I recently got to watch the New Spiderman, No Way Home with my kids. Its been a while since I have been to the movies- so I enjoyed the mind numbing visual effects through 3D glasses, the loud SFX that transport you into feeling the whole story plot through every fiber in your being…. and the tedium of nearly 2 whole hours waiting for the end becuase the thin story line just seemed to beg for more CGI to thicken the drama…. But I digress,…. I am not a movie critic…Plus I actually enjoyed the movie…or rather I enjoyed that it gave me something to connect with my teenage boys about.
The real problem I have with Spiderman’s story is on 3 levels and they all hinge on spiritual thoughts. The first thought is how it seems to blur the lines between good and evil. I applaud the movie for trying to introduce a new way of looking at Good Guys and Bad Guys. The stuff we grew up watching always had a superhero who always manages to vanquish the villain, making for what we thought was a happy ending. Here the good guy…. or should I say the good kid, tries his best to help rehabilitate the bad guys…
This is the first problem. Spiderman communicates a false expectation of reality. That we can have enough good in ourselves to not only overcome evil that is done to us but also to help evild doers change for the better. This is a big fat lie… and yes I am calling out the storyline on this score. Spiderman suffers great personal tragedy, yet he is still able to rise above the pain and grief and commitedly seek the restoration and redemption of his enemies. This idea is not only false, it can be incredibly frustrating, especially for youthful, idealistic audience whom are obviously targeted by this movie.
The second false narrative is that we can overcome evil and turn it into a force for good. This is closely connected to the third false narrative in the movie that evil can actually become good. There is no thin line between good and evil. The movie seems to attempt to bridge the gap between a world where movies had a clear distinction between good and bad guys. In presenting this novel perspective, it tends to humanize or make the bad guys seem not so bad and give the appearance that evil people need not be seen as evil but empathized with becuase they too are victims of their own evil. The real danger here to young audience is that that the real complexities of “sacrificing your good self in pursuit of redeeming a bad person” are completely avoided or somewhat romanticised. This illusion can set up an unhealthy, unrealistic standard for young peoples’ relationships.
Apart from avoiding real world realism in the depiction of the complex relationship between Good and Evil, the movie presents a worldview that overemphasizes human goodness. The idea that we are capable of goodness in and of ourselves and even goes as far as to suggest that we possess enough goodness in ourselves to overcome consequences of evil in our lives and rise above its painful effects to help turn evil people to good.
In short, this movie is an affront to Christ. It attributes the work of salvation to human effort and not divine plan. The burden of saving bad people from their evil ways is suqarely placed on the shoulders of good people and moreso on the barely formed broad shoulders of a teenage kid.
The subtle takeaways from Spiderman is that we can do for ourselves and others that which could only have been done and accomplished by God through Jesus Christ. It is only through Jesus Christ’s atonement and sacrificial death that evil in this world was conquered. It is only by our accepting and believing in Jesus Christ that we can possess any good in ourselves, be capable of good actions, or accomplish the superhuman feats of forgiveness for the pain and injury caused to us by the evil actions of others,….and of a certainty, we can never make evil people good, any more than we can save them from thier evil ways. This is the sole prerogative of God, through the savior of all the world, Jesus Christ.