IVP - Strangely Dim

RU X or S?

Two blockbuster films are coming out this summer, films whose release dates are marked in my datebook, films that have already earned my thumbs up, sight-unseen. Both are sequels of a sort; one concludes an ongoing epic, and the other begins a new era for its hero.

If I were writing this in 2005, the two films would be Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith and Batman Begins. But this is 2006, so get ready for X-Men 3 and Superman Returns. Because I’m a comic-book geek and have a lot of youth-pastor friends, I’ve been asked by a few people to comment on how these two movies could be used with young people. I, of course, want my own spiritual excuse for seeing the movies multiple times, so I decided I’d spiritualize the movies sight-unseen. I can do that—it’s my blog.

This summer our heroes will grapple with questions of identity and vocation. I’m inclined to think that X3 will appeal more to junior-high age kids than Superman Returns, but that’s good, because X3 involves an identity crisis, and I think of identity as a key crisis of early adolescence.

The crisis in X3 is more existential than anything: a cure for mutancy is discovered. In X2, the distraught mother of the mutant Ice Man begged her son, “Have you tried not being a mutant?” With the latest film, mutants no longer have to try. They can choose to remain super, or they can choose to become normal.

Now when you put it that way, why be normal? If I could fly or couldn’t die I’d be happy, believe me. But some mutants are blue, some are furry, some can’t touch another person without killing them, and frankly some can’t remain a mutant without losing their friends and family. The thing that sets them apart is also the thing that sets them apart.

Early adolescence is in many ways a crisis of identity. Your body changes, your social networks become more complex, you change schools more than once, you start to differentiate from your family, and so on and so forth. So if you’re unsettled in your own skin, and you have the chance to redefine yourself, what do you keep and what do you abandon?

Suppose, for that matter, that not everything is on the table: suppose you can change just one little thing about yourself. Maybe ou’ve discovered that some of your friends think it’s weird that you pray before you eat or that you wake up on Sunday to go to church or even that you have a youth pastor. Do you forsake your faith or your friends? Or do you subtly withdraw from both?

In X3 each mutant has to make his or her choice. The choices they make affect not only their own lives, but their relationships and in a very real sense, their society. I liken it to the choice one of Jesus’ disciples has to make in his early encounters with Jesus: am I a fisherman, or a follower of Jesus? Am I Simon, or am I Peter? In one sense it’s no change at all—I yam what I yam, as Popeye might put it—but in another sense it changes everything.

If X3 is a film about identity, then Superman Returns is a film about vocation, which is a good subject for late adolescence. If you could do anything, what would you do? What wouldn’t you do?

Not much has been leaked about this film, but Ain’t It Cool News has hinted that Superman’s return is an open question. To return will mean to face the consequences of decisions he’s already made—rumor has it that he has a son with Lois Lane, but Lois moved on when Superman ran away. So will he return to her and repent for abandoning her? Will he return to his son, who needs guidance that really only he can provide? Not to mention Lex Luthor’s threat of global destruction. This world adopted him in his hour of need; will he now, in its hour of need, adopt it?

Superman Returns reminds me of Peter in the courtyard outside Jesus’ trial. Jesus had embraced Peter with no discernible benefit to himself; will Peter now embrace Jesus and all the struggle and pain that comes with him? How now shall Peter, shall Superman, shall we live?

Superman’s vocation is caught up in his identity—the previews and teasers for Superman Returns have played up the messianic undertones of his back story. Likewise, X3’s identity questions have implications for each mutant’s vocation—powerless ex-mutants give up the potential that their powers afforded them. That’s the skeleton of every hero’s story: Who am I? What’s happening? How will I respond?

Sounds like a worthwhile exercise for each of us—no matter what age we are, whether we see the movies or not.

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