I thought I'd give a quick response to Gabriel's excellent guest post. Part of what I love about having others write things up for SIB is that they present opinions and ideas totally different from my own.
Who is real, Clark Kent or Superman? John Byrne and the creators who followed say Clark. Mark Millar and the Fleischers say Superman. I say every one's missing the mark by limiting things and basing their arguments on one flawed notion; that there is only one Clark Kent.
As I see Superman, there is one guy. One personality. The guy he is in private, the guy he is around the Kents. Clark Kent. But as he begins his costumed adventuring, he begins to make the Clark Kent the public sees more mild mannered, letting his real personality come out as Superboy/man. But the Clark at home is the same old guy he ever was, and the same guy who now wears the cape. So as things progress, Superman becomes more who he really is. Not this is a change in who he is, it's just where he's allowed to be himself more frequently.
Clark Kent AND Superman are who he really is, but Clark's also the disguise. Two Clarks, one the same as Supes, one not.
Also, Tarantino couldn't have been more wrong witht hat Kill Bill diatribe. Superman would never make fun of us.
3 comments:
Tarantino, through Bill, didn't really say Superman was making fun of humanity, rather the Clark was Superman's critique of the human race. You can be critical of something, even something you love (as SIB proves). Just as Superman inspires others to be better, don't you think Clark (bumbling, put-upon, Reevesish Clark) inspires others to be, well, less like him? In fact, I think in the case of someone like, say, Jimmy Olsen, Clark can foster a kind of altruism, to get others to look out for a guy who can't quite get himself together.
I don't really agree with Bill (who, it should be remembered, is a psychotic killer), but I can see his point about Superman and Clark.
I'm glad you responded to this, i was actually going to ask what you thought.
I think you give Bill's speech too much credit and a layer it doesn't have inherently, but that layer is absolutely dead on.
Meek Clark does inspire those around him to look out for the little guy. It was a recurring theme in the 70s with half the GBS staff egging Lombard's bullying on with the other half saying "No, picking on the weak isn't funny."
That was a good comment Mr. Farrell. I remember when we all got out of the theater after Kill Bill the first thing my friends wanted to talk about was whether or not I thought what Bill had said about Superman was true.
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