Super-line Controversy
July 4th, 2006
If you don’t read entertainment blogs as obsessively as I do, you may not be aware of the mini-controversy swirling around a single line from Superman Returns, in which Perry White utters the phrase, “truth, justice, and all that stuff,” irking both loyal Super-fans and political conservatives who favor the classic “truth, justice, and the American way.”
Take a look at this Cinematical post by Mark Beall, who understands that the moviemakers want the film to do well even in countries that aren’t too fond of the U.S. right now, but who questions why any version of the line needed to be in the film in the first place. Why not just leave it out completely?
I actually liked the “stuff” line, since it deflated some of the usual Super-pomposity. It doesn’t just edit out the “American” bit; it makes it sound like, “yeah, yeah, we’ve heard all this before,” pointing out that a lot of Superman rhetoric is too earnest to be appealing today. In fact, I would have liked the entire film to have that attitude. But I don’t count, because I don’t like Superman. In the film as it was, I grant that the line didn’t really fit with the tone of the rest of the movie.
Entry Filed under: Movies
1 Comment Add your own
1. Possum | July 7th, 2006 at 11:07 am
As I understand it, this is a controversy perpetrated by flag-waving ultra-conservatives who want all movies to be flag-waving and unambiguous confirmations of their narrow ideology. Of course, we know that what makes a story good (what builds the suspense) is its building of tension and its deferral of resolution and meaning. If a movie simply said good guys vs. bad guys for two hours, it would be boring and nobody would go see it. Tension is only built by conflict, not just between good guys and bad guys, but because there is some ambiguity about what the “right thing to do” is. In a story, the various viewpoints about such abstractions like truth, justice, and the American way (things never actually defined or explained in the Superman movies) are expressed by different characters. This is, after all, what makes plays, novels, and movies interesting – that different characters have different notions about stuff.
So, what does this all mean for Superman? In the 1978 movie, Superman says “truth, justice, and the American way,” and so that is what Lois then publishes in her famous article “I spent the night with Superman.” But in the new movie, it is NOT Superman who says, “and all that other stuff.” It is the cynical, bottom-line editor-in-chief White who says it, badly paraphrasing Lois’s article. White’s remark is utterly true to character, as his character has always been. And, if you recall, it is White’s focus on the bottom-line that cause him to make the wrong decision – that is, he decides not to investigate the cause of the black-outs.
Thus, the scandal here is not anyone’s patriotism or any need to appeal to a 21st century audience (most of whom live outside the United States). The real scandal here is that the ultra-conservatives perpetrating the controversy don’t know how to read stories.
However, in this case, we should all thank our lucky stars that conservatives are, by definition, stupid. Because if they were smart, they’d notice how the movie develops a semi-alternative family structure (two dads, one mom.)
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