The Myth of the American Superhero.

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.

While this undemocratic structure is most blatant in the Charles Bronson Death Wish films, it also comes out in the original series of Star Trek where Captain Kirk, as if answerable only to some higher law, routinely transcends "both due process and the moral code of the Federation's own `noninterference directive'" to carry out what he perceives as his mission. The inherent paternalism in this is most evident in the episode called "The Apple," wherein Kirk and company arrive on Gamma Trianguli VI, discover that its people live in an Edenic paradise of stable innocence, determine that this isn't a "valid culture," and deliberately subvert its security in the interest of ironically imposing humanistic notions of self-reliance and cultural evolution.

However, the crew of the nondemocratic starship Enterprise does frequently advocate democracy for others. Although the same can't be said for the social ideal commonly offered in most Disney films. Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King, for example, all glorify monarchy or aristocracy and support its continuation, even though the first two of these involve the raising up of humble peasants to high privilege. In the most popular of these films, The Lion King, the antidemocratic message is inescapable. As Lawrence and Jewett put it: "the most powerful, provided they show a little compassion, shall rule the rest; and the ruled shall be happiest when they festively celebrate their oppressors." They see the film as nothing more than European-style "feudal restoration drama transposed to the African savannah" in which we are made to care about a benign dictator as he struggles to ascend to a throne deceitfully taken from him by a malevolent usurper. Similar feudal values blaze forth in the Star Wars epic.

Nevertheless, not all American entertainments are of this variety. Democratic values do stand out, for example, in the films of Stanley Kramer, particularly his Judgement at Nuremberg where democratic institutions prevail over those responsible for social harm. The authors also point to Helen Prejean's book, Dead Man Walking, later made into a film starring Susan Sarandon. Here we follow a very fallible individual--not at all a superheroine--"who is optimistic about the power of public discussion" as she learns there are no simple answers and quick fixes to the problems society faces.

If we grant the observations and conclusions of Lawrence and Jewett, however, the question remains why we should be troubled by the trends they describe. These authors respond that the uncritical acceptance of the American monomyth actually affects social policy.

For example, in the 1980s many people thought that difficult school issues could be solved through superheroics of the type made famous by Joe Clark, the bull-horn and baseball bat-wielding New Jersey high school principal reputed to have cleansed his urban school of student violence and dope dealing, and to have improved test scores, by his individualistic and domineering approach. He even became the hero of a television docudrama, Lean on Me. But the facts are otherwise. During his tenure, student scores at his school remained below average and the dropout rate increased. Eventually, the local school board, no longer able to tolerate his abrasive methods, had to fire him.

In a similar vein, Oliver North was able to stand before Congress, admit his lies and individualistic actions, yet achieve hero status among not only millions of citizens but some politicians as well. He was, to them, a redeemer unafraid to cut the Gordian knot of democratic red tape in pursuit of a righteous cause. Today we have President George W. Bush who, using the rhetoric of the American monomyth, has launched two wars against "evil," the latter in defiance of world opinion and the United Nations.

So, I think Lawrence and Jewett are on to something. But I don't share their apparent bewilderment over why a democratic society would develop a love for entertainments which glorify vigilante action and denigrate public institutions. After all, there is a strong and longstanding strain of rebellion and atomized individualism in American culture. The nation's history began with a revolution against an established power, and individual heroes have continually been glorified. So there's nothing surprising here. Furthermore, after a daily grind of having to work through institutional red tape and family compromises, many ordinary people long to escape into a simpler world of superheroism. This can provide not only catharsis but renewal and inspiration for tackling problems in a fresh way. In this regard, the effects of monomythic entertainments can be beneficial. Nevertheless, the authors are right to make us aware just how deep and wide the American monomyth goes.

Fred Edwords is editor of the Humanist.