Heroes and Villains

The 1978 film Superman is one I'm always happy to settle down and watch. It's a superhero film from the days before superheroes were the monstrous, all-pervading beefcake-with-psychoses cinematic wallpaper they've become today, every cheap short-run failed comic-book experiment turned into a very expensive failed cinema experiment. I now refuse to watch them: Watchmen was an embarrassing sacrilege and I gather Green Lantern was an insult to the original.

Superman was different. Innocent in many ways: it's a caper without any designs on profundity, which is where our current costumed creations fail: the screenwriters aren't good enough. Superman isn't quite All-American. Yes, he tells Lois that he's there – from another galaxy –  to fight for 'Truth, Justice and the American Way', which you could read as an attempt to recuperate American spirits after having their asses (as they call them) well and truly kicked in Vietnam), but the film's over-riding light-heartedness of tone undercuts this rather implausible claim. He has no political axe to grind nor unresolved Oedipal desires (though his dead father is a Law he breaks, giving rise to the appalling teen-misery of the recent Superman film and Smallville).

The clip above is one of my favourites, and one I show to students when trying to explain semiotics, and cultural studies. Arch-villain Lex Luthor neatly encapsulates the know-nothing reverence for the canon we find in the reactionary newspapers and the views of people forced to read by rote without ever understanding them. He beautifully encapsulates the need to examine all of culture and media – down to the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper – to truly understand our condition. Raymond Williams and Norman Fairclough would be proud.

My other favourite line in the film is towards the end of this clip. Past the glorious geological pun 'We all have our faults: mine's in California' (Lex has launched a nuke to trigger the San Andreas fault so that California slips into the sea, boosting the value of the desert he's bought cheaply), Miss Hackensack points out that the other missile aimed at Hackensack will kill her own mother. Rarely has a shaken head been put to such good use.

SuperBeard…?

If you haven't read Roland Barthes on Roman hairstyles on film, you really should. He uses the changing presentation of Romans' barnets to argue that semiotics demonstrates the mutability and cultural specificity of signs.

I thought about it just now because I watched a trailer for the new Superman film, Man of Steel.



It is - like all the other mainstream superhero films - mostly about origins, patriarchy, the Law of the Father and conservatism (oh yes they are). But there are a few other touches which warrant attention. Primarily, Clark Kent's beardiness and Superman's clean-shaven face.

What do beards signify at the moment? In my cultural sphere, it signifies a tiny degree of cultural alterity. Look at all those new-folk and rock bands: Bon Iver and Co. They've all listened to The Band and decided that because manufactured pop singers are all clean-shaven, nothing says 'authenticity' like a bushy beard. It's a sign. Inevitably, the more popular adopting beards becomes, the less meaningful the beard is. Take Mumford and Sons:

Without needing to hear a single note of their folk-pop, your semiotic skills tell you that they're faking it. The ramshackle troubadour look is too artfully put together to be convincing. Especially the facial hair. Not enough to scare pop-pickers, just enough to persuade a more cynical crowd that they mean it, man. 

The other current meaning of beardedness of course is another group which definitely 'means it': Islamic men. In particular, media depictions of Islamic men with beards tend to imply that the bigger the beard, the more likely the man is to be a terrorist. Like this chap:

Before 11th September 2001, a man with a beard and a hook would be assumed to be a pirate, or an actor appearing in Peter Pan as a pirate. But beards are scary things now. They either indicate a taste for real ale, or for violently overthrowing Western capitalist hegemony. 

Which brings me back to Man of Steel, the latest in a series of 'reboots', which seem to be occurring ever more frequently. You don't even need to clock the redesigned costume (burgundy rather than red; no external undercrackers!) to realise that this Superman has even more 'issues'. Clark has a beard! It's not a Taliban beard, it's more like a Mumford beard: carefully designed to tell us that he's somewhat alienated from patriarchal society and American values. Not very alienated: it's not a proper beard like Mr al-Hamza or a member of ZZ Top. Instead it's a Mumford beard: a lame attempt which doesn't challenge society, but promises later harmony and acquiescence. But the facial hair definitely has a role to play here: as a sign of the values and psychological problems to be triumphantly defeated in the third act. Beards are bad. Even little ones. 

In conflict with his dad's advice, he's unsettled, and the psychological distress manifests itself in facial hair and a darker costume (not at all influenced by Batman, no way). But when Clark transforms into Superman: no beard! His angst vanishes as he becomes a Man of Steel or action. The beard is abjected: it crosses the border between the internal self and the external world - it's unsettling because it deconstructs the in/out binary opposition. But when Clark becomes the Man of Steel his physical and psychological borders stop being porous. He is a Man, and he is inviolable. Therefore no beard. His doubts are gone: he's no longer a Terrorist or even a potential Mumford (or Son). 

The lesson is that beards as a sign of counter-hegemony are done. Mumford and Sons appropriated them and Man of Steel has made damn sure that the sign is too transparent and appropriable to be of any further use to self-styled rebels. Time to shave, Gen X-ers!

Superman and me

You might think I have little in common with Superman. And you'd be right. I used to have a skinny-fit Superman t-shirt (worn with a degree of irony, I should add), but I rapidly stopped being skinny and unlike Comic-Book Guy, I surmised that this wasn't a good look.

Now, however, Superman and I are colleagues. He's quit his job on the Daily Planet and become a blogger, after becoming frustrated by the limitations of print media. In particular, according to this report, the authors see Clark Kent as a man alienated from his profession by the relentless cheapening of newspaper journalism. Ironically (that word again), this occurs in the pages of a comic book. Actually, it's not ironic at all: comics have been addressing the big issues, including the erosion of the public sphere, for years.

It's a sad moment: newspapers made comic strips, and now comic strips have cast off newspapers, even though we're only talking about fiction. The point about Clark Kent being a journalist was that he was fighting for Truth and Justice in his suit and day job just as much as his alter ego was in external underpants and cape. He, Lois and Jimmy were heroes of a relatable sort, fulfilling the professional demands of their vocation. But when we think of journalism now, we don't associate it with the investigative derring-do of the Guardian or the Sunday Times Insight team (RIP): we see a bunch of sleazy blokes hacking into phones in pursuit of seedy sex scandals. We imagine Daily Mail drones putting together another set of prurient, skin-crawling euphemisms which make it OK to leer over an underage girl or a celebrity doing something outrageous like not wearing mascara. Clark's an old-fashioned guy in the best sense: he sees newspapers as part of the public sphere, holding power to account - something American and British newspapers have singularly failed to do in recent years.

I hope Clark Kent's wrong. But he's not the first fictional journalist to move into the blogosphere: Doonesbury's Rick  Redfern is finding it hard going: the Huffington Post and such sites are notoriously exploitative and still don't have the credibility associated with a newspaper (click to enlarge)

Mind you, if you think it's hard for the dispossessed journalist, what about the effect on us? I certainly wouldn't want any of you to depend either on partisan news channels or even my efforts in the field for enlightenment. (Click to enlarge). 

Blogging is important: I've pursued the egregious Grant Shapps and my local excuse for an MP, Paul Uppal, because I don't have institutional responsibilities - I'm not spending anyone's money and I don't have a deadline, but it's no substitute for a press card, an editor and a budget. Despite the heroic work of Eoin Clarke et al., we don't have the mass reach, access or credibility a decent newspaper still possesses. 

This is the news

Before I go back to bemoaning my forcible return from Norway (and believe me, I contemplated claiming refugee status), I'll tell you about the parcel I just unwrapped. I received copies of In The Loop on DVD, and Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, and also a second-hand copy of Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives, a brilliant piece of anti-biography in a way.

I said earlier that Norway is a country in which life-enhancing projects are undertaken ambitiously and successfully, whereas Britain is a tired place full of begrudgingly doled-out second-hand junk - there's no pride. There's a sense that every political speech, every idea is expressed with a silent 'whatever' or 'that'll do' at the end. We are the 'whatever' culture. Here's a clip from The Thick of It (the TV series from which In The Loop came) which expresses our depressing cynicism. This is the densest chunk of sustained swearing I've ever experienced, so don't play it if that kind of thing offends you, OK?

However, it's the wrapping of the Shakespeare book which fascinated me. The bookseller packed the volume in a beautiful fragment of a 1934 map of Capel Wood, near New Romsey, and in a few pages of The Times, from Saturday August 7th 1858 (price 4d)! Every page is in beautiful condition, the language is formal and measured, and it's really hard to read - as was traditional in those days, the first few pages are tightly-packed classified ads. I think I'll post a couple of them each day for your amusement and interest. Some are enigmatic, some heartbreaking

.

Let's start with a few of the personal notices, and just imagine the stories behind them - perhaps there's a novel in these:

WILLY,– RETURN or WRITE at once.

GEORGIANA.– RETURN HOME immediately.

Your father is heartbroken.

SEMPER EADEM, "always the same" "All's

well."– 8th and 27th August.

FRIDAY-STREET or KENSINGTON.––WIL

LIAM may RETURN immediately, as all is satisfactorily

arranged.–LIZZIE.

M.P.–Your father is now in a very dangerous state.

Let him have the consolation of seeing you. Not an hour is

to be lost.–E.O.

INDIA.–Initials.–J'éspere que vous parviendra

et que vous me donnerez de vos nouvelles à la meme addresse.

Soyez assuré de mon estime, et que je vous regrette toujours. Je ne

puis plus ici. Dieu vous garde. Newbury.

(This last reads: I hope that you succeed, and that you will give me your news at the same address. Be assured of my respect/admiration, and that I miss you always. I can do no more here. God keep you.)

Feel free to come up with mini-stories for these in the comments section. Perhaps births, weddings and deaths tomorrow.