Redefining Culture - One Hero at a Time

(Note, this may be a meaningless rant for many (and maybe it is) but there is a serious point in here)

First they told us Green Lantern is gay.  Then they announced Thor is a woman.  And now we're told that Captain America is black.  Those are just some of the changes made to some iconic heroes from my childhood.  Not that I have a problem with women heroes, the comic universe is full of great ones: Jean Grey, Storm, Invisible Girl, Wasp, etc.  And it’s obviously not that I have anything against a black superhero; again there is a rich history of “ethnic” heroes: Luke Cage, Falcon, Black Panther, etc.  And as for the Gay Lantern, well, yes I do have a problem there, but….

Here’s the deal.  Why do we feel the need to redefine established characters to reflect what we think is the politically correct worldview?  I mean, come on, Thor is not only an established comic character, but a character from ancient mythology who is obviously a male character.  He’s not a woman.   Just like when the Doctor Who universe was recently in need of a new Doctor, there were cries from a few that the new Doctor should be a woman.  Why?  He’s a male character. 

The issue with Captain America, for me, is not the racial issue, but by making the Falcon become the new Captain America, you’ve completely changed the whole deal.  Cap is a solid, moral, even old fashioned kind of guy.  And the comic folks think that’s a bad thing, so they want to replace him with a modern guy who has none of Cap’s old moral moorings.  Nothing about race there, just about character.  Captain America will cease to be the hero he was, simply because we want to redefine everything to reflect our own modern standards.

And the whole Gay Lantern thing?  That’s so much an obvious ploy to make homosexuality seem mainstream to our younger generations that it’s hardly worth mentioning.  Except for this reason:  we’re not limiting it to fictional superheroes.

I know that many will have stopped reading by this point because I’m ranting about fictional comic characters that they don’t even care about.  But the point is that we are doing the same sort of thing with real, historical figures as well.  We want to go back, and with our “modern” glasses on, reinterpret the past so that our own immoral values are vindicated.

The most recent example might be the suggestions coming out (pardon the pun) that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was gay.  For those of you who might not know, Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who resisted the Nazi regime and was imprisoned and died for that cause.  I’m not a  historical scholar, and I haven’t read the book which puts this theory forward so firmly, but I like the way this article summarizes things.  Even if Bonhoeffer did have a close relationship, even a deep love for another man, why does that have to automatically mean it was sexual? Only our over sexualized minds would go there.

For years I’ve heard from liberal, gay-agenda folks that King David had a romantic relationship with Jonathan.  Looking at these biblical characters, and seeing a deep love for one another, our modern immoral mindset can’t see how two men can care deeply for one another without it being sexual.  So we try to read our warped understandings back on to them.  As the article points out, this says more about our modern preoccupations than anything else.

The same retroactive arguments have famously been applied to President Abraham Lincoln among others.  I even heard one blasphemous suggestion that Jesus and His disciple John had a romantic relationship based on John being called the “disciple Jesus loved.”  Taking that and twisting it into something lewd reminds me of junior high boys giggling and laughing over some rude innuendo.

Now, please don’t hear me equating a character being a woman or being a non-white ethnic background as being immoral.  I know the liberals want to link homosexuality with the civil rights movement, and there are so many holes in that link that I don’t have time to begin.  That’s not the issue.

I simply wanted to use the desire to change these fictional characters in an attempt to be “politically correct” as an illustration of our warped sense of trying to rewrite history to fit our modern sensibilities.  We seem to abhor standards.  We hate things that disagree with the way we want the world to work.  And so we try to rewrite not only fictional history, but actual history, to make us feel better about ourselves.

There may be some well meaning value to that.  I mean, I’d love to go back and change a bit of history myself.  I’d love to undo the Crusades and the horrors done by sinful men in the name of Christ.  But I can’t.  That’s just the way it was.  I simply need to be sure I don’t repeat their mistakes.

So, I guess there are two warnings/pleas here.  One, just be aware that the culture will do whatever it can to reshape our thought patterns to match their own skewed view of reality.  Having a gay superhero is certainly aimed at teaching young folks that aberrant behavior is normal.  Making Bonhoeffer gay will make it look like this is much more normal.  Be wise and be aware of those efforts.

And two, please, can’t we just leave things alone?  If we’re so worried about letting people be who they are, then let Steve Rogers continue to be Captain America.  Let Thor continue to be the son of Odin.  Let them be who they are without trying to rewrite them to be something we think the modern world will more readily approve.  And for heaven’s sake let’s apply that to the real world, and let history be what it is, not what we want it to be.

Thus ends the rant that falls on deaf ears.