Claudia Schippert, University of Central Florida
Abstract
Studying how popular iconography intersects with discourses of sexuality,
I describe contemporary cultural icons of heroic bodies with regard
to their significance for religious and national ideology. In
this paper I investigate multiple layers of complexity in the representation,
practices, and discursive implication of a Christian exercise chain,
the "Lord's Gym," and the particular bodies targeted and
produced there. Indicating implications, I suggest that studying contemporary
representations of heroic bodies, placed within the reemergence of
historical movements of "muscular Christianity" and vis-à-vis
critical discourse about masculinity and nationalism, contributes
to understanding religion in post 9/11-American culture.
I. The Icon
Billboard displayed at Route 50 (Colonial Drive) in Orlando, FL.
March 2002
Logo for "Lord's Gym" franchises (by lordshealthandfitness.com)
[1] The exercise chain "Lord's Gym" has been opening several
new branch facilities throughout Florida and the South. Billboards
sport the logo, well known through a widely distributed Christian
t-shirt (produced by 'Living Epistles' for many years):
Franchise T-shirts widely available. 'His Pain Your Gain' is a play
on the familiar workout motto 'no pain no gain'.
[2] A hyper-muscular Jesus bench-presses a huge cross (the sin of
the world) - and models Christian manhood in the capitalist marketplace
for the new millennium (coming soon to your neighborhood/now also
in a gym near you).
Advertising coupons for "Lord's Gym". Part of monthly "Best
of Orlando" packets, these were mailed to households February
to May 2002
[3] Over several months I received coupons as part of my monthly
package of advertisements from neighborhood businesses. In an
ever-expanding strip mall not far from my house, Christian men and
women exercised and built their bodies in what the parent corporation
('Lord's Health and Fitness') describes as "a facility
which provides a well-rounded health and fitness environment without
compromising a Christian atmosphere."[1]
[4] I have encountered the hypermuscular Jesus before. Mark Simpson,
in Male Impersonators (1994), concludes his chapter on bodybuilding
by claiming that
[t]he male bodybuilder dramatizes in his flesh the insecurity,
the uncertainty, the enigma of masculinity. He is a living testament,
not so much to the capabilities of the male body, its phallic power,
its massive irresistible virility (...) but rather to the sacred
mystery of sex and gender, the fluidity of the categories male and
female, masculine and feminine, hetero and homo and the fabulous,
perverse tricks they play.
What initially drew me to Simpson's quote was his addition, as final
thought, of lyrics from a Catholic hymn, originally written by Thomas
Aquinas:
Pange, lingua, gloriosi / Corporis mysterium.
(Sing, my tongue, of the mystery of the glorious body.) (42)
[5] The very last lines in a chapter on bodybuilding - in a thoroughly
contemporary book about men and masculinity - came from a hymn originally
written for, how could it be otherwise, the feast of Corpus Christi.
Simpson thus invoked the glorious body of Christ alongside his other
(latently gay) massive muscular built bodies. Simpson is one of several
academics who, like me, are intrigued by the practices of pumping
iron, bodybuilding competitions, and the complicated cultural dynamics
in and beyond the gym: excessive bodies that explode cultural categories
of gender, sexuality, and intelligibility. Some others in religious
studies have also written about the bodies produced through the worship
of iron; Steven Moore's hypermuscular - and potentially queer - Jesus
works out in God's Gym (1996), a book about postmodern New
Testament scholarship. Daniel Boyarin's embrace of Jewish sissies
in Unheroic Conduct (1997) provides helpful companions to the
set of hypermuscular bodies that scholars like David Halperin (1995),
Ann Pellegrini (1997) or myself (Schippert, 2001) have written about
in other contexts. Of course I also know about the manly Christians
and the heroic Jesus of muscular Christianity (Hall, 1997; Ladd &
Mathiesen, 1999; Putney, 2001). I will return to that context later
in this essay.
[6] Nevertheless, in the past, I have mostly engaged (and participated
in) a particular kind of academic appropriation of the hypermuscular
divine body: as a parody or over-the-top reading of biblical literary
analysis; or as a strangely suggestive icon for the variously queer
positions that hyper-built and strangely gendered hypermuscular bodies
take on in contemporary cultural contexts. There is something to learn
from such images and fantasies of academically queer transgressive
bodies. Encountering once again this Jesus, benchpressing the sin
of the world, drew me in for another closer look. In this article
I read the hypermuscular Jesus as a heroic icon. Its deployment in
the specific site, i.e. the Lord's Gym, points to connections among
Christian images, representations of male bodies, and the regulation
of sexuality and gender norms in American culture. Furthermore, it
raises questions about this icon's cultural context and intelligibility
and prompts further questions about historical connections or precedents.
[7] Building Christian muscles is not a new phenomenon -- as the
much longer history of the YMCA indicates. However, the "C"
in YMCA was at times contested and its meaning certainly changed over
the decades (Mjagkij & Spratt, 1997; Gustav-Wrathall, 1998.) In
the 1970s and 80s, the Y underwent a shift in focus from "Christian
character building" to "body building" as good in itself
(Putney 1997). Today, building Christian muscles seems to be
on few people's minds when entering the local Y.
[8] In the case of the "Lord's Gym", given the rather dominant
Christian symbolism, one might ask if this gym is different.
On the one hand, though unaffiliated with the YMCA, the Lord's Gym
shows similarly Christian brand-naming amidst a fairly normal gym
setting: Mostly located in the suburbs (read: in strip malls),
the focus is on individual bodies and on their control. Like
the YMCA, the Lord's Gym knows that (as Putney put it regarding
the YMCA) "people today hunger not for personal salvation ...
but for the feeling, the momentary illusion of personal well-being,
health and psychic security" (Putney, 1997, p. 244). On the other
hand, and quite unlike such a general unspecified well being, according
to a news report about the Lord's Gym and the current boom in "faith
and fitness," customers explicitly invoked sentiments of "body
as temple"-theology that are quite familiar to students of the
history of muscular Christianity and the YMCA: "The Lord says
your body is a temple, so you keep it fit and nice."[2] There seem to be some contradictions in the representation
of 'Christian-ness' in this gym.
[9] It is because of the interplay of, on the one hand, the parallels
and a shared legacy of evangelical Christianity and, on the other
hand, the differences in the contemporary cultural situation and in
the Lord's Gym's negotiation of them, that this gym emerges as a useful
site to explore the changing strategies and investment of Christian
material culture, and specifically of evangelical Christian embodiment
in contemporary America.
II. The Gym or: Where in the World/Gym is Christianity?
Mission Statement, Lord's Gym Website
[10] Consider this paradox: The Lord's Gym bills itself to
offer a serious approach to the distinctly Christian building of body
and soul. Yet it does so without a stated missionary purpose in the
gym. Instead, the Corporation explicitly displaces its evangelizing
impulse from the sphere of the gym to the financial support of organizations
that spread the gospel worldwide. First, results are guaranteed --
to be achieved in a "facility that [provides] a well-rounded
health and fitness environment without compromising a Christian atmosphere."[3] The
Christian meaning of the claim that "the Lord's Gym is a company
founded on Christian principles" is demonstrated in a concrete
explication of that principle: "A portion of your membership
will provide a financial resource to churches and ministries. In return,
these churches and ministries will promote salvation worldwide."
In another mission statement and web site, we learn that "[h]aving
affiliations with Compassion International and several other non-profit
organizations, Lord's Health and Fitness contributes 10% of all member
fees to these organizations as a way of returning thanks to God and
the community for the business."
[11] The Corporation seeks to distance itself from specifically religious,
or overtly missionary, intent in this (ironic) globalization. Reassured
that this is a really-real Christian gym --you know it by where your
money goes -- closer to home, we learn that "although the company
logo depicts Jesus and the Cross, Lord's Health and Fitness welcomes
all people without the risk of staff members forcing their doctrinal
or religious views as a criteria for membership."[4]
Evangelism is a step removed, farmed out to another, non-profit, organization.
[12] The question arises: What makes the gym (and the bodies produced)
Christian then? On the one hand this might seem like a very
silly question considering the ever present and rather dominant Jesus
icon and reference. But I am also skeptical of the ease with which
we are asked to read seemingly obvious signs. In that context I recall
that Janet Jakobsen once researched the Christian Coalition and tried
to find published material on the exact meaning of "Christian"
in the organization's name. Surely, there had to be a brochure, promotional
material, or a PR statement. Far from it. It took Jakobsen several
weeks of phone calls, ever re-connected to someone else who would
know what to tell her ... until finally, she was speaking to someone
who could clarify and spell out the exact meaning of "Christian"
in "Christian Coalition" (a puzzling question and
problem all too familiar in the historically shifting significance
of the 'C' in YMCA as well; see Mjagkij & Spratt, 1997.) Speaking
with someone who she assumes must have been a high ranking PR person
in the Christian Coalition, Jakobsen was told: "Ma'am,
you can be assured that we are Christian: It is in our name!"
It is in the name - as a sign and signifier. Christian it says-so
Christian it is! The assumption here being that saying it makes it
so. Thus some of the tensions - or contradictions - of twenty-first
century Christian brand-naming are resolved by evacuating content
from the (remaining though empty) sign.
[13] How does the production of "Christian" work in the
Lord's Gym? Does the Lord's Gym's insistence on its lack of
doctrinal enforcement in fact represent the absence of specific
"Christianity" in the gym? A typical news story
seems to suggest otherwise. Writes a reporter: "[a]t places like
the Lord's Gym you find an overall Christian experience."[5]
The owner John Freehling states that "what the spirit of
God does is alive here and it's alive in the people and the way we
act." A customer confirmed this: "You see the Lord
everywhere around this place [the Lord's Gym] and I like that. I like
that a lot." As one could tell from stepping into the gym
- or from merely reading the occasional newspaper article about it:
for all the ways the Corporation explicitly displaces its missionary
impulse outside the gym, multiple aspects within this specific Lord's
Gym point to a rich tapestry of religious practices and ideologies
that seek to materially produce Christian bodies. There are
posters, Christian music, a prayer request box, and the daily gathering
of staff for prayer incorporating those requests. There are also programs
aimed at muscle building and fat-loss include names like "Chariots
of Fire Spin," "Body of Armor Step Sculpt," "Praise
Dance," "Kids For Christ," and "Candlelit
Power Stretch" along with more generic fitness staples.
Pictures of Prayer Circle in the gym; Bible verses posted among workout
machines.
Report in the Orlando Sentinel , January 2002.
[14] Besides music, posters, and a prayer request box, the Lord's
Gym relies on (or produces) religious identity that is tied to a particular
dress code. Writes the same reporter, "The dress code is modest
- Christian tunes play overhead - and Bible passages are everywhere."
"I try to memorize them as I'm doing reps," says one exerciser.
Note that what is mentioned here is that "the dress code is modest"
while the reader is trusted to infer, associate, and imagine what
such modesty looks like. Presumably, bits of information like
"Christian tunes overhead - and Bible passages everywhere"
assist in this associative work. Officially, the company states "[a]
moderate dress code is encouraged at all franchise locations as well
as spiritually focused music and music videos." There
is no further explanation or description of the dress code.
Picture of "husband and wife" working out at the "Lord's
Gym".
Report in the Orlando Sentinel, January 2002.
[15] It is useful to flesh out what exactly the dress code is supposed
to be or do. It helps to see that particularly gendered ideals, especially
a particularly Christian masculinity are built up in this gym.
Female bodies are present, yet in specifically circumscribed ways.
Indeed, one of the main identity claims of the company is that it
"fosters a non-sex driven environment where men and women can
exercise without the discomfort of gawkers and those flaunting their
bodies openly." A recent newspaper article can illustrate
what this means: A "husband and wife team" attend
the Lord's Gym. And happily so, because even when the husband cannot
be the "chaperone", the wife does not experience the same
sexual aggression from other men in the gym that she had been subjected
to in the past, i.e. prior to joining this, the Lord's, Gym.[6].
The message is clear: Women are safe in this gym. Men protect rather
than prey on women -- and it is the dresscode, one has to assume,
that is responsible for this (untypical?) behavior.
[16] What is important to my argument here is that the (Christian)
bodies are produced within a specifically gendered matrix. The kind
of bodies the gym (seeks to) e/affect are connected to more than religious
identity. Very little in the news-stories discusses any details of
the dress code even while its result, i.e. "protection
from gawkers," is consistently mentioned in newspaper reports
and in publicity material issued by the gym as key to the positive
(or "uplifting") experience of customers in the Lord's Gym.
Close-up of advertisement coupon
[17] Another aspect of advertising further illustrates a paradox:
At the same time that the Lord's Gym advertises the absence of sexually
charged encounters that are uncomfortable or make women self conscious
of their (sexual-gendered) bodies, this gym can't escape the typical
marketing strategies either: "90 days till summer: are you
ready for swimsuit season?" exists next to the supposed absence
of gawkers. Gawkers are supposed to be discouraged, in order for wives
to feel comfortable without the chaperone husband to ward off sexual
aggression. At the same time, bodies-to-be-in-swimsuits are targeted
consciously and not-quite-ready fleshy target areas are raised to
their -guilty- conscience. It appears that it is not (hetero-)sexual
appeal that is being discouraged.
Online store for Lord's Gym clothing and related workout/brand
merchandise
[18] We may get another clue by looking at merchandise for sale at
the store and through its website: It is mostly typical athletic-logo-style
t-shirts, although of course with an evangelical twist ("J-Freaks:
Satan sucks"). Interestingly, next to t-shirts and some
typical baggy stuff for men, women are offered a spaghetti-strap outfit
(and high heels) as proper gym-clothing. "You'll be beautiful
inside and out" - not exactly a 'modest' display....
[19] Nevertheless, the poses, the clothing, the language used, all
contribute to the meaning of modesty: clothing that can support the
attempt to curb hetero-male aggression. However, this is also
and more importantly, the creation of an "atmosphere" that
defends against homoerotic aesthetics and the specter of gay bodies.
In order to make this point, I turn to another shift in advertising.
Documenting a shift in advertising from March to May 2002
(emphasis added)
[20] In a chronological comparison of the widely distributed advertisement-flyers,
one notices editorial shifts within the list of "services offered".
Erasing overt labels while foregrounding child/family-friendly services
and atmosphere, the services included change from "positive Christian
Music" to "positive music"; the explicitly 'family
friendly' dress code" changes into a more diffuse "family
friendly" while "The Cross Cafe/Smoothie Bar" disappears
completely and is replaced by "Free Kids Classes". This
subtle shift in advertisements de-emphasizes explicitly Christian
labeling and makes clear that what establishes the link between modesty
and protection from gawkers is language about the family. In my view,
it is the interpretation of "family-friendly" that gives
the modesty of the dress code its real meaning. At the same time,
it is here that the Lord's Gym erases and defends against particularly
sexual-gendered bodies while producing specifically wholesome meaning.
Again a seeming absence (or elision) of content (Christian-ness) is
re-imported through cultural and moral interpretation of what that
Christian-ness is to signify. (Ma'am, you can be assured that we are
Christian: we are family friendly.)
[21] My claim is that "wholesome" and especially "family-friendly"
means "not gay": These are families with kids; families
where protector/chaperone husbands are worried about the purity of
their wives, who in turn are asked to reflect on their swimsuit-shape
and may consider spaghetti-strap workout clothes. Without having sufficient
space in this article to fully analyze the advertising data, I want
to merely suggest that the men who sport the merchandise for sale
at the Lord's Gym look distinctly not-gay (if one takes the homoerotic
investment of a particular "gay gym body"-aesthetic to be
relevant at all). In addition, men at the Lord's Gym are depicted
either alone or together with a woman, but never with another man.
[22] None of this is surprising. Historically, men's exercise and
bodybuilding often had to deal with homoerotic or homosexual stereotyping
and implications. This was the case in the YMCA's move away from the
promotion of intense strong male friendships in the realm of the gym
- even while the actual Y's became or continued to be well known same-sex
cruising and sex grounds (Gustav-Wrathall, 1998; Putney, 2001).
In the case of the Lord's Gym, we see a similar attempt to reassert
buff masculinity untouched by the male homoerotic gaze.
[7]
[23] Even though the Lord's Gym is a pretty normal gym in some ways,
it carries the burden of embodying Christian masculinity at the beginning
of the 21st century: The Lord's Gym appears to be less concerned
with the (ideal) shape of muscles than it is with creating an "atmosphere"
of absent presence of the queer other, an atmosphere that is billed
as "morally wholesome" precisely because of exclusions it
effects and because of the kind of bodies produced as visible/worthy.
[24] It seems to me that there is more to the gym's Jesus-iconography
than some interesting marketing strategies. Regulating sexual bodies,
although more covert than the visible Christian posters and music,
does the work of producing a religious identity that is configured
and embodied along specifically sexual-political lines. Simultaneously,
gendered identity is configured along specific interpretations of
"Christian". In tracing the bodies that surface and those
that are erased a critical look into the kinds of repetitions that
are enacted in this Lord's Gym can open up useful connections. Analyzing
the differences that might be effected by repeating ("imaging
and imitating Christ") in this way can contribute to an
exploration of the function of built/excessive/heroic bodies in contemporary
U.S. religion and popular culture. An important and timely
project as hyper-visible/heroic bodies strut their stuff in a Christian
nation-at-war.
III. (Re)Emergence of Muscular Christianity?
[25] Historically, movements of "muscular Christianity"
focused on both wartime and world mission, seeking to produce manly
bodies that were simultaneously Christian and heroic. (Hall, 1994,
Putney, 2001.) Indeed, one was necessary to successfully be the other:
Christian exercise and muscular Christianity were meant to strengthen
and "beef up" weakly and "sissified" Christians
suffering from the feminization of American Christianity in the 19th
and early 20th century. War was welcome as a means to combat
softness and effeminacy found in Protestant Christianity. And athletic
activity was closely linked to this purpose. (Consider that basketball
was invented by a muscular Christian, James Naismith, at the YMCA
academy in Springfield, MA). Similarly, Christian Mission was considered
a battlefield that could showcase the manly strength of missionary
work, according to Teddy Roosevelt for example - who is also legendary
for his appreciation of football as soldier-training machinery (Bairner,
2001; Gorn & Goldstein, 1993; Pope, 1997; Rader, 1999; Riess,
1997).
[26] One could claim that the hypermuscular Jesus-Icon and
its guardianship of nervously reassured hetero-masculinity in the
Lord's Gym descends from the muscular Christians a century ago and
is reminiscent of figures such as Billy Sunday. Indeed, it is possible
to claim that Muscular Christianity, much like evangelical Christianity
more generally, has reemerged -- or was never gone, but has resurfaced
in mainstream media and politics (see Watt, 1991, for the conflicting
interpretations of the re-emergence of fundamentalism and evangelical
Christianity in America) and is today visible in conservative Christian
discourses about masculinity.
[27] Evangelical sports-ideology (itself historically not a constant,
but rather dynamically changing ideology) is re-embracing high profile
athletes, sport-stardom, and physical fitness/male prowess as models
for the Christian battlefield of life. (In this regard, Billy Sunday
is not the best parallel after all, as Sunday was opposed to "using"
sports to further the spread of the gospel.) Today, any sample
of contemporary Christian men's magazines or books will likely include
references to perceptions like the one pointing out that these are
"tough times" due to technological changes and challenges,
"tough times" in which "battles" must be fought
(Cole, 2002). Contemporary sports stars are hyper-visible in that
realm and establish a connection between physical fitness, hyper-built
bodies and Christian leadership and authority.
[28] Asked from a historical direction, we can think about these
movements and trends in connection with precursors of Muscular Christianity
of the Progressive Era. However, it is imperative that we consider
this contemporary re/emergence of "Muscular Christianity"
in connection with other contemporary ideologies. Despite, or maybe
precisely because of, its complicated and at times contradictory imbrications
with ideologies of nation and sexuality, the hypermuscular Jesus of
the Lord's Gym on the billboards (and t-shirts and walls and exercise
machines) points to a Christian masculinity that is not weak, humble,
yet ends up nailed to a cross. Rather, this Jesus-on-steroids is strong
and heroic and falls into a trajectory of masculinity that has in
the past lend itself easily to hypermasculine colonialist expansions
- at times evacuating religious content from heroic masculinist imagery
- at times using it directly.
[29] Historically, Christ has not always been portrayed in one or
the other way. Indeed, the iconography and its gendered, sexual, and
colonialist interpretations can open important views into the larger
social and cultural forces at a given moment. It therefore seems useful
to ask why now this particular heroic (divine) body - and to
explore what other heroic bodies are emerging (parallel or in opposition).
It seems likely that the cultural intelligibility of the Jesus icon
(i.e. why it makes sense to people who see it - and why it thus can
function as a marketing device for a chain of gyms, among other things)
should be related to the surfacing of other heroic imagery that draws
on similar discursive moments of cultural and social crisis/intervention.
IV: American Heroes
[30] Although the Lord's Gym displaces its missionary impulse onto
"Compassion International" (reassuring the members of its
evangelical heart while avoiding too aggressive a missionary face)
I could not help but notice that I was beginning to work on this material
when people in the U.S. began to live in a (post-9/11) nation that
was at war (and was getting ready to start another one): a war that
is in part constructed along religious categories, a war against a
particular kind of Islam. In the context of the year
following 9/11/2001 we have witnessed a massive increase of heroes.
Indeed, in today's US culture we have more heroes than we can count.
Alan Edelstein's 1996 book Everybody Is Sitting on the Curb: How
and Why America's Heroes Disappeared seems rather outdated. Besides
official markers, such as the postal stamp "Heroes 2001"
officially issued in 2002, celebrations and public icons of heroes
abound.
[31] In the larger context of my work, I explore several other examples
of contemporary heroic masculinity and its imbrications with Christian
ideology, both historically and in its contemporary form. In the remaining
space of this article, I want to point out a few of these heroic images
of embattled yet celebrated Christian masculinity that can point to
the complicated challenges we face in terms of understanding (or maybe
merely describing) the connections of sexuality, gender, and nation
in some of the heroic bodies displayed in contemporary American culture.
Mychal Judge's body being retrieved from the rubble of WTC.
This picture was the central image on the front page of the New York
Times on 9/12/2001.
Bookcover
Reinterpretation of the image as pieta in a collage on the website
'saintmychal.com'
[32] One of the best known examples makes the point that the
celebration of heroic masculinity so desperately needed right now
is intimately connected to religious, but also to sexual and national,
ideology - and to the manipulation of all of these issues in popular
and virtual media realms. The first recorded victim of the deaths
at WTC was Father Mychal Judge, chaplain of NYC firefighters. He is
already "an authentic American hero" (see the subtitle to
Ford, 2002, the first book about him). Furthermore, you can
learn more than you might want to know at "saintmychal.com"
a website dedicated to the discussion of Judge's eventual canonization.
Here too are offered products to buy, in the gift shop section
of the website. Hero or saint: hagiography seems to be
an all American activity these days - and always intimately connected
to purchasing products and commemorative items, lest we forget the
(perhaps all too fleeting) heroism of the new heroes.
[33] Indeed, in the case of Mychal Judge a process of hagiography
- including all its challenges - could be observed from day one: The
accounts of how exactly he died were soon contested; the picture on
the cover of the September 12th NY Times had been described as a "modern
pieta" more than once, as is most obviously the case on the Saint
Mychal website (see image above). With regard to the emerging hagiography
of Mychal Judge, we soon became aware of a couple of "problems"
that required urgent discussion: Judge was gay and a recovering alcoholic.
It is assumed that the Pope probably did not know this when he accepted
Judge's helmet from fellow Catholic firefighters. Despite calls for
his sainthood, Judge's order has refused entertaining any such thing,
stressing instead that Judge was "very human and flawed - just
like all of us." (www.saintmychal.com).
The heroic (and redemptive) status of a courageous saviour-figure
seems compromised if that figure is also gay. The celebration,
albeit contested depending on context, of a fallen (sic) priest as
Christ-like hero points to some of the complexities that support my
claim that we ought to think sex-gender-nation-religion together
if we are to describe or understand contemporary American culture.
Bookcovers
[34] A closely related example of (conflicting) images and representations:
Flight 93, the fourth plane that was hijacked and crashed in Pennsylvania,
most likely as result of passengers and crew struggling for control
of the plane. As is to be expected, several books were published immediately.
One of the first, Among the Heroes (Longman, 2002)was written,
coincidentally, by a journalist who previously had covered the women's
soccer world cup. A related book appeared rather quickly: Hero
of Flight 93: Mark Bingham (Barrett, 2002). "MarkBingham.com"
is the related website to check out. And here as well we find ourselves
in that curious position of being in the midst of a hero-myth being
written (without much evidence or data at the writers' disposal).
Bingham was also gay: a fraternity-loving, gay-rugby-team athlete.
He was neither an activist nor particularly gay-identified. But in
2001, he was The Advocate's "person of the year".
However, in the mainstream media, Bingham is not usually remembered
as the hero of Flight 93. While Bingham became ghettoized in the gay
press, Todd Beamer became the (mainstream's) celebrated hero on board
of Flight 93. His last words over his cell phone ("Let's roll")
made for a good book title, and President Bush chose to invite his
pregnant widow to the first public speeches after 9/11/2001. Despite
their names being listed in close proximity in most passenger lists
of Flight 93, Beamer and Bingham rarely appear together in the stories
of heroic wrestling control of the plane (however contested these
stories are at this point. The hagiographic activities in the gay
press are interesting (for example the book about Bingham (see image
above) has to make do with very little information, and thus becomes
a book more about his mother and friends than about any available
data from his life). They construct a hero for the mainstream - yet
in competition with the mainstream upholding of the family-man Beamer
(who was an evangelical Christian).
[35] The ongoing and continuously heated discussion around Judge's
status as saint and/or hero - as well as the ongoing celebration,
however contested, of Bingham as outstanding gay heroic role model,
point to redefinitions of heroism within American Catholicism/Christianity
and within dominant U.S. culture (these two are of course not unrelated
realms). Furthermore, they point to the implicit significance of sexuality
in discourses of heroism. To add another layer of heroic re-building,
and as another suggestive set of images, let me end with the following
re-makes of themes discussed thus far:
V. Christian (Comics) Heroes Reloaded
[36] As sport heroes reemerge as national icons there are further
areas of popular culture that provide insight into the values that
shape national identity and policy. Across the parking lot from
the "Lord's Gym" I saw Spiderman the very day it
came out. Stunned I sat in the dark as I listened to the repetition
of the motto: "With great power comes great responsibility".
It seemed telling that this was the motto repeated during the time
that the US began to wage war on the "evil axis"; not explicitly
for Christian world domination, but also not that far removed from
missionary terminology.
[37] Turning to comics is a useful move. Comics have always been
a medium of telling dominant stories in smart and subtle ways.
And to complete the tour of the strip mall near my house, in the store
right next to where the Lord's Gym used to be I bought (on sale!)
various items that combine many of the concerns I have mentioned:
Bibleman, a Christian superhero with his own line of gadgets,
paper cups, party napkins, fan-zines, video recordings, and a touring
special-effects show plying to full houses of young kids.[8].
This hero is celebrated, indeed he materializes and becomes real,
through the purchasing of brand name products.
Cover of 'Bibleman'-fanzine ("A Totally Authorized Album")
[38] Quoting scripture throughout, Bibleman teaches the importance
of righteousness and promotes the values of following authority. Bibleman's
hyper-muscular heroic body (and yes, he has his own cool bike),
hidden in the everyday normal man, but emerging (coming out?)
in skintight outfits, purple tights, and heroic breastplates, replicates
(and transforms?) an aesthetic appeal familiar from popular cultural
icons such as Spiderman or Batman (including the cute but often
clueless sidekick and the easily recognizable evil guy) and is
becoming more commonly recognizable as a modern version of Christ
triumphant. Whereas Bibleman might appear as obvious "muscular
Christian", his dresscode (neither moderate nor modest indeed)
and the homosocial banter with his sidekick are persistent reminder
of the (constantly negotiated) homoerotic implications of such a bond
- and such an outfit - and are unlike earlier muscular Christians'
position vis-à-vis a crisis in masculinity a century ago.
[39] Lastly, my students have helped me establish another connection
that I need to further explore: Marvel Comics produced a special tribute
to the heroes of the WTC tragedies.[9].
Where journalists and academics attempt subtle descriptions of tragedy,
heroism and the complicated imbrications with nation and nationalism,
comics afford a bolder language:
Examples of merging of contemporary (9/11) 'heroes' with Marvel comic
book characters in Marvel's 9-11-tribute volume
[40] Captain America is sad while other Marvel superheroes hold candles
and stay in the background as the real tragic and heroic actions unfold
in the rubble of the WTC. The heroes of 9/11 (firefighters,
police officers, EMS personnel) are embraced and celebrated by Marvel's
long line of superheroes. (The current privileging of "Captain
America" in many a heroic drawing - but also in critical books
about these phenomena is no accident; see Jewett & Lawrence,
2003). Uncertainty over what happened on Flight 93 might have prompted
a rather simple design for the bookjacket of Flight 93, yet
did not deter the comic artist from a much more explicitly heroic
rendition of the event. And Mychal Judge's body - often referred to
as a modern day pieta - is also redrawn in the comics.
Two images that refer to the same event: the reported struggle
on board of UA Flight 93
Modified rendition of Mychal Judge 'pieta' within comic-stylized
celebration of American heroes in Marvel tribute volume.
[41] As center spread in the commemorative comic volume, we thus
find a fusion of the Spiderman motto, a celebration of American heroism,
and muscular bodily ideals -- and all that written onto, and thus
translated through, the heroic portrayal of a dead man's body. Muscular
Christians in the past certainly used popular culture to their advantage.
Today's muscular and heroically male Christian bodies are again produced
in, through, and for popular media and consumption. We ought to make
an effort to understand the connections - but also the innovative
uses of virtual and popular media technology - and the always-shifting
connections to ideologies of gender, sexuality and nation.
Notes:
* I wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers at JRPC for their helpful
encouragement and insightful comments.
[1] I write this in past tense because this particular
branch facility closed down one year after opening. There is now another
gym: LA Fitness. In May 2002 the local news showed disgruntled customers
who stood in front of locked doors, never having received prior notice
or any refund of their previously paid membership dues. My students
seem to consider this a particularly important (because they think,
so clearly "un-Christian") aspect of the tragic decline
of this branch facility. One reviewer also asked why I did not forefront
this failure of the Lord's Gym. Indeed, this one franchise location
failed - and it might be worth a more sustained study of the economics
of the location to understand the details and financial dynamics.
However, throughout Florida and California, several other Lord's Gyms
continue to do well and are continuing to operate with the same or
similar publicity. As I am most interested in the discursive work
of images and representations deployed in the realm of the representation
of the Lord's Gym, I do not further explore this aspect of the gym's
economic failure in this article. All quotes are from the company
website, some of which are now also defunct. A similar statement can
still be viewed at another branch facility's site http://www.lordsgymclermont.com/mission_frame.htm.
[2] EyewitnessNews11.com "Faith and Fitness"
July 9, 2001
[3] All quotes from company website in 2001. Current
(very similar) company statement to be found at http://www.lordsgymclermont.com/company_body.htm
[4] ibid.
[5] The Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, January
26, 2001. pages E1.
[6] Ibid.
[7] This is a "family" that is Christian and
has kids. This is not the kind of "family" that some might
suspect when thinking about a gym - or the kind of Village People-YMCA-iconography
of such "family" matters.
[8] Thanks to Laura Levitt for handing me my very first
Bibleman party napkin.
[9] I thank Jessica Koesters for lending me the Heroes
tribute edition and for making me aware of the Marvel series.
References
Bairner, Alan. (2001) Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization: European
and North-American Perspectives. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
Barrett, Jon. (2002) Hero of Flight 93: Mark Bingham. Los
Angeles, CA: Advocate Books.
Boyarin, Daniel. (1997) Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality
and the Invention of the Jewish Man. Berkley: University of California
Press.
Cole, Edwin Louis. (2002) Strong Men in Tough Times: Exercising
True Manhood in an Age that Demands Heroes. Watercolor Books.
Ford, Michael. (2002) Father Mychal Judge: An Authentic American
Hero. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Gorn, Elliott J. and Warren Goldstein. (1993) A Brief History
of American Sports. New York: Hill and Wang.
Gustav‑Wrathall, John Donald. (1998) Take the Young
Stranger by the Hand:Same‑Sex Relations and the YMCA.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hall, Donald. (1994) Muscular Christianity: Embodying the Victorian
Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halperin, David M. (1995) Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography.
New York: Oxford University Press
Jewett, Robert and John Shelton Lawrence. (2003) Captain America
and the Crusade against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism.
Cambridge: Eerdmans.
Ladd, Tony and James A. Mathiesen. (1999) Muscular Christianity:
Evangelical Protestants and the Development of American Sport.
Grand Rapids, MI: BridgePoint Books.
Longman, Jere. (2002) Among the Heroes: United Flight 93
and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back. New York, NY: Harper
Collins.
Mjagkij, Nina and Margaret Spratt, eds. (1997) Men and Women Adrift:
The YMCA and the YMCA in the City. New York: NYU Press.
Moore, Steven D. (1996) God's Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible
New York, London: Routledge.
Pellegrini, Ann. (1997) Performance Anxieties: Staging Psychoanalysis,
Staging Race. New York: Routledge.
Pope, S.W. ed. (1997). The New American Sport History: Recent
Approaches and Perspectives. Urbana and Chicago: University of
Illinois Press.
Putney, Clifford. (1997) "From Character to Body Building: The
YMCA and the Suburban Metropolis, 1950-1980" in Mjagkij and Spratt,
eds.Men and Women Adrift.
Putney, Clifford. (2001) Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports
in Protestant America, 1880-1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Rader, Benjamin G. (1999) American Sports: From the Age of Folk
Games to the Age of Televised Sports. fourth ed. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Riess, Steven A. (1997) Major Problems in American Sports History.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Schippert, Claudia. (2001) Transgressive Bodies, Queer Ethics:
A Cross-Disciplinary Conversation about Resistance. Unpublished
dissertation, Temple University.
Simpson, Marc.(1994) Male Impersonators: Men Performing Masculinity.
London, New York : Cassell.
Watt, David Harrington. (1991) A Transforming Faith: Explorations
in Twentieth-Century American Evangelicalism. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press.
Image Credits/Copyright
(Unless otherwise noted, any website indicate below was working as
of 4/12/2003.)
1 Picture taken by Claudia Schippert
2 Website no longer active (http://www.lordshealthandfitness.com/shop)
3 http://www.lordsgymclermont.com/images/logo_splash.jpg
4 Advertising coupons distributed through the USPS mail in Florida
(February, April and May 2002)
65 H/28 The Best of Orlando; 67 H/8 The Best of Orlando; 68 H/44 The
Best of Orlando.
5 Mission Statement on company web site(http://www.lordshealthandfitness.com/mission.jpg).
Page is no longer active, but similar page currently active: http://www.lordsgymclermont.com/images/mission.jpg
6 Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, January 26, 2002. pages
E1,3. Photos by Julie Fletcher/Orlando Sentinel
7 Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, January 26, 2002. pages
E1,3. Photos by Julie Fletcher/Orlando Sentinel
8 Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, January 26, 2002. pages
E1,3. Photos by Julie Fletcher/Orlando Sentinel
9 Advertising coupons distributed through the USPS mail in Florida
(February, April and May 2002)
65 H/28 The Best of Orlando; 67 H/8 The Best of Orlando; 68 H/44 The
Best of Orlando.
10 Advertising coupons distributed through the USPS mail in Florida
(February, April and May 2002)
65 H/28 The Best of Orlando; 67 H/8 The Best of Orlando; 68 H/44 The
Best of Orlando.
11 Website no longer active (http://www.lordshealthandfitness.com/shop)
12 Website no longer active (http://www.lordshealthandfitness.com/shop)
13 Advertising coupons distributed through the USPS mail in Florida
(2002)
14 Advertising coupons distributed through the USPS mail in Florida
(2002)
15 http://www.saintmychal.com/photos/body1.jpg
16 From the book jacket (designed by Stefan Killen Design) of Michael
Ford. Mychal Judge: An Authentic American Hero. Paulist Press,
2001. Image also found at: http://www.saintmychal.com/photos/008.jpg
17 http://www.saintmychal.com/photos/body1.jpg
http://www.saintmychal.com/photos/body2.jpg
http://www.saintmychal.com/photos/body3.jpg
http://www.saintmychal.com/photos/pieta.jpg
18 From the book jacket (designed 2002 by Roberto de Vicq
de Cumptich) of: Jere Longman. Among the Heroes: United Flight
93 & the Passengers & Crew Who Fought Back. Harper Collin,
2002. Jacket photograph 2002 by Mark Wagner.
19 Book cover (cover design by Matt Sams, front cover photograph
by Matt Hall) of Jon Barrett. Hero of Flight 93: Mark Bingham.
Advocate Books, Alyson Publications, 2002.
20 "Bibleman" is a registered trademark. Copyright for
all Bibleman artwork, design, and text: 2000 by Pamplin Entertainment
Corporation.
21 Heroes Vol.1, No.1 (December 2001), Marvel Comics, Marvel
Entertainment Group, Inc., p.13. Carlos Pancheco with Jésus
Merino and Tom Smith. Text by Kurt Busiek.
22 Heroes, p. 23. J. Scott Campbell with Hi-Fi.
23 left: book cover of Among the Heroes (see above, image18)
right: Heroes, p. 17. Igor Kordey with Chris Chukry.
24 Heroes, p. 39. ChrisCross with Rick Ketcham and
Hi-Fi.
