The Four Color Media Monitor

Well, I figured that the Newspeak madness that's eating away at Hollywood these days would have its toll on the cinematic version of the Man of Steel just as much as the one in comics, not just in terms of censoring The American Way from the script, but also in views on marriage and how to raise a child. Debbie Schlussel finds that Superman Returns features a few things that simply weren't necassary, such as:

...we got a dumbed down, girlie-man version of Superman in "Superman Returns." Like every sensitive, slacker metrosexual, Supe's gone off for five years to "discover himself." In the meantime, the dullest Lois Lane ever has a child out of wedlock. Nice message to send to your kids who will be begging to see this. No smoking lectures by Superman and plugs for tofu sandwiches got a lot of play though. Script-writers were more concerned with that kind of health than the splendid problems single motherhood brings.

In what is more reminiscent of a Maury Povich "Who's the Daddy?" show than a Superman plot, Lois apparently slept around and thinks the cutesy kid--very annoying and distracting in the film--is her fiance's child, not that of the other guy she was simultaneously sleeping with--the Man of Steel.

Whether it's her fiance's kid or the Man of Steel's, my my, isn't this just wonderful. Just when they had a chance to offer the public a decent movie, they go along and cough up a less-than-innocent premise reminicient of Murphy Brown's needless out-of-wedlock storyline instead (and Warner Brothers TV backed away from a lot of that premise some time afterwards). They say that showbiz people were against marriage in the 50s, and apparently, they still are. (And, given the chance, they can also be anti-birthrate as well.)

Some way to go and ruin one of comicdom's most beloved ladies. I can only wonder, is DC going to try anything similar with the regular comic books anytime soon? I'd advise against, mainly because, as I've concluded in recent years, personalities and development are not something I should be too demanding of, certainly not if it's going to lead to this.

Newsbusters wrote about this earlier, and said that:

If filmmakers are going to keep insisting that Superman must continue to change in order to reflect the times in which we live, one wonders how many more decades will pass until a version is released where Luthor is the hero and Superman the villain if the Man of Tomorrow continues to insist upon imposing his standards upon common criminals and would be galactic conquerors.

Well, DC Comics, and by extension, the mainstream media, have already been excusing Dr. Light for his own crimes against Sue Dibny, so I guess that dark day when the roles in the Superworld are reversed might not be too far off.

It's high time already for a televised debate on the state of today's comic books. Yes, I mean it.

Update: Debbie's also discussed her review on Billy Cunningham's radio show, WLW-AM 700 in Cincinatti, and also on Fred Honsberger's, KDKA-AM 1020, Pittsburgh, on New York's WABC Radio on The Curtis & Cuby Show, and even MSNBC's Scarborough Country.

Update 2: Michelle Malkin's taken a look, and isn't pleased with how the filmmakers wouldn't include The American Way in the movie. The American Thinker also weighs in.

The blogmaster of The Stupid Shall be Punished was bored.

Outside the Beltway is very dismayed.

What Would Tyler Durden Do is much less forgiving.

Update 3: I found a letter to the editor in the Medina County Gazette of Ohio that says:

Past Clevelanders Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster — the creators of Superman — must be turning in their graves at the farce Warner Bros. Entertainment has made out of their character in the movie "Superman Returns."

During the movie, the Daily Planet's editor, Perry White, speaks of Superman's defense of "Truth, Justice …," but leaves out the wholesome, freedom-fighting exclamation point of "The American Way!" Of course, this makes anyone with any minimal comic book knowledge furious — that is, until you really get upset once you see what they made this so-called "Superman" actually stand for.

The "hero" in this movie is so gutless, he leaves Earth for five years without being able to face saying goodbye to those he loved; he creeps around people's houses so he can eavesdrop and peep in the windows; he apparently doesn't show up for a scheduled parole board hearing (weak plot point!); and he fathers a child out of wedlock! The movie also has a not-so-subtle "the world doesn't need a savior" bash at Christians.

DC Comics should be ashamed for allowing an icon like Superman to be presented in this fashion. It was totally unnecessary to make the movie a blockbuster. Warner Bros. should have taken a script from the old Siegel and Shuster days and made a movie about the real Superman — the one with American ideals.

Amen.

Update 4: just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the UK Guardian, bastion of moonbattery that they are, went and wrote a truly disgusting "interview" with the director (Hat tip: No Pasaran). Beginning with the top subtitling:

Why did Bryan Singer want to swap the X-Men for America's favourite illegal alien? Lesley O'Toole looks up, up in the sky

More like down, down at the ground. A needlessly politicized article, this really scrapes bottom with its dishonesty and bias.

Update 5: not so super box office. Given the cynicism involved in both the movie and the press coverage of it, not so surprising either.

Labels: Superman