Is Rick Grimes from "The Walking Dead" a Christ Figure?

Thanks to Prof Harris, I've been hooked on The Walking Dead.  I literally havent been able to stop watching it.  I've come to admire the main character Rick who for those of you who don't watch the show is the sheriffs deputy and the main character of the show.  I believe that he represents a Christ figure, and I think this is an important characteristic of the show, clarifying the relationship between monsters and humans.

soooo good

The first thing that caught my attention was his blue eyes.  The digital colour correction used in the show emphasized this trait and I wondered if this was possibly done for a reason.  I went back to my notes for the lecture where this was discussed and the number of traits that match up are astounding.  He is an outsider who had a decisive death(or perceived death) and resurrection.  His simplicity is striking and characterized by innocence.  When he was found by the black man and his son (I can't remember their names at the moment) he was tied to a bad, roughly in the form of a crucifix.  He has demonstrated mu;tiple times he is willing to sacrifice himself, and although I haven't seen the show enough to verify this (I just finished episode 5) I believe Shane may represent his betrayer associate.  Furthermore, his service to lesser others, symbolized by his role as a police officer, and accentuated when he executed the suffering bisected zombie crawling through the park, only after apologizing that this happened to her.

Not to mention the sexually identified female

The reason I felt that this Jesus figure was important was because while the monsters are broken beings striving for redemption, I felt that the presence of Rick symbolized that no matter how damaged we are, Christ can save us.  The people in the show fear becoming like the zombies and follow the Christ figure, allowing them to adhere to their humanity.  Everyone in the show has their own failings and shortcomings, such as racism or anger, but these flaws are purged by the presence of zombies.  Our own society has become zombified in a sense, we've lost various aspects of our morality, whether it's by buying clothes made by third world children or ignoring the devastation we've inflicted on our environment.  However, the ethical narrative of the show depicts that despite these dire circumstances we are able to regain our humanity.  These metaphorical monsters reflect the good in ourselves despite our shortcomings and one way we can retain our humanity is by following Jesus.  Even if we have fallen to the depravity of modern society we are still human and can avoid the pressure to adhere to corrupt standards, no matter how pervasive they are in our society.  After all, in the show the whole world has fallen to the zombie apocalypse.  I'm not sure if I'm just grasping at straws here but either way I love the show.  I'm looking forward to see where it goes so if you choose to respond please try to avoid spoilers.

Bleiber

Forgive me for posting so late, I'm sure everyone's been busy considering its nearing the end of the year.  I wanted to talk about the hate Justin Bieber got a couple weeks ago for his music video "Pray".  I honestly thought it was a really good message, most of the problems people had I felt were problems they created.  The whole self promotion thing was a non-issue.  He obviously has to make an appearance in his video and the video is about helping those in need and the power of prayer.  It wouldn't make sense if the video had included Justin doing anything else really.  It's not like he was giving you a big, condescending bullshit motivational speech, expecting you to back flip out of bed and charge into the world.  Justin Bieber gets too much hate, for proof just look at the Rotten Tomatoes page for his movie.  He got a 1.5 out of 10.  That's lower then Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill.  I saw both movie's and let me tell you Never Say Never is not only better, its phenomenal and inspiring.

Pure cinematic gold.

Not only did the music video have a great message, but it was a great way to deliver the message to kids and get them to become more aware of issues. Focusing on all the problems in the world and how long it will take to see a visual difference makes it easy, especially for children, to keep putting it off or giving up all together.  However, Justin shows a world full of people with good intentions, helping in whatever way they can.  Even if its just at a local level, visiting a hospital and donating some time.  When you're finished helping and you look back at what you've accomplished, these people can see the difference they've made, instead of thinking the world is too big a place for them to help.

If you think this is negative, you sincerely need to seek help.

For all the criticism Justin got for visiting sick children in hospitals (I can't believe I just typed that) keep in mind one of the symptoms of success is that more and more people demand your time.  Justin has reached a point where no matter what he does it's documented and I genuinely think he does a lot of charity out of the goodness of his heart.  He just happens to be photographed no matter what he's doing.  And besides, even if it was self promotion, its a great way for kids to visually see how they themselves can make a difference.  Every criticism people had about this video was so insignificant and as people kept criticizing the video it snowballed to the point where no one really wanted to counter that mountain of cynicism.  But be honest with yourself, if this video was made by anyone else other then Justin Bieber would it have received anywhere near this amount of hate? I felt just his presence distorted your perception of the video in the first place, and after that it's incredibly easy to get buried under the thousand little things that would otherwise mean nothing to you.  This video had such potential but in the end it's message was wasted on a bunch of cynical students. 

 

Haters gunna hate players gunna play