for others (and then brought back to life)? Gandalf, [spoiler] Harry Potter - "the child who lived, come to die", Superman, Neo, Spock - "The good of the many outweighs the good of the one.", ET. In the Thor movie, he sacrifices himself to save earth and is brought back to life by the high god Odin, his father.
The American culture, having come from so many others, does not have a solid mythology to call our own. Greek, Roman and Norse mythology is too far removed to be all that relevant. Clash of the Titans, anyone?
The closest we come to is what we have inherited from the Brits: Robin Hood and King Arthur, which admittedly serve us well and are frequently revisited in both books and movies.
Still, J.R.R. Tolkien said he wrote The Lord of the Rings to "provide England with a mythology of its own".
In the American experience, we seem to have generated a mythology expressed in comic book heroes and Star Trek and Star Wars.
What does our choice of myths say about us?
- There is almost always a serious technological element that explains the supernatural side of things. Radioactive spiders, genetic experiments, wonder drugs, or computer programs creating both the villains and the heroes. In a sense, this is a useful expression of our fear of rapid technological change. In the Star Trek universe, we see the false promise of technology bringing an era of peace, a utopia (though it rarely seems to hold).
- The hero is never perfect in these stories. He often undergoes an interior struggle between good and evil. A sort of Romans 7 conflict with the flesh. There is a temptation to use his power for selfish means. Or just to take more power to help more people. cf. Dark Spidey vs Good Spidey. There are times when we identify with Spiderman's internal battle against Dark Spidey, Bruce Wayne wanting to throw in the towel and be normal, Frodo wanting to put on the ring. Superman seems to be the most "Christ-like" of our comic heroes, and oddly enough the public has lost interest in him, possibly because he is seen as too good and not conflicted enough. (Did Smallville erase some of that? Should it have?)
- The Good guys are always very good and the villains very bad. In a sense this characterization is probably inherent in the genre, which creates prototypical symbols. That is all fine and good but in an increasingly complex, multinational world it seems so many issues are really black and white. (What if your biofuels save the planet but end up starving folks on the other side of the globe?)
- In recent years it seems the villains have just gotten darker and darker. Compare the 1960's era TV Joker, to Jack Nicholson's Joker in 1989. Already a big shift. Then flash forward to Heath Ledger's 2008 version.
The extreme nature of the bad guys makes it easy to build a case for justified violence. I mean if your bad guy makes Hitler look like Elmo, then of course, it's okay to use excessive force. Once you get used to that in your movies, then in real life you have to paint your enemies as villains when often the situation is a bit less clear.
- There is a tendency to wrap your hero in the flag of the country he comes from and this can add to an over the top patriotism. Captain America is OBVIOUSLY dressed up in the American flag, but I seem to recall movie posters with Superman and Spiderman draped in the flag.
- A superhero has superpowers and there is a tendency for "Might to make Right". Captain America was a good counterpoint to this where the hero was chosen because he was a weakling who had experience bullying. He ended up a pretty decent picture of the meek use of power (though that got a bit lost as the action built up).
- Masks and dual identities. What's with that?
- Almost all of these "universes" are based on a series of books or comics, but we still create a collective myth for Batman, or Star Trek and the fanboys will argue about whether the new plotline is "canonical" or not. Goes to show the importance we place on written texts and fidelity to them. Note the use of the word "canonical" which is normally reserved for Scripture. And before you judge too harshly, consider whether you'd score better on a test on the Lord of the Rings or the stories in Genesis and Exodus.
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