Thor: Love And Thunder Could've Featured A Cameo From Jesus Christ
In "Thor: Love and Thunder," Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Jane Foster aka the Mighty Thor (Natalie Portman), Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), and Korg (director Taika Waititi) travel to Omnipotence City, the gathering place for deities of all pantheons. They're visiting to ask Zeus (Russell Crowe), the king of the Greek gods (and master of ceremonies), for help in their fight against Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale). The stands are full of figures of worship from all across the universe when they enter the arena.
We've got Zeus and his Greek pantheon including Dionysus, Athena, and Artemis. We've got the Kronan (Korg's people), a god made of rock sitting on a throne of scissors (because rock beats scissors, of course), the Egyptian and Wakandan cat goddess Bast, an Elche goddess, Quetzalcóatl from the Aztecs, and others that we're probably familiar with. There are the gods of emotion that our heroes disguise themselves as. There is a creature called Fur God, who is sort of a head on fuzzy feet. We even have Bao, the god of dumplings, and some Celestials standing outside, peeking through a window.
One deity we didn't see, however, is Jesus Christ. According to an interview Waititi did with BBC Radio 1 (via The Direct), he almost had a cameo.
Well, that would have sent social media into a tizzy!
In the interview, film critic Ali Plumb asks about any cameos that were "too mad" to include. When you have Bao in there, which Waititi said he came up with while eating dumplings for lunch, it seems like anything could work.
Waititi mentioned that Valkyrie does reference a "god of carpentry." As Jesus Christ is often referred to as a carpenter (his profession before he undertook his life's mission as depicted in the New Testament), it was clearly a reference to the son of the Christian god. Waititi said, "There was supposed to be a cutaway to you-know-who. Ole Big J."
Just ponder the social media ramifications of that cameo! Twitter would have lost its collective mind (though one could argue that it lost that long ago). There would have been endless debates, yelling in all caps, boycotts, think pieces, and memes galore. Add in the fact that the stadium seats full of deities are preparing for an orgy, and madness would have indeed ensued. Fox News would've had a field day.
The discourse about a seconds-long cameo would likely have distracted from the actual film, even if it was funny. Best to leave those worms in their can.
Jesus Christ, movie star
Of course, this wouldn't have been the first time Jesus Christ has shown up in a major motion picture. The son of God in the Christian religion has led his fair share of biblical epics over the years, and proved himself to be an absolute box office sensation with 2004's "The Passion of the Christ." However, the typical biblical movie, especially those starring Jesus himself, tend to be a bit more ... devout, projects made by filmmakers with a clear idealogical message they want to send to their audience. Taika Waititi, despite working with the most popular production house on the planet in Marvel Studios, is the exact kind of filmmaker who would very much like to thumb his nose at the easily offended. There's a big Monty Python streak running through his brand of ribald humor, and it's easy to imagine an alternate version of "Thor: Love and Thunder" creating a "Monty Python's Life of Brian"-esque outrage cycle, even if it was just a tiny, one-shot cameo. And since we're in the age of 24-hour news, that would've been inevitable. You just know someone at Marvel sat down with the filmmaker and asked him if this quick gag was worth the surefire political headache.
However, viewers hoping for a genre story with an appearance by Jesus Christ himself that has some genuine bite to it have places to look (beyond "Life of Brian," of course). Check out the first season of the Starz series "American Gods," which featured several versions of Jesus Christ, all brought into existence by mankind having several completely different idealized versions of the Christian deity. One is the profoundly white Jesus worshipped by middle America. Another is a Mexican Jesus, who is literally shot helping migrants cross the border. "American Gods" was never a big enough hit to cause outrage, but it's safe to say that Marvel's Jesus wouldn't have been as defiantly political as that.
For a Jesus-free Marvel movie experience, you can watch "Thor: Love and Thunder," which is streaming on Disney+ right now.