The Myth of the American Superhero. - book review

Humanist, May-June, 2003 by Fred Edwords

by John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett (Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge, England: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002); 416 pp with notes and index; $27.00 cloth.

ancient cultures are known for their mythic narratives but it is only recently that a preponderance of scholars have come to recognize that modern society is every bit as imbued with them. Myths frame social thinking. However, some who comment on this phenomenon maintain that what we see around us are essentially ancient myths living on in our cinema, literature, and other art forms. Philosopher John Shelton Lawrence and New Testament professor Robert Jewett beg to differ. Their book is an exploration into what they term the American monomyth and how its unique character manifests itself throughout our culture.

Joseph Campbell summarizes the essential story elements of the ancient monomyth thus: Modeled after rites of initiation and maturation, it features a hero who ventures away from the everyday world into one of supernatural wonder. After a successful struggle against fabulous forces there, the hero returns to the everyday world to bestow benefits on the people. We can recognize this plot in stories ranging from the myths of Prometheus to the tale of Hansel and Gretel.

Nevertheless, the American monomyth has a different plot. Lawrence and Jewett summarize it in this wise:

   A community in a harmonious paradise is
   threatened by evil; normal institutions fail
   to contend with this threat; a selfless superhero
   emerges to renounce temptations and
   carry out the redemptive task; aided by
   fate, his decisive victory restores the community
   to its paradisiacal condition; the
   superhero then recedes into obscurity.

This is a tale of redemption, the ultimate roots of which are biblical. But it has a distinctive American character that can be traced back to Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows of the late nineteenth century. The most direct and straightforward expressions of the American monomyth are found in the original radio dramas of the Lone Ranger, superhero comic books, and many of the films of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Mel Gibson.

The authors, covering a timespan of more than a century, take pains to analyze a variety of specific plots in novels, television shows, films, news reports, and even video games which, one way or another, fit the outline they've identified. The usual form of the American monomyth involves violence. The authors demonstrate this in an analyses of novels ranging from The Virginian by Owen Wister to The Turner Diaries by Andrew Macdonald (William Pierce). They show it in their exploration of films like Air Force One, The Birth of a Nation, Braveheart, Death Wish, Independence Day, The Matrix, The Patriot, The Shootist, The Unforgiven, and the three Rambo movies.

A nonviolent form of the American monomyth exists as well. It finds its origins in Charles Dickens' character of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop and Johanna Spyri's Heidi. In these stories, the sexual renunciation of the superhero is replaced by sexual innocence, the tool of violence is replaced by the tool of psychological manipulation, and redemption through annihilation of evildoers is replaced by redemption through conversion of evildoers. This is the model followed in such television series as Little House on the Prairie, Murder She Wrote, Star Trek, and Touched by an Angel, as well as in the comic strip Mary Worth.

Because of the quasi-religious following it has inspired, the authors single out Star Trek for special treatment. In the chapter "Star Trek's Humanistic Militarism," they note with praise how the series humanistically pioneered the inclusion of blacks in leading roles and women in commanding positions. The series also takes an understanding, rather than an adversarial, approach to enemies and evidences a desire on the part of the lead characters to avoid violence in the resolution of conflicts. But the authors lament how the series otherwise falls into the American monomythic pattern by the way in which most episodes are, essentially, stories of Mary Worth meddling her way through outer space. The sexually pure heroes at the bridge of the starship Enterprise--none of whom are married or otherwise involved in lasting relationships that could compete with their military camaraderie--arrive to redemptively relieve the suffering of unenlightened souls on various planets. The authors also note--in looking at the the later television series, its spin offs, and the films--that "the political structure of all the Enterprises is hierarchical military command." The value of democratic and family institutions is barely recognized.

This is where Lawrence and Jewett make their strongest points. They find it troubling that in the United States, a nation constituted on Enlightenment principles of people's governance and the rule of law, the most popular entertainments should focus on unattached vigilante superheros, working alone or in small cadres, who violate legal standards, ignoring social institutions in order to save a body politic too incompetent to save itself.