The good ol’ red, gray, and blue
Over at Newsweak, a rabbi discourses on the demise of Captain America and gets it almost entirely wrong:
Captain America was created by Joe Simon in 1941 as a fictional ally in the war against Hitler and Nazi fascism. In the most recent issue, Cap was gunned down in New York City after 65 years of fighting for freedom and the American way of life. Pop culture mavens said that Cap’s death symbolized the death of the American passion for freedom and of the kind of heroes who give their lives in its defense.
This particular maven said something different: that Cap’s demise ipso facto symbolized the demise of the American symbol of freedom, one it wasn’t clear we deserved any more.
Rabbi Marc Gellman continues:
It’s obvious to me that movies and comic books can make this case better than any subtle novel and more authentically than any spin-tested political speech. Comic books, and the graphic novels that evolved from them, are about the struggle of good against evil. Other art forms can make the claim that everything is gray, nothing is true, and nothing eternal. Of course these latter claims may be right, but if they are, then the age of heroes is over and both Cap and Leonides are really dead.
It may be “obvious” to him that comic books reflect a dualistic morality, but as someone who has actually read a comic book at some point since 1941 (including just last night), I can say he’s wrong. (Which is not an uncommon reaction from me when religious leaders say something is “obvious.”) As we discussed here just recently, comic books post-Watergate have indeed become more and more gray. The conflicting necessities of doing right in a world without good choices — precisely contra the Manichaeian belief system Gellman thinks pervades comic books — was the entire subtext of the Civil War storyline.
Finally, Gellman opines:
Embracing the need to spiritually justify the fight for world freedom carries its own perils. Chief among these dangers is what we now see in the world of Islamic fascism: the use of religion to extol death and tyranny. The biblical name for this is idolatry, and the seductions of idolatry are hard for some to resist. In the end, though, the spiritual truth of freedom’s cause is eventually clear to all.
Although he’s right that we “now” see the danger in Islamic fascism, when it comes to the misuse of religions that seek to create utopia (here or hereafter), I suggest the rabbi dig into some 20th century history. Or Medieval history. Or the history of the Crusades. Or of the Holy Roman Empire. Because this “use of religion to extol death and tyranny” is not precisely a new thing. The Founders of this nation were right that people yearn for freedom (even though they were unable at the founding to grant it to all). They were also right to recognize that when left unchecked man is a morally bankrupt creature and that the freest form of religious practice is for the state to have no attachment to religion.
Where could one find some of the themes I’m talking about? Throughout comic books post-9/11. I just wish that media critics, either religious or not, who choose to write knowingly about comic books would show some evidence that they had actually read any.