Why the World Needs Superman...
Jul. 1st, 2006 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI have a weakness for superhero films. Also fantasy films and science fiction action films.
Have seen all the Superman films, including the horror show that was Superman IV, which may be the only film I walked out of, although I came close to walking out of Van Helsing (which gave me a headache) and Star Trek - The Final Frontire. Yes, some weaknesses you pay for.
In some respects Superman Returns may be the most intelligent and introspective of the films. Not to mention the most realistic. While it lacks some of the campy fun and humor of the first two, it actually does haunt you a bit several hours later - which the first two did not.
The subject heading of this post is taken directly from Lois Lane's blank computer screen where she struggles to write an article that counters the one she wins the Pulitzer for - "Why the World Does Not Need Superman".
Superman, for those who aren't up on their comic book action heros or aren't, ahem, comic book geeks, specifically action hero comic book geeks, was created in 1938 by two Jewish boys, Joe Shuster and Jerome Siegel, who "imbued him with the power of a hundred men, of a distant world, and of the full measure of their bespectacled adolescent hopefulness and desperation." (Taken from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon.) Michael Chabon in his fictional novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which is a novel about two Jewish boys teaming up to write comic books during World War II, writes "Though he had been conceived originally as a newspaper hero, Superman was born in the pages of a comic book, where he thrived, and after this miraculous parturition, the form finally began to emerge from its transitional funk, and to articulate a purpose for itself in the marketplace of ten-cent dreams: to express the lust for pwoer and the gaudy sartorial taste of a race of powerless people with no leave to dress themselves. Comic books were Kid Stuff, pure and true, and they arrived at precisely the moment when kids of America began, after ten years of terrible hardship, to find their pockets burdened with the occassional superfluous dime."
It's no accident that Superman, our first superhero to appear in print, with his red white and blue tights and his amazing powers - and geeky, stuttering, bespeckled and anynonmous alter-ego - was created by two men who felt oppressed themselves. Lonely. Alienated. Outcast.
On the surface Superman appears to be what every man aspires to be and every woman wants, the unreachable ideal, an icon of truth, justice and all that stuff as Perry White says in the film, in the comic it was the American Way. But dig a little deeper and you find a man who is desperately lonely, apart from the world, with no home but a crystal palace isolated in the dark reaches of the North, which is aptly called his "Fortress of Solitude". Much like that other iconic hero of the modern age, Superman's dark human counterpart and sometime partner - "Batman" who lives in a cave of earth, Superman lives in a cave of crystal and ice and acts alone.
I've read quite a few of the Superman comics in my lifetime, including the marriage issue and the cheesy "Death of Superman" arc. But the ones that haunt me are the ones that touch on that feeling of being outside the world.
In a way by making Superman powerful and living out their fantasy of power and heroism through this character in print, the writer and artist discover that power does not provide happiness but rather a whole new set of problems. The movie, Superman Returns, which deliberately references the first two films that are notable for being the first films about a superhero to be considered art or even reputable, asks a deeper question than the one I pose in the subject heading above, what are the consequences of having power, of being the hero - that we all wish we could be, but if we were honest with ourselves, are glad we aren't.
After seeing Superman today and writing an earlier post on the film, I saw the end of The Incredibles - which addresses the same issue. Everyone aspires to be the hero. The villian in The Incredibles wants it desperately, he wants to be the center of attention, to be adored, to be honored. He wants the trappings. But he does not see the cost. The Incredibles can't tell people who they are. They can't advertise themselves. Any more than Superman can. And while it feels great to be able to help others, they can't help everyone and their help is not always appreciated, nor for that matter are they permitted to obtain benefits from their power - like winning a race or having a fun job.
Joss Whedon in his series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and perhaps even more notably Angel explored the desire to be a hero. Buffy, the superhero of the first show, did not aspire to be a hero, much like Clark Kent, she found the road to be a lonely and hard one. Spending numerous late nights by herself patrolling graveyards and saving people, who while thankful, would not look at her twice the next day. Often on a pedestal with friends, she found it difficult to just live the day to day. To be herself. They saw the hero, not Buffy. They admired and envied and worshipped and to an extent resented her heroic status. "I'm Just Buffy," she'd say. Angel, on the other hand, aspired to be the hero, much like Lex Luther, and the villain in The Incredibles, and most of us. Cordelia and Willow do too. Three characters, Cordelia, Willow, and Angel in their dreams of being the hero, inadvertently become villains, not appreciating the cost or for that matter the responsibility. "I want the power," Lex Luthor states, but he does not want to take the reponsibility.
But that's only part of the film's theme. The other part, the part that has nothing to do with being a superhero, is the sense of being invisible in our lives. Alone in a crowd. Cared for, but not seen, not understood. Only seen when we do that amazing thing or provide someone with something they need. Otherwise, we blend into the crowd. The Clark Kent in this film might as well be invisible. He is lost in the crowd of reporters, lost in the crowd on the street and elevator. Unseen. Except when he gets in the way or is an obstacle. Gone for five years, Lois asks almost as an afterthought, how was your trip? What did you see? He's given his job back merely because someone else died. And the welcome back cake is to Larry, with a slice taken out of it, and shoved at him somewhat guiltly by Jimmy Olsen, who is only more visible than Clark due to his earnestness and mascot status.
Clark, bespeckled, stuttering, awkward, is the everyman in the brown coat and brown hat. He fades into the background, his garments the same color as the walls he stands against. Powerless even to get the pretty girl's attention. Superman, well, "we're all a bit in love with him", Lois states. But you realize, when she asks if she'll see him around and he answers, with a pasted smile and a sad stare, "I'm always around" that she doesn't know him at all. He's alone even in a crowd of worshippers. People need him, but not "him" so much as what he stands for. What he does for them.
Why the World Does Not Need A Superman or Why the World Needs One...are the two questions Lois asks. But she never seems to wonder what he needs or who he is, focusing instead on what she and the world need from him. As the film starts, heck the title tells it to you, we are told Superman had left Earth for five years. "He disappeared" "Abandoned us" "He never said goodbye." When he returns, he wipes the papers of all other news, becoming an instant celebrity. But, what is emphasized in the film is his first words to his mother regarding what he discovered out in space and why he left to begin with - "I found out that I really am all alone. The only one left of my race. It was a graveyard." She replies, "no Clark, you aren't alone." But he appears to be.
Clark shows up at the Daily Planet, bags in tow, and asks if anyone has a place for him to stay, they ignore him. He becomes essentially invisible. Alone. And while Lois and her new family do come back to save him after he has saved them, she makes it clear that she has moved on. He is Superman. He can not be a part of her life. His role as hero will forever keep them apart. It was his discovery in the second film, in the third we see how he has handled it. He tries to tell her this - by taking her up above the world and telling her that while she states she does not need him and has won a pulitizer for stating that the world does not, he hears millions, billions of voices crying out for his help on a daily basis.
We, like Seigel and Schuster, want to be saved. To be happy. To have life work. Superman symbolizes safety, security. Comfort. Protection.
The homage to the earlier films underlines that feeling of comfort and safety. The return to simplier times in a haze of nostalgia. (Of course - those times were not simpler or more comfortable, but human memory is rarely reliable and tends to candy-coat the past.) The credits are a carbon copy of the first two films, the soundtrack a remastered duplicate, yet both carry the taint of irony, we feel the loneliness, within the dark art deco architecture and 1940's garments, a feeling of time stuck. Technology has moved forward, but our mindset remains stuck in the past, holding onto a dream - for Superman. The heroic icon that stands for everything that made America great and free. It has worn thin. And from the half-empty theater I sat inside of, no longer seems to sell the way it once did. We want to believe in the hero, who puts everyone first, we sacrifices his or her own life for others. But deep down, we know that such a being cannot exist and if they had power, they would be more like Lex and less like Clark.
I think many people discount superhero comics as "Kid Stuff", something people should grow out of. A notion that has always annoyed me, since I came to comics in my young adult hood, not as a child. There is more underneath the surface. And the writers, after all, have not been kids for quite some time. The comics appeal to our notion of a hero, our need for one, in a world that at times feels devoid of heros. And adults in some cases more than children need that fantasy, partly because they know it is just a fantasy. Just as some of us need desperately to believe that god came down to earth, allowed himself to be tortured, forgave us, and has promised us an eternal life. Or the child in all of us still likes the idea of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and whatever other childhood myth you parents provided to give hope and keep the demons at bay.
Have seen all the Superman films, including the horror show that was Superman IV, which may be the only film I walked out of, although I came close to walking out of Van Helsing (which gave me a headache) and Star Trek - The Final Frontire. Yes, some weaknesses you pay for.
In some respects Superman Returns may be the most intelligent and introspective of the films. Not to mention the most realistic. While it lacks some of the campy fun and humor of the first two, it actually does haunt you a bit several hours later - which the first two did not.
The subject heading of this post is taken directly from Lois Lane's blank computer screen where she struggles to write an article that counters the one she wins the Pulitzer for - "Why the World Does Not Need Superman".
Superman, for those who aren't up on their comic book action heros or aren't, ahem, comic book geeks, specifically action hero comic book geeks, was created in 1938 by two Jewish boys, Joe Shuster and Jerome Siegel, who "imbued him with the power of a hundred men, of a distant world, and of the full measure of their bespectacled adolescent hopefulness and desperation." (Taken from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon.) Michael Chabon in his fictional novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which is a novel about two Jewish boys teaming up to write comic books during World War II, writes "Though he had been conceived originally as a newspaper hero, Superman was born in the pages of a comic book, where he thrived, and after this miraculous parturition, the form finally began to emerge from its transitional funk, and to articulate a purpose for itself in the marketplace of ten-cent dreams: to express the lust for pwoer and the gaudy sartorial taste of a race of powerless people with no leave to dress themselves. Comic books were Kid Stuff, pure and true, and they arrived at precisely the moment when kids of America began, after ten years of terrible hardship, to find their pockets burdened with the occassional superfluous dime."
It's no accident that Superman, our first superhero to appear in print, with his red white and blue tights and his amazing powers - and geeky, stuttering, bespeckled and anynonmous alter-ego - was created by two men who felt oppressed themselves. Lonely. Alienated. Outcast.
On the surface Superman appears to be what every man aspires to be and every woman wants, the unreachable ideal, an icon of truth, justice and all that stuff as Perry White says in the film, in the comic it was the American Way. But dig a little deeper and you find a man who is desperately lonely, apart from the world, with no home but a crystal palace isolated in the dark reaches of the North, which is aptly called his "Fortress of Solitude". Much like that other iconic hero of the modern age, Superman's dark human counterpart and sometime partner - "Batman" who lives in a cave of earth, Superman lives in a cave of crystal and ice and acts alone.
I've read quite a few of the Superman comics in my lifetime, including the marriage issue and the cheesy "Death of Superman" arc. But the ones that haunt me are the ones that touch on that feeling of being outside the world.
In a way by making Superman powerful and living out their fantasy of power and heroism through this character in print, the writer and artist discover that power does not provide happiness but rather a whole new set of problems. The movie, Superman Returns, which deliberately references the first two films that are notable for being the first films about a superhero to be considered art or even reputable, asks a deeper question than the one I pose in the subject heading above, what are the consequences of having power, of being the hero - that we all wish we could be, but if we were honest with ourselves, are glad we aren't.
After seeing Superman today and writing an earlier post on the film, I saw the end of The Incredibles - which addresses the same issue. Everyone aspires to be the hero. The villian in The Incredibles wants it desperately, he wants to be the center of attention, to be adored, to be honored. He wants the trappings. But he does not see the cost. The Incredibles can't tell people who they are. They can't advertise themselves. Any more than Superman can. And while it feels great to be able to help others, they can't help everyone and their help is not always appreciated, nor for that matter are they permitted to obtain benefits from their power - like winning a race or having a fun job.
Joss Whedon in his series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and perhaps even more notably Angel explored the desire to be a hero. Buffy, the superhero of the first show, did not aspire to be a hero, much like Clark Kent, she found the road to be a lonely and hard one. Spending numerous late nights by herself patrolling graveyards and saving people, who while thankful, would not look at her twice the next day. Often on a pedestal with friends, she found it difficult to just live the day to day. To be herself. They saw the hero, not Buffy. They admired and envied and worshipped and to an extent resented her heroic status. "I'm Just Buffy," she'd say. Angel, on the other hand, aspired to be the hero, much like Lex Luther, and the villain in The Incredibles, and most of us. Cordelia and Willow do too. Three characters, Cordelia, Willow, and Angel in their dreams of being the hero, inadvertently become villains, not appreciating the cost or for that matter the responsibility. "I want the power," Lex Luthor states, but he does not want to take the reponsibility.
But that's only part of the film's theme. The other part, the part that has nothing to do with being a superhero, is the sense of being invisible in our lives. Alone in a crowd. Cared for, but not seen, not understood. Only seen when we do that amazing thing or provide someone with something they need. Otherwise, we blend into the crowd. The Clark Kent in this film might as well be invisible. He is lost in the crowd of reporters, lost in the crowd on the street and elevator. Unseen. Except when he gets in the way or is an obstacle. Gone for five years, Lois asks almost as an afterthought, how was your trip? What did you see? He's given his job back merely because someone else died. And the welcome back cake is to Larry, with a slice taken out of it, and shoved at him somewhat guiltly by Jimmy Olsen, who is only more visible than Clark due to his earnestness and mascot status.
Clark, bespeckled, stuttering, awkward, is the everyman in the brown coat and brown hat. He fades into the background, his garments the same color as the walls he stands against. Powerless even to get the pretty girl's attention. Superman, well, "we're all a bit in love with him", Lois states. But you realize, when she asks if she'll see him around and he answers, with a pasted smile and a sad stare, "I'm always around" that she doesn't know him at all. He's alone even in a crowd of worshippers. People need him, but not "him" so much as what he stands for. What he does for them.
Why the World Does Not Need A Superman or Why the World Needs One...are the two questions Lois asks. But she never seems to wonder what he needs or who he is, focusing instead on what she and the world need from him. As the film starts, heck the title tells it to you, we are told Superman had left Earth for five years. "He disappeared" "Abandoned us" "He never said goodbye." When he returns, he wipes the papers of all other news, becoming an instant celebrity. But, what is emphasized in the film is his first words to his mother regarding what he discovered out in space and why he left to begin with - "I found out that I really am all alone. The only one left of my race. It was a graveyard." She replies, "no Clark, you aren't alone." But he appears to be.
Clark shows up at the Daily Planet, bags in tow, and asks if anyone has a place for him to stay, they ignore him. He becomes essentially invisible. Alone. And while Lois and her new family do come back to save him after he has saved them, she makes it clear that she has moved on. He is Superman. He can not be a part of her life. His role as hero will forever keep them apart. It was his discovery in the second film, in the third we see how he has handled it. He tries to tell her this - by taking her up above the world and telling her that while she states she does not need him and has won a pulitizer for stating that the world does not, he hears millions, billions of voices crying out for his help on a daily basis.
We, like Seigel and Schuster, want to be saved. To be happy. To have life work. Superman symbolizes safety, security. Comfort. Protection.
The homage to the earlier films underlines that feeling of comfort and safety. The return to simplier times in a haze of nostalgia. (Of course - those times were not simpler or more comfortable, but human memory is rarely reliable and tends to candy-coat the past.) The credits are a carbon copy of the first two films, the soundtrack a remastered duplicate, yet both carry the taint of irony, we feel the loneliness, within the dark art deco architecture and 1940's garments, a feeling of time stuck. Technology has moved forward, but our mindset remains stuck in the past, holding onto a dream - for Superman. The heroic icon that stands for everything that made America great and free. It has worn thin. And from the half-empty theater I sat inside of, no longer seems to sell the way it once did. We want to believe in the hero, who puts everyone first, we sacrifices his or her own life for others. But deep down, we know that such a being cannot exist and if they had power, they would be more like Lex and less like Clark.
I think many people discount superhero comics as "Kid Stuff", something people should grow out of. A notion that has always annoyed me, since I came to comics in my young adult hood, not as a child. There is more underneath the surface. And the writers, after all, have not been kids for quite some time. The comics appeal to our notion of a hero, our need for one, in a world that at times feels devoid of heros. And adults in some cases more than children need that fantasy, partly because they know it is just a fantasy. Just as some of us need desperately to believe that god came down to earth, allowed himself to be tortured, forgave us, and has promised us an eternal life. Or the child in all of us still likes the idea of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and whatever other childhood myth you parents provided to give hope and keep the demons at bay.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-02 12:45 pm (UTC)http://www.tcj.com/275/siegel1975.pdf
no subject
Date: 2006-07-02 03:02 pm (UTC)I remember in the 1990s talking to my brother about working in the movie industry, where he worked as an intern for a while and attempted briefly to get a career in. He told me not to try and become a screenwriter because your work is not honored and you are treated much like Seigel and Shuster are.
Yet, it is not always the case. The Seigel/Schuster story had a happy ending. Just as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had one at Marvel. And Chris Claremount and Jim Lee at Wildstorm, both reappearing at Marvel to create more. It's almost as if there is an eternal struggle between the two sides of the human condition - the Lex Luthor side who wants the power and control for himself, to gain from it, and the Superman side - who doesn't. The world of course isn't as black and white as that and often the result is a combo of the two.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 01:41 am (UTC)In one episode of Frank's Place, Frank agreed to let his restaurant be used as the setting for some scenes in a movie. There was this guy who followed the director around, hesitantly making a suggestion here & there, which got slapped down by the director every time. At the very end of the episode, Frank came to a realization. He approached Hesitant Guy & asked him, "You're the writer, aren't you?" The poor fellow, pathetically happy to get the least recognition, admitted that he was.