Thursday, August 10, 2006

Goofy in spandex


Superman
Originally uploaded by David Babylon.
"I don't know how to love him.
What to do, how to move him.
I've been changed, yes really changed.
In these past few days, when I've seen myself,
I seem like someone else.
I don't know how to take this.
I don't see why he moves me.
He's a man. He's just a man."

This week the theme of this blog is lyrics. Maria Magdalena's song in Jesus Christ Superstar could be used to draw the main lines of yesterday's cinema experience. Bryan Singer's new Superman Returns revolves mainly around the complicated relationship of Superman and Lois Lane. I reacted like all boys in these situations: yuck, give me more flying, more saving people, more things falling apart!

Superman Returns brought the feelings caused by Narnia back to the surface. I am not sure whether I am oversensitive but when I hear phrases such as "the father becomes the son, the son becomes the father", "people of the Earth are lost without you showing the light", "does the world need a saviour" and when I see a man flying on and on again in a crucifix position, I smell a Christian plot.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against faith (although a fellow blogger a while ago said that I am a typical person without any guidance in his life). I just find it disturbing when these tones are smuggled in. As a silly drunk would shout during a thunderstorm: BRING IT ON!

Although the film was beautiful and Kevin Spacey thrillingly bad, I must say that Spiderman is still sooo much cooler than Superman. Superman is a empty nerd, not only as Clark Kent.

And final comment with my journalist hat on: Clark, please, if you pretend to be a journalist, do some writing every now and then. Being a journalist does not consist only of walking around with a folder in your hand and looking goofy.

3 comments:

Aija Kanervio said...

Hmm
kristinusko taitaa olla kuitenkin tänään vähiten harrastettu, se kun on jäänne aikaisemmasta maailmasta. Voin nähdä paljon vahvempia piiloviesti indoktrinaatiomörköjä amerikkalaisella unelmatehtailun taivaalla.

:-)

Pekka

Tommi Laitio said...

You are very right. Christian tone is not at all the most dangerous one of the messages fed into films but I still found it relatively surprising how even in DC Comics the approach on heroism is so much in the traditional footsteps.

About the hidden messages: It is by far scarier that a great number of films from the US supports a unilaterialist intervention of (the) superpower and/or violent solo act of an individual as a solution to the problems of our planet. In that sense it was very refreshing to see today the trailer of Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's film on climate change.

I wonder if others who see Superman Returns see the same messages as I do.

Anonymous said...

When I was reading Narnia as a child I never noticed the Christian plot, the child doesn´t think about it in the same way. And if I had realised it, maybe I would have got excited by finding analogies between Jesus and Aslan. and so on. Now, when I was watching the movie Narnia few weeks ago with my friend, we both got irritated about the plot and christian mission. “Look, now Aslan is going to crucify himself!!” We were all the time knowing what will happen next.

I remember that you have written once that “political art is poor art” –if the message of some piece of art is too obvious, if there are nothing left open to question-,one can feel her/himself disappointed or annoyed.

And, I`m sure that I`m also quite sensitive about the christian propaganda.
This isn´t a good explanation, but humane one: as usually it´s just a christian people who have moralised my “choices” even if these “choices” haven´t really been choices at all. And some other things in my daily life.. And christian-oriented policy of United States and.. It´s a complicated task to decide what are all the reasons for this oversensitiveness. After all, I find myself often thinking why I react like this.