Elysium: Heaven on Earth

Much has been made about the politics in Neill Blomkamp’s bloody sci-fi romp Elysium. “Matt Damon plays an angry and well-armed member of the 99 percent in ‘Elysium,’ the most blatantly political sci-fi movie of the summer, if not of all time,” Newsday says. “The film's premise feels engineered to get Maureen Dowd to write an op-ed about it,” according to Deadspin.

And Elysium does feel pretty political, no question.

But the thing I was struck by the most was how strangely, quirkily spiritual it was.

It’s not overtly spiritual, mind you. Probably not even intentionally so—though the fact the elitist space station hovering above a grim and polluted earth is named Elysium in the first place is, perhaps, vaguely suggestive. And yet, the story’s central premise does feel quite Christian.

Warning: We’re going to get into some spoilers, here, so if you haven’t seen Elysium and would like to, you might want to check in here a bit later.

Elysium’s plot centers around Max (Damon), a one-time criminal who’s trying to live on the straight-and-narrow these days, working at a grimy and dangerous factory. But when he gets thumped by a dose of lethal radiation, Max realizes he only has one chance to survive: Get to Elysium and use one of their nifty healing cots—devices that heal anyone who still has a pulse instantly and are so pervasive that pretty much every Elysium manse has one.

But as he does what he has to in order to earn a ticket up to Elysium, he runs across an old friend of his, Frey, and her cut-but-very-sick daughter, Matilda (Emma Tremblay).

The meeting is a critical moment for Max, who eventually begins to think not just of saving herself, but Matilda, too. And in the end, he does save her. With a battery of important information stored unnaturally in his noggin, Max decides to download some critical codes that make everyone in the world—not just the rich—citizens of the space station, and thus give everyone access to Elysium’s nifty healing machines. But the downloading process, apparently, means certain death for Max. Max knows it. But he still does it—giving up his own life for Matilda’s future. 

It’s pretty obvious why so many observers have called Elysium blatantly political. But for me, there was more at work here.

It’s apparent that Max, for all his failings, is meant to be seen as a sort of sacrificial Messiah. One of the nuns who raises Max believes he might even be an answer to a long-whispered prayer. “You will do something very special one day,” she tells him. “Something you were born for.” Max’s sacrifice plays on a deep, time-honored theme that’s been in play for thousands of years. Perhaps Blomkamp would call Max a dystopian Prometheus, giving earth a life-changing tool.

But for me, the allusion takes on a distinctly Christian tint when we consider the paradox of Max’s sacrifice.

He sacrificed himself for one little girl. And yet in saving Matilda, he literally saved the entire world. We Christians are told very much the same thing about Jesus’ death on the cross: He came to save you and me, individually. He knows you. He loves you. He sacrificed Himself for you. It was a very personal thing, just as it was for Max. And yet in saving us, He also saved the whole world. It’s interesting that the exoskeleton Max has fused to his body seems to echo, in a way, a metallic, moving cross: an instrument of both torture and liberation.

 

And so, when you look at Elysium as not an economic symbol dividing the haves and have-nots but as a metaphor for heaven (where people never get sick and may, in fact, live forever—or at least for a very long time), this imperfect analogy becomes ever more resonant.

You see, before Max came around, people really had to earn their way into Elysium: They had to be, frankly, stinking rich. But Max opened the gates of Elysium to everyone—through an act of grace and of sacrifice. It didn’t matter how much money you had or what terrible secrets were in your past. Heaven was open to you in a way that it had never been before. 

Elysium, I don’t think, is a great movie. The story’s not as emotionally resonant as Blomkamp’s previous work in District 9, and it does come off as a little preachy at times. But still, it has something interesting to say.

Man of Steel: Longing for Superman

When I was a kid, my best friend Terry and I were obsessed with superheroes. Every day we were together, we'd strap on our capes, hope for some wind to make them flap dramatically and run around the back yard, saving imaginary citizens from disaster.

But I didn't imagine that superheroes were things that really walked (or flew) among us … until one afternoon when Terry told me that Superman was real.

"Is not," I said.

"Is too," Terry retorted. "He has a statue." Normally, that'd clinch it. After all, he was 6. I was 5. Terry knew far more about the world than I did.

But, my innate cynicism already beginning to surface, I refused to believe him. We argued for a good 10 minutes before Terry decided he was going to prove Superman’s existence to me once and for all: He was going to stand out in his front yard and call the Man of Steel in for a visit.

And so we tromped out, and we both shouted as loud as we could. Even in my skepticism, I was hopeful. Wouldn't it be great if the guy was real?

Superman, alas, never came.

That disappointing afternoon has been bouncing around in my brain ever since I saw Man of Steel, the latest Superman reboot (landing in theaters on Friday). Because, as even as I evaluated the movie and mulled the spiritual parallels and wondered just how much they spent on explosives or whether it was all just CGI, another thought—the same thought I had when I was 5—was percolating through my noggin.

Wouldn't it be kinda cool if Superman were real?

All due respect to Batman and Iron Man and Spider-Man and all those other Men-Mans, Superman's been the guy—the ultimate superhero—for 75 years now. And while perhaps he takes a backseat in terms of popularity, to more flawed heroes, he's still as recognizable and, in his own way, revered, as ever. He is a true hero: charismatic, polite, sacrificial. It's as if someone took everyone you liked and respected, rolled them up into one buff bod and gave him the ability to fly and weld with his eyes. I mean, what’s not to like about the guy?

And let's face it: We could all use someone who we could embrace without reservation—someone who'd never let us down. Someone who'd rescue us from the disasters and terror and misery that sometimes seems to stalk us. We could all use not just a hero, but a superhero.

As I write this, much of Colorado is on fire. My house isn't threatened this time, as it was last summer. But plenty of others are—and their owners are nervously watching news reports, perhaps gathering up precious belongings to evacuate, perhaps unsure of whether their home is still standing. It's terrifying, but it's more than that. Disasters like this leave you feeling powerless. And feeling powerless is one of the worst feelings there is.

Superman's never powerless—or, at least, hardly ever. Superman will always find a way to do something. Make things better. Save us.

***

From the very beginning of his career, Superman has always had some Messiah-like attributes. His Kryptonian name (Kal-El) has been translated to mean "Voice of God." He was of another world, yet became a "human" under the care of good but fairly nondescript mortals. He was meant to be a “savior.” In Man of Steel, those subtle nods become explicitly religious and Christ-like: This movie is as Christian a mainstream movie as maybe I’ve ever seen: Almost a Bible study in a cape. He revealed himself at age 33, asks advice from a priest in a church (as a stained-glass image of Jesus looks over his shoulder). He is, his adoptive human father tells him, “The answer. The answer to whether we are alone in the universe.”

And yet this Superman is very much human, too. He struggles with his nature, and seems a little appalled that God would’ve made him so freakishly, alarmingly different than everyone else. After his father dies, Clark becomes a vagabond—stopping to work in a far corner of the world for a while, then moving on when he fears his nature might be discovered.

But in the end he realizes he must take on a greater mantel to save humanity. And to do so, it seems, he must turn himself in. He allows himself to be handcuffed and led, presumably, to his fate. It’s a nifty little echo of Jesus’ own trip to the cross—a symbolic surrender to authorities that, really, had no authority or power over them.

Part of me would like to ramble on. There’s a lot of spiritual niftiness at play here.

But I want to go back to the anecdote that started this whole narrative … the day my friend Terry and I learned that Superman wasn’t real. And we must ask the inevitable question: If Superman and Jesus are so much alike, is Jesus real? Plenty of us call on Him in our darkest times. And sometimes, it doesn’t feel like we get an answer. Are we calling in vain? Are we just longing for someone to save us—someone who’s not there?

Superman, the original comic-book character, was the work of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, both Jewish immigrants. And maybe Superman, if he was intended to be a Messiah, perhaps originally reflected more of what the Jewish people always expected a Messiah to be: A superhuman warrior, righting wrongs and rescuing us all from evil.

But as Christians, we interpret the concept of Messiah quite differently. God seems to love working with paradox, and Christianity is based on the greatest paradox of them all: A “Savior” who, it appeared, couldn’t even save himself. And yet in that act of apparent weakness—in a moment of apparent cataclysmic defeat—Jesus was both strong and eternally victorious. Weird.

Two thousand years ago, we were looking for Superman. We got something even better, even if it was hard to recognize at the time. Jesus didn’t just save our lives or homes or society: He saved us—the soul of us, the core of us.

We get that. And yet (paradoxically) we don’t. And maybe, in a way, we’re incapable of getting it. We’re human, after all—very much attached to our lives and livelihoods and stuff. We hurt. We suffer. We cry out for help.

Sometimes that help comes obviously and unmistakably. Every once in a while, miracles, or things that can seem like miracles, swoop out of the sky and give us exactly what we need. It comes like Superman, full of might and muscle and X-ray vision.

Sometimes it comes more quietly. We’re given a sense of peace. We’re given new determination to tackle our troubles, or perseverance to push through our trials.

And sometimes, it feels as though help doesn’t come at all. That’s hard to write and it’s hard to admit, but sometimes it’s true. There are times we shout for a Savior at the top of our lungs. We plead for help. And in the midst of our hurt and grief, it can feel as though no one came.

I don’t think, when we feel like that, it’s because (as sometimes happens with Superman) God’s too busy saving other people to tend to us at the moment. I certainly don’t think it’s because we’re calling on someone who’s not even there.

I believe that He’s there and He hears us. He loves us dearly. But at the same time, He understands—and wants us to understand—that in the deepest of ways, we don’t need saving: We’ve already been saved. It’s not that He’s not coming for us. It’s that He already has. 

Casting for the Crown

Sure, there’s a big movie about Noah coming out in 2014 (though production has been delayed a bit, ironically due to flooding), and a massive 10-hour ministeries on The Bible next spring. But while the Bible is big business in Hollywood right now, I haven’t heard anything about a major motion picture based strictly on the Gospels trundling out in the near future. (It seems a few have been done already.)

Clearly, Hollywood is waiting a bit before the inevitable reboot ... but you can't wait too long. Which, naturally, makes now the best time to pick out a cast! At least, that seems as though that’s the idea behind a question asked by VanityFair and 60 Minutes: "If you were directing a new film version of the New Testament, which actor would you cast to play Jesus?"

Denzel Washington was the runaway favorite, apparently. And in my opinion, he’d be a great choice. He made a kick-butt biblical defender in The Book of Eli, for one thing, and you can picture doing pert near everything the New Testament might ask of him—from turning over tables to weeping occasionally to bantering with the woman at the well. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a Christian, either.

But runner-up Daniel Day Lewis would be a pretty awesome choice, too. (I’m reviewing Lincoln next week for my day job. Can’t wait!) Woody Allen and Philip Seymour Hoffman didn’t fare so well in the poll.

It’s a pretty interesting exercise, though, casting the Bible. I wrangled up a would-be dream cast for Genesis a few years back for Beliefnet.com, and it was a hoot. And the entertainment industry already knows that Exodus can make a popular, action-packed movie, too. (In fact, rumor has it that Steven Spielberg is close to signing a deal to direct just such a film. Really.) But let’s face it, once you hit Leviticus, you realize that not every book in the Bible is primed for a major Hollywood production. 

Zombies and Jesus

Every so often, it rises. It shambles, groaning, across the Internet—haunting sites and stalking through comments and fostering half-formed memes, always on the prowl for another unsuspecting web denizen to bite.

The concept of Zombie Jesus is a hard one to put to rest.

In some ways, Zombie Jesus is akin to the ol' Flying Spaghetti Monster. Just as the Spaghetti Monster (central deity for Pastafarianism) was designed to lampoon a belief in God, Zombie Jesus is intended to mock the idea of Easter. And while the meme isn't nearly as popular as, say, Tebowing, Zombie Jesus boasts several websites, a short movie, a Facebook page and a T-shirt business.

But unlike the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is just pretty silly and slapdash, Zombie Jesus has some, er, teeth. Adherents to "Zombie Jesus Day" note that Christ, in true George Romero fashion, crawled out of his tomb. They'll toss out Jesus' own words from John: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:53)

The parallels are so obvious that even some Christians  have begun, in a different sort of way, to play along. Clay Morgan in his book Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, Reborn, draws some interesting parallels between faith and the pop culture zombies and vampires we know so well. A series of essays called The Undead and Theology has just made its way to Amazon’s massive shelves. And then there’s Jeff Cook, contributing to Scot McKnight’s stellar Jesus Creed blog:

He came back to life after his death. He is chasing all human beings everywhere. Once he gets hold of people, his blood changes them and they in turn seek to change others.

Could it be more clear? Jesus was a Zombie.

Now before we go too far along these lines, it’s important to note that Cook, like most Christians who start walking down this Walking Dead road, tells us that Jesus offers real life: It’s those without Him that are the real zombies.

I totally get that—though I don’t want to take the metaphor too far, lest non-Christians begin to fear we might start stalking them like we were Will Smith in I Am Legend.

But what I want to talk about tonight is a little less deep—but maybe in rhythm with a Halloween blog post.

The picture that the most irreverent Zombie Jesus fans paint is, perhaps, closer to how the Easter story struck ancient Palestine than the beautiful story we know it to be today: For the Romans and Jews who were around back then, Jesus’ death and resurrection must’ve felt like a bad horror flick (had they been watching horror flicks back then).

From what I’ve read, being crucified was about the worst imaginable way to die for turn-of-the-first-millennia people. The entire process was designed to strip every last bit of dignity from the victim. They were executed completely naked, their arms stretched wide in the most vulnerable position imaginable. Those being crucified lost control of every bit of their bodies before it was over. It was horrific and humiliating—so much so that it was rarely spoken of by the ancient Romans, at least not in great detail (or so I’ve read). As for the resurrection itself—well, I don’t think the ancient Jews or Romans had a concept of zombies, but any sort of physical resurrection would’ve been out of kilter for not just everyday life, but for the theological theories of the day. Many pagans believed in life after death, but most assumed it would be a simply spiritual life—free from the chains of the physical body. The idea that Jesus would’ve been bodily risen felt, to them, a bit of an afterlife cheat.

As such, Jesus’ resurrection story would seem ripe for vicious lampooning. Would a god really choose such an ignoble way to die, and be resurrected in such a gauche form? It was as preposterous as—well, Zombie Jesus.

And yet, the belief in Jesus’ resurrection survived and thrived. It was as if the early Christians heard the mockery and simply smiled, secure in their faith. How could they be so unfazed by all the taunts, so immune?

It seems to me the most sensible answer is also the simplest. What they believed—no matter how ludicrous it sounded to contemporaries—was true.