Edit: I don't know if it's just my blog but I seem to lose all paragraph formatting when I post. I know it makes reading a bit difficult but I can't do anything about it... yet.
In my previous post I ranted about Superman.
I think Superman is quite emblematic of the place and time he was created in and reflects as much the creators world views. Superman fights evil money lenders and robbers. He protects poor people and their meager belongings all during The Great Depression. We don't know if Superman had a political ideology but his creators are generally said
Jerry Siegel and
Joe Shuster are generally considered to have Leftist views. The creators didn't create Superman in their own image - I seriously doubt Messers Siegel and Shuster had X-Ray vision or attempted stopping speeding bullets - but rather in him created their ideal image.
Fans too saw in Superman an image that looked, acted, and lived the way they idealized. The 1930s were also a time of turbulent changes and people try to back to a "simpler time" albeit a imaginary simpler time that exists in our minds than in facts. So a Superman who grew up in Kansas (I am resisting the urge to say "of all places") among the Kent family and wore American flag colors in his "uniform" fit the bill. Cometh the time cometh the (super)man.
Enemy of the Republic (which republic?) has been writing about angels recently. Angels fight the bad guys they are generally considered to have the ability to fly. They possess super (magical) powers. Angels were created in a less secular world they couldn't conceptualize X-ray vision (or Kansans for that matter) in the ancient West Asia and Europe lacking as they did the context. Anything that flew had wings so angels had them. Superman's creator's were from a more scientific era but the old influences persist - they removed the wings but slapped on a cape instead.
In Hindu mythology many a character fly across space and time but I don't remember seeing many that were winged. There is
Garuda but then he is part bird. Most flying was done sans wings (or capes). The inspiration was often birds and animals. Chariots and horses fly carrying the gods or demons or people in them. Human imagination isn't limited by reality but is definitely influenced by it. A lot of our spiritual other-worldly is seen through very worldly human minds. Deification and humanization help people comprehend abstract concepts and make for more interesting story telling. Imagine if all we read was non-fiction ! Why should we assume our ancients didn't dabble in fiction?
9 sang my praises:
sj, how boring of a life would it be without people's imaginations!!
hey, my dr's from india, i told him the other day about you, and where you are...i said chennai, he said "oh, that's where the smart people are!!"
It's comforting to imagine a being gifted with the ability to "save" us when we feel helpless and vulnerable, Gods and Super-heros have always been needed by us mere mortals.
Excellent point on the ancients. I have a friend (I will send him a link to your post) who loves superheroes and writes about them. Me, I go for Star Wars, LOTR, but I was moved by the Spiderman films (didn't see 3) and I will go to see the next Batman movie.
You mention Kansas and resist (of all places). It actually makes sense to choose Kansas--during the evolution of Superman, the Midwest was hit hard by banks taking over farms and ranches, many in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, the Dakotas. The midwest is called the heartland, especially the rural part (I'm a Midwesterner, but urban and we do differ).I've never been to Kansas, but I may have told you that my husband was stationed there for 18 months in Junction City. And I could write several blogs alone on what I know about Kansas, but I don't because I haven't been. On one hand, it is very religiously Christian, flat, uneventful--I hesitate to use the word simple as it has pejorative connotations, but it is part of America's Bible belt. On the other hand, and I get this from my husband, there is a strong undercurrent of rebellion from this Christian religiousity. My husband says that whereever there is a military base, there are strip clubs and hookers, but he was also amazed by the unconventional marriages he encounters (swingers) and there is a big Heartland Pagan movement that doesn't just address Kansas. Where I find Superman boring is that he doesn't address that shadow side, or the rejection of Americana as people worthy of defense as well. In fact, they just don't exist. That is why Batman is a cooler superhero and so is Spiderman. They see the Dark Side of the Force!
good post ..
i guess mankind has always had a need to invent saviors that could go beyond human abilities.
I was thinking the same thing (see comment on previous post). I don't know Siegel and Schuster's ideology, but the concept of ubermensch really takes firm root in fascism and far-right ideologies.
One of the things that bothers me about a Superman isone has to question how a character so powerful could remain beneficent all of these years.
Oh, that's reight. Being nice justifies power--whether one really is or not. Were Superman really as your cartoon depicts, I would say, all things considered, he's still a pretty nice guy--and not because I feel threatened.
Enemy, I think there migh be another reason for Kansas, one that has more to do with some of the darker sentiments of the day. Many Americans, tied to isolationist policies, tended to view the influx of foreigners on both the East and West Coasts of the US. Thus "the heartland," pure as it supposedly remained, represented a kind of Ur-America.
A similar expression can be found in a contemporary of the fledgling Superman. The Wizard of Oz, released in 1939, carries with it a lot of isolationist themes ("There's no place like home," for example). The good witches come from the North and South. The bad witches come from the East and West. Dorothy, is from Kansas, and is the character that really represents all of us.
Libby, I am getting to believe all drs are from India these days.
Shrinky, I am not MERE :) :) :)
EoR, I have always preferred Batman. I too plan to see The Dark Knight. Thanks for your comments.
X, That's an interesting insight of course the midwest was home to native Americans and not so "pure". I did think of the right wing ideological implications of superman and of Nietzsche but there's no reason I see to question Siegel and Schuster's ideology.
Like I said, I don't really know what their ideology was. And, from what I recall, the Nazis banned Superman because he apparently looked Jewish. It's not the character I really object to. It's the concept that I see as a dangerous fantasy.
The American flag has white, not yellow. The national flag of Andorra has red, blue, and yellow. Andorians were hostile blue-skinned aliens from Star Trek. Clearly the entire Superman myth is a metaphor for alien (or outside) forces wishing to influence / disrupt our American way and god-granted manifest destiny to be the greatest nation on this world for ever and ever despite minor niggling things like our obesity rates, poor education, and crappy health system. Kryptonite is green, which is pretty like healthy grass and the uS Army and emeralds and it represents the envy that non-Americans feel that they don't get to be us, so naturally it is his bane. The moral of the story is that we Americans should band together to ensure that nobody else has the variety of fried snacks we do. We should bomb evereyone who threatens us, and all the others just to be safe. Hot Asian women are exempt. In the meantime, report any suspicious countries directly to me. We're especially looking out for places that get good service from Dell since their customer service was expatriated from here.
Besides, when the Giant Atomic Chickens™ destroy the Earth in accordance with Satanic prophecy, Superman's butt is kicked. Just you wait.
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