Campus Location
Abilene Campus (Residential)
Date of Award
12-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Communication
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Lauren Lemley
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Jonathan Camp
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Cindy Roper
Abstract
Netflix released Marvel’s Luke Cage in 2016 to critical acclaim. Born from a 1970s comic book, the series features Luke Cage, an African-American superhero. Cage is a big, bald, bulletproof black man. Instead of tights and a cape, Cage wears a hoodie calling the audience to remember Trayvon Martin and other victims of white racism. Theologian James Cone created Black Liberation Theology in the 1970s. As a result of Cone’s work, Black Liberation Theology addresses the issue of white racism from a theological standpoint. In this thesis I present a close reading of Marvel’s Luke Cage using Black Liberation Theology as a theory of communication. Here, I explore three questions. First, how does Marvel’s Luke Cage explore Black Liberation Theology’s distinction between blackness and whiteness? Secondly, how does Coker use Marvel's Luke Cage to define liberation and use that definition as a platform to inform liberation initiatives in the United States today? Finally, how does Marvel’s Luke Cage join Cone in critiquing the church and white theology, and what solutions does Coker present to repair the church and white theology’s relationship with blackness? The answers to these three questions work together to affirm the central argument for this thesis: Marvel’s Luke Cage employs Black Liberation Theology to practically reimagine Christian theology and the Christian church as liberating forces in the modern world.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Morrison, DiArron B., "A Power Man’s Theology: Marvel’s Luke Cage and Black Liberation Theology" (2019). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 191.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/191
Included in
African American Studies Commons, Africana Studies Commons, Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, History of Religion Commons, Latina/o Studies Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons, Practical Theology Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons, Rhetoric Commons, Social Influence and Political Communication Commons, United States History Commons