Imagination

I'm trying to figure out exactly what to do with the fact that kids pretend to be Superman. A big part of me is already dealing with the concept of ostension, which is enacting a behavior that you read about or hear about (such as a kid playing russian roulette because he read about it in a comic book--see The Ten Cent Plague). There was, after all, a rumor that George Reeves killed himself because he felt guilty when all sorts of kids hurt themselves pretending they could fly.

So kids pretend to be superheroes. Scholars study this. Advice sites tell you how to deal with it. Frederic Wertham condemns it and the art form that prompted it. But what does it all mean? I'll get back to you on that.

More Nicknames...

Finally a baseball superman. Shannon Wilkerson of Augusta State.

Soccer. Derby's Superman, Oscar Machapa. The article doesn't refer to him as that except in the headline.

Boxing. Edwin Valero. He's from venezuela.

Mixed Martial Arts. Anthony Manacio. He's got superman tattoos, too.

Lacrosse. Ryan Fioretti. he's a goal keeper.

This one's not in reference to a specific person's nickname, but refers to the fact that superman is a character type. It's in reference to some Dodgers players realizing that they're not going to be "superman." Someone who plays even when they're not feeling up to it. So, you know, it's still sports.

Enough of that. Tattoos

This is funny:

Then there's Turk--Donald Faison of Scrubs. According to some, he's going to remove his superman tattoo.

From an interview in American Way:

I was 18. I wanted to get a tattoo. Superman was the coolest. He could solve every problem. He was the man of steel. I wanted to do it. My right arm is my strong arm, so I thought if I put the tattoo on that arm, it’d make me stronger. Didn’t really do anything for me. I’m just permanently marked with another man’s insignia. You live and learn.

And then there's this one:

Tattoo

I've been considering Superman in folklore, but mostly in verbal folklore: nicknames, jokes, etc. I've gotten a few pictures here and there, mostly of Obama as Superman. I don't know why it's taken me so long to consider Superman tattoos. It took Scrubs to open my eyes. Turk has a Superman tattoo on his shoulder.


Here are a few pictures. This one from a forum on Wizard, but a guy whose screen name is Team Rocket:






This one's cool. It's on the arm of a guy named Dan Spaulding, of Scenic City Builders, which explains the hammer:






This one's on a thread at bluetights.net, and there are a whole lot of picuters here. I choose this one because it comes up first in a search, and because the placement of the tattoo is another traditional choice. It comes with many names, the placement, which I will not get into here. It's posted by txsupergirl87:




There will no doubt be more tattoo posts in the future. I hear Shaq's got one, too.