Ross v Ross

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Jesus. Everyone knows Superman is just a thinly veiled treatise on the life of the Son of God, but by Kryptonite does new Supes movie Man of Steel hammer that message home. Well, Jesus WAS a carpenter. I caught up with director Zack Synder in Los Angeles to find out why Kal-El has so much religious baggage.

THE TOP 20 REASONS WHY SUPERMAN IS JESUS:

1. He has a beard

2. His dad has a beard

3. He has superpowers

4. His dad has superpowers

5. His dad sent him to Earth to save humanity

6. ‘He’ll be a god to them’

7. He was sort of born in a stable

8. His adoptive father is a humble tradesman

9. None of the neighbours seem to wonder why his ‘mom’ never got pregnant

10. Some humans were a bit of a dick to him

11. But he didn’t use his superpowers to kick their asses

12. Can walk on water

13. Betrayed by some guy for money

14. Willingly sacrifices himself for the good of mankind

15. Is exactly 33-years-old at the time

16. Mortal enemies with an evil dude with a goatee

17. Likes to chat with Catholic priests in churches

18. Punches Darwinites who believe ‘evolution always wins’

19. That whole crucifix pose when he busts out of Zod’s ship

20. Friends with Batman

According to director Zack Snyder, this isn’t the first time the above comparison has been made.

‘I think the relationship between Jesus and Superman is not a thing we invented in this film, it is a thing that has been talked about since the creation of Superman,’ he said, speaking to us from Warner Bros studios in LA.

‘And in a weird way, probably was talked about more when Superman was created than it is now. It’s one of those things mythologically you take for granted, a little bit.

‘When you talk about mythology, you want to make a point about the importance of a character, or the relevance of a moment, to be able to draw from peoples’ collective experiences. What is personal to you or to someone who sees a Christ story or someone who doesn’t, it might affect the way they see the movie in a different way, or it may make the events in the film more personal, or make the mythological points of the film more intense.

‘For me personally, I think that the mythological part of the story – and there’s other parallels as well – but if you see this Christlike story within it, it is really to act as a metaphor to see that Superman is struggling in a way that there might be another layer to it that you can draw from other experiences. But by no means is it for one idea to cancel out the other, or for it to be mutually exclusive to one single idea. I think it’s drawing on all mythology: comic book, religion, ancient, philosophical.’

And according to screenwriter David Goyer, it’s not just Jesus Christ Superman.

‘We didn’t come up with these allusions of Superman being Christlike, that’s something that’s been embedded in the character from the beginning, he said. ‘But also the legend of Moses, clearly the whole way his parents give him up and send him…’

‘in a wicker spaceship! Snyder interjected. ‘That was the original idea, but then we were like: “that’s crazy! It’ll burn up, it doesn’t make any sense”.’

‘We also drew on Gilgamesh and Beowulf…’ Goyer added.

‘Whoever they are,’ Snyder finished.

This entry was posted on June 11, 2013 at 9:58 pm and is filed under TOP FIVES with tags Christopher Nolan, Henry Cavill, Man of Steel, Superman, Zack Snyder. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.