Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Do We Need A Superman?


I am one of the few people in this world that knows that there are five Superman movies, and I am a girl! My first love was Christopher Reeve. Instead of Disney movies being watched hundreds of thousands of times when I was younger it was Supes, well Superman or a Nadia Comăneci movie (the gymnast).

I never read comic books, I think thank God because I would be homeless from buying them, but I do know a lot about the mythology, the Superman Cannon if you will, though most look at me like I am crazy when I talk like that. And everything I learned I learned--like a good student in the front row of class never taking my eyes off the Teacher, ready to scoop up knowledge like ice cream or to grab my big neon straw when the ICEE was about to flow--from movies and TV. And over the years, starting with two Jewish boys in the early 1900s, to comics, to the radio, to comics, to cartoons, to comics, to TV, to comics, to cartoons, to movies, to comics, to TV, to a movie, to comics, to TV and back again, all involving people trying to evolve the Man of Steel so he works and sells to a current audience.

Superman adapts to the world we live in today. He has to sell now...and he does! I do not think the idea of Superman can ever die. He will live on forever. Looking at our world, he has to. There is no reason he wouldn't.

So this makes me think, think deeply about all these Superheroes we have around, all these supernatural shows and movies and comic books. They are everywhere, and I think, I think I do not believe there was much of a time when in some way a hero didn't exist. There have always been leaders, heroes, throughout time and history they have existed or been wished into existence in the imagination of our hearts. Our story contexts desire, no need, heroes. A main character we like, love, want around, to do something. To affect something. To effect something. Story, life, involves heroes. Don't they?

Looking at story as a metaphor for life we always have a hero. They have always been around and they always will be, it is just that these are super to live up to the super-uber-badness and evil we live in. Something has to be bigger than evil, we need to believe that. Doesn't story, life, involve heroes, and don't we wish they were super? But do we need them to be super?

This world we live in now, it is pretty ugly isn't it? I think it is. I turn the news on and am disgusted, my intestines get knotted and my pulse increases, my heart is thumping loud at the sounds of pain and destruction and hurt in this world. And I think, it is not getting better; it is only getting worse. And it is. It is getting worse. You can't tell me honestly that it isn't. Evil grows. It adapts. It evolves with the Times, shouldn't good?

Evil is strong, and it needs someone to fight it off to maintain balance. If you can take a good look at the world, not just the fairy world of America or California (and look closely enough here or with squinted eyes, depends on how wells yours work and if they transmit images from and to your heart as well as your brain, evil is super, and if evil is super, we need a superhero.

We live in a world longing for help, crying out for it really. Longing for peace, crying out for peace, yet we ourselves seem unable to produce it. Everywhere, every second, people are dying, getting hurt, hurting someone else, stealing, blowing things or people up, crashing cars, crashing planes, getting in accidents, starting wars...cats are stuck in trees, old ladies can't cross the street, young women are tied to railroad tracks, and there is a baby stroller somewhere about to get hit--Lois lane is hanging out of a helicopter as we live and breathe people--this world needs a hero, and he or she needs to be super.

This world needs the X-Men, a Bionic Woman, Clark Kent, The Flash, Batman, or Peter Patrelli after he figures out Adam is the bad guy. With Sylars and Lex Luthors out there we need someone to stand up to them. The world is sick. All we ourselves as mere humans can do is band aid the problems. We are not the doctor. We need the Doctor.

We need a Superman. If we could save ourselves don't you think we would have done it by now? We can't do this on our own people. Admit it. Evil is Super and we need a Superman. We need a Savior.

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