By definition, the antihero does not take a stand and fight for something; so the antihero thereby avoids deliberately risking death. But taking a public stand in favor of nonviolence can involve risking death; for this reason it would require courage and could be heroic, not antiheroic.
But could a movie about heroic nonviolence draw in the crowds who go to see "Avatar"? Or is violence indispensable to draw in crowds to see a movie?
Today the imperialistic power of Western modernity is vastly more powerful than the British empire ever was. In the old heroic spirit, Islamist jihadists today have chosen to use terrorism as their tactic of choice to resist the imperialistic power of Western modernity. But terrorism obviously involves violence.
But what would public forms of nonviolent resistance to the imperialistic power of modernity look like?
In his 2007 book "God...amp; Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now," the biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan has suggested another tactic of nonviolent resistance should be used against the imperialistic power of Western modernity not by Muslims living outside Western culture but by Christians living inside Western culture.
Crossan argues that the historical Jesus used nonviolent resistance against the Roman empire in his day, so people today who want to follow his admirable example should also use nonviolent resistance against the American empire, even if it leads to their death.
As is well known, the historical Jesus ended up being executed by the local authorities Roman empire, just as the local authorities of the British empire in Nigeria stood ready to execute Okonkwo for his violent resistance to British imperial rule (by killing an African messenger of the British government).
Death may await those Americans today who engage in public forms of nonviolent resistance to the American empire abroad. Thus public forms of nonviolent resistance to the American empire today would require courage and a courageous readiness to die in short, the old heroic spirit of Achilles and Hector and Jesus the Christ and Beowulf and Okonkwo.
But we Americans today live in the Age of the Antihero in serious literature. So to sidestep the challenges of the old heroic spirit that would require real courage to fight the American empire abroad and thereby perhaps run the risk of bringing about our own death, we prefer to escape into the world of escape movies such as Cameron's "Avatar."
But the greatest story ever told is not an escape story, but a story about the old heroic spirit and many Americans today call themselves Christians. Of course they may just be nominal Christians. They may be more like the ancient Roman imperialists than they are like the nonviolent resister Jesus.
To bring home the old heroic spirit of Jesus that he was fashioning, the author of the Gospel of Mark portrays Jesus as predicting his own suffering and death not once, not twice, but three times for those of us who are so obtuse to have missed the point the first and the second times.
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is portrayed as predicting his suffering and death and then walking straight into it. That's the old heroic spirit the warrior has the courage not to be intimidated by the prospect of his death.
By building in the three predictions of the suffering and death of Jesus, the author of the Gospel of Mark has thereby put the Jesus figure he is portraying in his gospel on a par with Achilles in the Homeric epic the "Iliad."
After Achilles has understandably and justifiably withdrawn from the war with the Trojans because of the way Agamemnon treated him, Achilles is told by his goddess mother that two possible fates await him: (1) he can return home from the war and live a long life or (2) he can return to fight in the war and know beforehand that he will die in the war and not return home.
With guaranteed foreknowledge that he will die in the war, Achilles returns to fighting in the war. By portraying Jesus as predicting his suffering and death three times in the Gospel of Mark, the author thereby portrays Jesus as an exemplar of heroic courage on a par with Achilles.
The historical Jesus was undoubtedly a courageous and heroic figure. After the execution of John the Baptist, the historical Jesus would have to have been monumentally obtuse if he could not have figured out that his death was likely if he continued his preaching ministry. Nevertheless, he continued; he did not stop.
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