We’re moved into our new location, so I’m now back on Codexegesis.
When I saw the trailer for Rambo (IV) about a month ago, I wondered if Sly Stallone would try to use the church marketing he had for Rocky Balboa. In case you didn’t know, Sly wanted churches to employ some of the marketing tactics that worked so well with The Passion of the Christ. Pastors could show clips from the movie as sermon illustrations! I wondered if that would happen here with Rambo as well. First, it would continue the trajectory: Passion: the hero is beaten, tortured and killed for our sins; Rocky Balboa: the hero now beats another man in the name of that first hero, for whom he has reverence; Rambo: the hero now kills in the name of and to rescue the servants of the Passion hero (Rambo rescues Christian missionaries). I’m glad that the church marketing hasn’t been used for this film.
But the trailer does portray Rambo as the reluctant Messiah. One of the first shots shows a cross held in his fingers. This Crusader then enters the war zone of Burma to rescue captured missionaries. That country gets portrayed not just as the land of oppression under the military Junta, but also as the dominion of the snake, as the trailer shows the seedy night life having a snake market with cobras dancing or fighting (but reviews of the movie say that Rambo catches snakes for a market in Malaysia – here I’m following the narrative flow of the trailer). So a Rambo pumped up on steroids (the kind that Stallone found out are illegal in Australia) – so that 60 year old Sly now looks like Ang Lee’s hulk – enters the realm of the snake to bring back the servants of the Lord. (Very archetypal.)
I mention the movie and its trailer here because I’m blogging a bit about Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation. Rambo offers an example of the cross being joined with the sword, which here takes the form of a hunting knife, fists, bow and arrow, and lots of guns. This is a movie, then, that can appeal to both our spiritual sense with a picture of Jesus, the Christus Victor who entered to the realm of the serpent to defeat that dragon and rescue humanity, while at the same time appealing to our baser desire for blood, guts, and revenge.
Notice, too, that Rambo’s enemies are not politically volatile ones, i.e. Islamic Terrorists. Burma is a place that’s been in the news (somewhat) for its recent crackdowns. So Americans of all stripes, minus pacifists, should be able to enjoy this movie.
Dave, since you haven’t written in response to my posts about Gregory Boyd, I will assume that you view his book and this movie the same way I do.
I’m glad you’re blogging again, Ken. I’m subscribed via my Google reader.
Some of the greatest works in the West have drawn on Christian imagery to explore the significance of the Christian narrative and illuminate human experience. Some of the tawdriest works of “art” have simply pressed such imagery into service of the makers’ private agendas, adding nothing to our collective reflection on the tradition and in many cases utterly disregarding it. Drawing the line between art and mere entertainment is very hard to do, but your discussion of Rambo gives us one place to start. Even the post-Christian heart stirs when it sees a crucifix. It is unfortunate that Stallone apparently wants to use this image to roil the emotions but shirks his responsibility to help direct them to their proper end. Or so I assume; I haven’t seen the movie.