The Sacred Blue Eyes

The Kozlovic’s definition of Christ Figure: the Ultimate Advertisement of American Culture? 

Christ Figure? Totally.

Definitely.

We have discussed about many characteristics of determining Christ figure, I find one characteristic particularly interesting. As mentioned in Kozlovic’s article, the blue eyes!

Is Christ figure just another representation of the white dominated Hollywood culture? 

Although we have discussed that Christ figures can come in all different forms, Kozlovic seems to only consider 25 characteristics of what is considered as Christ figure. We discussed the example of “ The Greatest Story Ever Told” on the blue eye aspect of Jesus, it is purely intentional and it reflects the commonality of American. 

Kozlovic in this article of “the structural characteristic of cinematic Christ figure” argues the commonality of Christ figures in films, and he is concerned that the figures have been neglected, resisted and rejected. He creates an evaluative list of 25 characteristics that would define what is Christ figure. He does not mention whether Christ figure has to contain all these characteristics and he dismisses the possibility that there could be more than one Christ figures in a film. One of the most interesting characteristics of Kozlovic’s list, is a pair of piercing blue eyes.

Possibly...?

Kozlovic acknowledges the weirdness of a man with Jewish background to have bright blue eyes, though he believes that the color of blue is the color of the divine, of truth and of fidelity, and that it is also a symbol of purity, therefore Christ-figures would have blue eyes. In fact, blue eyes are normally considered as a recessive trait among all eye colors, it is not the most common eye color though one out of every six American is believed to have blue eyes. Is Kozlovic's blue eye Christ representing these people? Is he trying to make blue eyes superior by regarding it as somehow religious? Kozlovic uses many examples of how Christ figure is incorporated in popular Hollywood films such as Superman, the Day the World Stood Still…etc. Interestingly, these “Christ figures” not only match with Kozlovic’s idea of how Christ figure should look like, they are also very typical Hollywood, American looking figures. Kozlovic argues that due to the lack of biblical education, viewers are less appreciative of religion-incorporated films. Though, is it possible that Hollywood has shaped religion into a way that only certain people can relate, only those who resemble Christ figures? Is Christ figure some sort of advertisement that aims to sell religion to a targeted group: Americans, making religion only accessible to those who belong? As Kozlovic mentions, blue is chosen as representation of Jesus eyes because his eyes “must have been remarkable”, as for those who don’t own a pair of blue eyes, Kozlovic refers those as the “cinematic code for sickness, the demonic, and evil or bad aliens”. Kozlovic claims that his list would prevent viewers from seeing what they want to see, but in fact, is it helping him to see what he wishes to see?

Christ Figure? Not so much.

Kozlovic, Anton Karl. “The Structural Characteristics of the Cinematic Christ-Figure”. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 8 (2004): 39 pp.