Superman Jesus Quoted on MSNBC

Sometimes it’s surprising which posts catch on with you people. Great ideas go unremarked upon while tiny throwaway observations sit there collecting comments and stirring controversy.

One example of this trend that I’ve never understood was a post I wrote last November called Superman Jesus. The post contained a simple expression of my surprise at the heavy religious imagery in the trailer for the upcoming Brian Singer-directed Superman movie. A tsunami of comments ensued, ranging from corrections of factual mistakes in the post itself to a debate about the arkana of the original movies and comics to this incredible interpretative insight from an honest-to-god rabbi:

It’s pretty obvious that Superman is a Jesus figure. His kryptonian name is Kal-el, which in Hebrew means “voice of God”. His father’s name is Jor-el, which in Hebrew means “fear/awe of God”.

Thus, we have the classic Christian paradigm of the supposed Wrathful God of the “Old” Testament sending the human-word to earth, with, of course,
powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

This comment, in addition to being brilliant, was posted just last week, a full eight months after the original post.

And, if that doesn’t top it, the post, along with Rabbi Shevack’s great comment, was quoted in an MSNBC article about the Christian imagery in the film, published on Tuesday. I probably wouldn’t even have found out about the article if it wasn’t for Mikey’s post yesterday on Let’s Get Famous, the Urban Honking blog that tracks the influence of us UrHo-ers on the larger world.

I’ve never been one to bash the so-called ‘mainstream media’ as such, but seeing their reporting from the point of view of a source certainly makes it tempting. They quoted my blog without talking to me. They generalized Rabbi Shevack’s comment so as to avoid attributing or verifying it. The whole story was reported second, third, and fourth hand through web searches and hearsay.

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0 Responses to Superman Jesus Quoted on MSNBC

  1. mort says:

    These are revealting points, Greg, all. The issue of attribution in citing blogs in news and vice versa is one I wonder about. The protocol needs to be complied with – but I wonder what you think, considering your libertarian view vis a vis copyright. The Supe / Jesus parallel is also interesting – always thought that superheroes were a bit fascist – think uhbermenschen – law & order & “the American Way” being their goal. Batman’s dark soul is an avenging angel, a model for KKK – secret ID with capes at night – valkeries …

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