Flashback: Where was God, after the Thanos "snap"?
The faith-shaped hole in this Marvel universe passion play was a classic "lighthouse" parable about pop culture
If you know your Sherlock Holmes, you are familiar with the classic “dog that did not bark” scenario. Here is the key bite of dialogue from “The Adventure of Silver Blaze.”
Detective: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
Sherlock Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Detective: The dog did nothing in the night-time.
Sherlock Holmes: That was the curious incident.
It’s a matter of simple logic. If the dog didn’t bark at a dangerous intruder, then the guard dog must have already known said intruder. The absence of barking was the clue Holmes noted.
That’s a literature classic. However, I have always been a fan of a different story that makes a similar point. I call it the “lighthouse parable” and I used it many times during the two-decade run of GetReligion.org to illustrate cases in which the LACK of information or voices in a story was evidence of media bias or ignorance.
In this case, we are going to use this parable as a way to see a spiritual hole in a massive pop-culture phenomenon in America and around the world. Thus, here is a flashback to the lighthouse parable:
Once there was a man who lived in a lighthouse on the foggy Atlantic. This lighthouse had a gun that sounded a warning every hour. The keeper tended the beacon and kept enough shells in the gun so it could keep firing.
After decades, he could sleep right through the now-routine blasts.
Then the inevitable happened. He forgot to load extra shells and, in the dead of night, the gun did not fire.
This rare silence awoke the keeper, who leapt from his bed shouting, "What was that?"
This leads me to a question: How many of you, gentle readers, were among the millions of people around the world, spending billions of dollars, who visited theaters to see the “Avengers” passion play? How many of you have seen it streamed visually or chopped up into basic-cable fodder?
Basically, the Marvel Comics universe (33 movies at this point) has become a cultural phenomenon that is too large to ignore (even though it is currently wrestling with woke temptations and falling ticket sales).
But have parents, pastors, teachers and counselors asked any faith-based questions about all of this? Why or why not? After all, we are talking about movies packed with supernatural (or science bending) magic and characters that, to various degrees, resemble the Greek gods of mythology.
People get really involved in this stuff. Obviously.
What was the most important faith-shaped hole in the two-part “Avengers” finale? Here is one of my “On Religion” columns from several years ago that dug into that.
Heads up: There is a very, very important theological term involved in this particular puzzle. Can you say “theodicy”?
As most occupants of Planet Earth know, last year's "Avengers: Infinity War" ended with the genocidal demigod Thanos using six "infinity stones" to erase half of all life in the universe.
It would have been logical to assume the sequel, "Avengers: Endgame" would start with lots of funerals, with pastors, priests, rabbis, imams and other shepherds working overtime to answer tough, ancient questions.
That assumption would be wrong.
"People are mourning, but they're going to therapy and support groups," said film critic Steven Greydanus of DecentFilms.com, also a permanent deacon in the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. "What we don't see are grieving people in church or even at funerals. … We don't hear anyone asking, 'Where is God in all of this?' "
It's rare to hear the theological term "theodicy" in movies, but people who frequent multiplexes often hear characters suffer tragic losses and then ask, "Why did God let this happen?" The American Heritage Dictionary defines "theodicy" as a "vindication of God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil."
This God-shaped hole at a pivotal moment in the "Avengers" series offers a window into the soul of the Marvel Comics universe and the minds of executives who shaped most of the 22 movies in this giant pop-culture mythology, said Greydanus.
"We are talking about a major fail, and not just from an artistic point of view," he said. "This shows a stunted view of how most people on Earth live their lives. Even people who are not religious tend to cry out and ask the big spiritual questions when faced with tragedy and loss. That's part of what it means to be human."
Not that many consumers are complaining. In its first 11 days, "Avengers: Endgame" pulled in $2.19 billion at the global box office — the fastest a film has reached $2 billion. Many insiders now assume it will eventually break the $3 billion barrier, passing the current No. 1 movie, the environmental-fantasy epic "Avatar," at $2.78 billion.
Truth is, global-market realities now affect how many blockbusters handle explicitly religious and even vaguely spiritual questions.
In the past, the Catholic faith of J.R.R. Tolkien shaped the worldview of "The Lord of the Rings." In Star Wars," George Lucas mixed "Flash Gordon" with comparative religion theories from Joseph "The Hero with a Thousand Faces Campbell." But the Marvel universe seems to have emerged from "a much more corporate place," noted Greydanus.
After all, showing Christian funerals might hurt a movie in the Muslim world. Showing mourners streaming into mosques might offend officials in the People's Republic of China. The result is a character like Tony "Iron Man" Stark, a hero "with feet of clay who has to grow up and redeem himself before he can save others. … But Marvel has never been interested in the moral content of that kind of maturity," he said.
Creating blockbusters that keep using this "superheroes with problems" formula — comic book plots, with hints of soap opera — is "way harder than it looks. … And, obviously, it appeals to millions and millions of people," noted Alex Wainer of Palm Beach Atlantic University, author of "Soul of the Dark Knight: Batman as Mythic Figure in Comics and Film."
The creators of the Marvel universe have "just never gone there," in terms of asking questions about God and the origins of creation. Yes, that's "pretty hard to do when you have a movie that shows half of creation being wiped out," he said.
Nevertheless, the "Avengers" story arc, with its tales about "demigods, sorcerers and engineers all working together" has successfully blurred the lines between myths and modern materialism.
"Why do we love this so much? … There's more to this than committee work," said Wainer. "This is storytelling with no limits — including the existence of an ultimate Creator or even an ultimate reality. Somehow, that appears to be working. It's appealing to the hearts and minds of millions of people who buy tickets and find these movies inspiring. …
"It's entertainment to the max. It's Myths 'R' Us. … But people seem to think this satisfies some need. I'm not sure what our religious leaders are supposed to make of all that, but I do think they should pay attention."
Was I taking this glitzy pop confections too seriously?
Why or why not?
I think the first decade of the MCU was something like the Pixar golden age, mostly great to superb storytelling followed by a falling off in quality. It took Marvel Comics cosmic superhero dramaturgy into cinematic presentation, safely packaged in a secular perspective, so Thor's Asgardian world was based on a highly advanced science resembling Norse mythology, which is more demythologized than the comics were. But such concessions were necessary to translate two-dimensional comics narratives into live-action films, disenchantment being the price. So the universe is a physical time/space reality that can be controlled by those with the right cosmic equipment, i.e., the Infinity Stones. An hierarchical order that includes the transcendent reality of a supernatural God interferes with that narrative freedom. This provided a very broadly appealing story format that, for a while, worked to offer a world of wonderful characters telling their own stories inside of one big one--the ultimate Franchise of franchises.
As a comics guy, this was my childhood fulfilled and it didn't bother me that it left out the Reality of creation. I knew what it was and wasn't trying to do, and don't take its entertaining storytelling as holding forth any major truth claims others than colorful good vs. evil, heroes vs. villains and sacrifice as the price some would pay for it. Like Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, and other lucrative franchises, these values attract large audiences, when well executed.
But since Endgame, as is broadly observed, the MCU has seen more uneven storytelling, a loss of narrative momentum and interconnectivity amongst the films. And with them, has come the increase in progressive content, as if, since the summer of 2020, creators guiltily worked at showing their woke bonafides, presenting the impression that such attention drains the creative energy from the scripts. (And we know the same is happening at another Disney property, Star Wars.) For a mega-franchise with a secularized mythology, the values that count are progressive ones they feel are needed for the "real world."
Short answer, probably yes. Marvel seems to be late pagan, demigods and monsters doing fantastic things but completely separated from philosophical underpinnings. Pop religion which tends towards miracles! vs. Philosophical which seeks to understand.
To me the most interesting thing about that pop religion vs. philosophical that Marvel fully displays is the alpha/omega 3rd rails. In modern philosophical religion the unallowed thing is teleology. Since prophecy isn't real, we can't make any comments about where it is all going. Philosophical religion seems to be all about ontology. Pop religion never addresses ontology. Everything just is and always was. But it is all about teleology. If I exert my superhuman will and skill, how can I bend the universe toward the good? Where are we going? All the characters are prophets.