Clothes make the man

Ok, so this is happening a lot: People dressed up as Superman (and super heroes in general) are being arrested. It's getting to be something of a pattern. There's this guy:

On Tuesday, he was lying on the sidewalk, which, not surprisingly even in this city, caught the attention of a police officer.
“I am just tired, I am not going anywhere,” prosecutors quoted him as telling the police. “I am Superman, the Governorator, ” he said, according to a law official.
He then ran into the street. Vehicles swerved around him, the complaint said. He “flailed” his arms, refusing to be handcuffed, it said.
And so that was how he landed in Judge Alvin Yearwood’s courtroom, sitting on a hard bench at about 11 a.m. on Wednesday, with a hole in his tights, as prostitution and drunk driving suspects were called up to appear.
“This was the company that Superman was keeping,” said John Marshall Mantel, a freelance photographer for The New York Times who saw him there.

I'm not sure I understand the reason behind referring to the guy as Superman. The "freelance photographer" is only one of the people who do this sort of thing. Because he wears the costume, he is the character. At least that's the logic here. This is a tough subject for me to work through, because there are a lot of facets to it. Lots to account for.

For instance, by putting on a Santa Claus outfit, a person kind of sort of really does become Santa Claus--at least in the eyes of the kids who believe in him. And there is something similar going on with Superman. And with the disney characters. The Superman (Josh Boltinghouse) at the Metropolis Superman Celebration isn't allowed to appear out of Character. He displays his own face (as does Superman--Mark Waid's Superman: Birthright has a great take on why this is necessary; Waid's a guy who really has thought all of this through), and because of his contract, kids who attend the festival will see the same face on Superman for many years.

A guy I interviewed here in Bloomington told me about the day he realized there was no Superman. He told it just like you might imagine a kid relating the story of how he learned there was no Santa Claus. It was the differences from his idealized version and the guy standing in front of him in a truck stop that clued him in. This guy had a wedding ring, a beer gut, and a moustache. None of which the Superman in his imagination possessed.

So what, exactly is going on with comments like the one by the photographer? Why must we conflate the man with the costume? Another example:

Superman and Batman took on New York's Finest last night in an epic Crossroads of the World battle that left the Caped Crusader in cuffs. (from the article linked in my previous post)

The costume is the most important symbolic aspect of Superman. Are these quotations telling us that by appropriating the symbol, we appropriate the identity? Or do they reveal that Superman is only what we make of him? That we control his image with what we do, so we should be careful what we do, especially when dressed as him?

The guy who dresses as Superman in Confessions of a Superhero probably has a lot to say about this. It was kind of appropriate how he as Superman was sort of the leader of all the other people who dress in costume outside the Chinese Theater in LA.

Simply mad about the house.

Thanks to meeks for the link to his footage of the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The opening speech, by Mike Ocevski (am I spelling that correctly?), is great. If anybody knows the guy who delivered it, and can connect me with him, please do so.

Every child's father should be their hero, but if he wasn't there Superman would be a great substitute.

The speech gives us a whole lot of different interpretations of the character and the way people apply them to their lives. I had no idea there is a Siegel and Shuster society.

The rest of the ceremony is great, too. There were a lot of people involved, and it seems really cool that they gave out bricks from the original house to various people, including the current residents. The "official super bricks."

At the end, when a tarp is being removed from a fence that has been cast with the superman logo: "Can I have my men of faith please lift the veil off the fence?" Tongue in cheek religion?

Immigration

The Invincible Super Blog has an interesting take on the idea of Superman as an ideal immigrant, through the eyes of the character Hitman (issue 34). There are a great many ideas about Superman as an immigrant.

Immigration is a key component of what people call the myth of Superman. Gary Engle writes about it in an essay called "What's makes Superman so darned american?" that's in Superman at 50: the persistence of a legend (I wanted to link to something, but there doesn't appear to be any knowledge of this book on the internets--yet I have a copy on my desk right now).

You know, Superman comics don't sell all that well, at least that's what the comic shop workers I've been interviewing tell me. The last movie was not what people wanted. I have no idea if Smallville is a big hit or not, though the eight seasons it has run offer some indication. And yet Superman is huge right now. There are all these things going on, such as the house restoration. And people write about him on their blogs every day. People also dress up as him every day, sometimes getting arrested for it.