Remythologizing Sinbad and Hercules
I doubt many Christians look upon Hollywood as a friend to their religion. However, two cartoon movies my son never tires of watching take non-Christian stories and re-imagine them in a way indebted to the Christian imagination. Sinbad by Dreamworks and Hercules by Disney receive a retelling in which their central theme of heroism is informed by the Christian narrative. Sinbad and Hercules here prove their heroism not by successful voyages or accomplished feats, but by their willingness to give their lives for a beloved.
Writer John Logan and directors Patrick Gilmore and Tim Johnson transplant Sinbad from a setting during the Abbasid Caliphate to one in ancient Syracuse. Obviously Sinbad is not a Muslim in this retelling, a fact that in some ways is unfortunate, but in other ways opens up new possibilities for the character. Their story opens with the Eris, the goddess of discord, plotting mischief and chaos by intervening in Sinbad’s attempt to steal a protective magical book from Proteus, the prince of Sicily, who happens to be Sinbad’s childhood friend. Because of Eris’s meddling, Sinbad fails to obtain the book, but later finds himself charged with stealing it after Eris frames him. Sinbad is sentenced to die, but Proteus offers himself in Sinbad’s place on the condition that Sinbad steal the book back from Eris. Sinbad succeeds at finding Eris’s home, but he fails to reclaim the book, leaving him with a choice: escape a free man or return to Syracuse to die. Eris believes Sinbad is a heartless thief likes she is. Proteus believes otherwise and trusts in their childhood friendship. Sinbad ultimately proves his heroism by returning to die for a crime he didn’t commit. In relation to the crime, both Sinbad and Proteus are innocent men willing to die so that the other will live.
The influence of the Christian myth and symbols is even more pronounced in Hercules. Filmmakers Ron Clements and John Musker generally maintain the story of Hercules in its pagan Greek setting, though we see some exceptions. They present the Muses, for example, as gospel singers. These clearly modern Muses narrate a Christian story within a pagan setting. As in the Greek myth, Hercules seeks to become immortal. He fights monsters and saves masses and does all manner of heroic deeds, but Zeus tells him that all of this just isn’t good enough. More is needed, not just quantitatively, but qualitatively. Hercules ultimately finds his divinity by offering to Hades his life in place of his beloved Meg, whose life he wasn’t able to save through his heroic exploits of superhuman strength. In Hercules, to be godlike is to be truly heroic, and to be truly heroic is to make, out of love, the ultimate sacrifice.
Whatever the religious beliefs, if any, of the creators of Sinbad and Hercules, the Christian myth most certainly informed their imagination. While we can find examples of heroic self-sacrifice in non-Christian and pre-Christian stories, in our Western culture, the image of the innocent person dying in place of another and the association of heroism with loving self-sacrifice typically have their origin in the myth of Christ. The Christian myth and its symbols inform our cultural imagination. This myth and its symbols give rise to thought, as Paul Ricoeur says, and thought gives rise to imaginative creations and re-creations.
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