ladywindupbird replied to your post
For me it's because recent incarnations of Superman have taken the story and made it aggressively Christian, effectively erasing the Jewish tropes used to create him. So I double down in drawing parallels between Superman and the story of Moses, rather than the new surge of parallels to Jesus. I'm sick of Christian Messiah parallels in our superhero stories.
Disclaimer: The only Superman movie I’ve seen is Batman v. Superman and I hear it’s the other Superman movies that have gone hard on Christian Messiah parallels, so I’m speaking from a place on ignorance on that.
One the one hand, I’m all for playing up those Jewish tropes and parallels. Have him raise a fancy Kryptonian rod and part the waters with Aquaman standing by his side! Have him have a stutter. Have more story lines about the pressures of assimilation! I’m all for that.
On the other hand, I don’t like it when people say that including Christian tropes makes him Christian. Figures and tropes like the Christian Messiah, fiery hell, sacrifice and salvation are all over Western media because it’s so largely been shaped by Christian forces. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, even (especially?) when Jewish creators choose to engage with them (think Leonard Cohen).
To say that by engaging with a Christian influenced tradition and using its tropes in a Christian majority media cultures (like the West) a character is becoming Christian involves far more erasure, I think, than engaging with those tropes themselves.
