With great celebration and a small hiccup, I procured the first Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve last week. As I watched them, I started to see things in the movies that made me wonder if the script writer intended the movie to be a metaphor. Even if he didn't, the original superman can be taken as an extension of American culture and faith.
Begin with the planet Krypton. It orbits a distant sun, peopled by a race of advanced humans who have managed to make peace and work without money. They have few criminals, and those few that rise are imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, doomed to wander the universe unless freed by a nuclear explosion. They are scientists. They live with crystals under their feet. They have great strength, wisdom, and power, attenuated on Krypton by the radiation of their red supergiant star.
The names are symbolic. I do not know if they translate, but Kal-el, and Jor-el sound Hebrew to me, and "el" in Hebrew is an allusion to God. They are certainly, compared to the people of earth, what we might consider gods in 1950, people who can fly, fry, run, lift anything, and cannot be killed by anything on earth. In fact, Superman's only weakness is something that is not of our world that a man manages to get. He is weak and almost dies in essence because a man is allowed to have power over him. That man also does not, just as satan is dependent on God's will, ultimately have power to destroy Superman or kill anyone on earth.
Superman's mission resembles that of the Christ. He came from a distant star, learns lessons from his father, and goes about doing good, or in his words, "Fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way". This he does without payment or scrip, without any place to lay his head. He doesn't seem to take advantage of mortals, until he becomes one of them by surrendering his powers in that special chamber in Superman II. He fights overwhelming odds. He fights battles humans cannot win. He even brings people back from death. This he does for us, even when men revile him and persecute him and cast him out. He doeth in secret so that his father will reward him openly.
I know it's not perfect, but it made me think. When I think about the measurements given me in scripture to judge the value of a thing, Superman with Mr. Reeve exceeds most of the media's quesquilia. It led me to think about Christ, and so I conclude it might be sent forth by the spirit and power of Christ.
Reeve is no longer with us. I suspect most of the people intimately involved in the plot are gone too. I wonder if they did it on purpose or if it is a happy accident of a mind prone to inquiry beyond the action scenes. Consider what superman means to you. For me his worth has grown, like his power, to be out of this world.
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