New Joke

There's a joke circulating right now:


Pinocchio, Snow White, and Superman are out for a stroll in town one day. As they walked, they came across a sign:
Beauty contest for the most beautiful woman in the world. I am entering! said Snow White.
After half an hour she comes out and they ask her, Well, howd ya do?
First Place!, said Snow White.
They continue walking and they see another sign: Contest for the strongest man in the world.
Im entering, says Superman.
After half an hour, he returns and they ask him, How did you make out?
First Place , answers Superman. Did you ever doubt?
They continue walking when they see another sign: Contest! Who is the greatest liar in the world?
Pinocchio enters. After half an hour he returns with tears in his eyes.
What happened? they asked.
Who the hell is Nancy Pelosi? asked Pinocchio


Here's a variation:

Pinocchio, Snow White, and Superman are out for a stroll in town one day. As they walked, they come across a sign: "Beauty contest for the most beautiful woman in the world.""I am entering!" said Snow White. After half an hour she comes out and they ask her, "Well, how'd ya do?""First Place!" said Snow White.They continue walking and they see a sign: "Contest for the strongest man in the world.""I'm entering," says Superman. After half an hour, he returns and they ask him, "How did you make out?""First Place," answers Superman. "Did you ever doubt?"They continue walking when they see a sign: "Contest! Who is the greatest liar in the world?" Pinocchio enters.After half an hour he returns with tears in his eyes."What happened?" they asked.Pinocchio asks, "Who the heck is Nancy Pelosi?"

Here's another variation. No, I have no idea what V Twin Legend is.

Snow White, Superman, Pinocchio, and V_Twin_LegendPinocchio, Snow White, Superman, and V_Twin_Legend are out for a stroll in town one day.As they walk, they come across a sign:"Beauty contest for the most beautiful woman in the world.""I am entering!" said Snow White.After half an hour she comes out and they ask her, "Well, how'd you do?"" First Place !" said Snow White.They continue walking and they see a sign:"Contest for the strongest man in the world.""I'm entering," says Superman.After half an hour, he returns and they ask him, "How did you make out?"" First Place ," answers Superman. "Did you ever doubt?"They continue walking when they see a sign:"Contest! Who is the greatest liar in the world?""I'm entering," says Pinocchio.After half an hour he returns with tears in his eyes."What happened?" they asked."Who the hell is Nancy Pelosi?" asked Pinocchio. They continue walking when they see a sign:"Contest! Who is the greatest moron in the world?""I'm entering," says V_Twin_Legend.After half an hour he returns with anger in his face."What happened?" they asked."Who the hell is ShadowR?" asked V_Twin_Legend.


This is not a brand new joke, since I've been able to find variations from last year:

Pinocchio, Snow White and Superman are walking in the street when they come across a sign 'Beauty contest for the most beautiful woman in the world.' 'I am entering,' said Snow White. After half an hour she comes out and they ask her, 'Well, how was it?' First Place ', said Snow White. They continue walking and they see a sign: 'Contest for the strongest man in the world.' 'I'm entering,' says Superman and after half an hour he returns and they ask him, 'How was it?' First Place,' answers Superman. They continue walking when they see a sign: 'Contest! Who is the greatest liar in the world?' Pinocchio enters. After half an hour he returns with tears in his eyes. 'What happened?' they asked, 'Who is this guy Obama?' asked Pinocchio.

Note the variation at the end. This was October 18, not too long before the election. Right now, the Pelosi variant is the most prominent one, though there are still Obama variants to be found in recent postings. And they're still there in archives.

Then there's a variant with the punchline: "Who the hell is Thaksin?" asked Pinocchio. I'm going to assume that Thaksin here is Thaksin Shinawatra, former prime minister of Thailand, but that not certain.

I think it's really interesting to look at the context for this joke. Contexts, rather. People put this up on blogs, forums, newsgroups, etc. And they provide no context. Despite the fact that the person who came up with this joke could theoretically be identified, no one makes any effort to give credit. Folklore, one of the categories of expression into which this joke falls, is often anonymouse because of the nature of oral tradition. Nobody expects anyone to remember who told a joke to them, but here a link would be very easy. Yet nobody does it. They just copy and post, for the most part. I think it's also important to point out that they're not taking credit for it. A few will reveal that it came to them in e-mail or something like that, but for the most part the posts are nothing more than the joke itself.
Everybody knows that we don't make up the jokes we tell. I remember saying something funny once in response to somebody putting a plastic bag over his head. He asked me where I heard it, and when I said I'd made it up on the spot, he didn't believe me.

Other items of interest in the joke: Superman is a cocky strongman, nothing more.

Why Snow White?

A comic book figure, a character from a children's novel, and a fairy tale princess. There are a lot more versions of this joke out there. Sometimes the variation comes only in a word or two. Sometimes, it's in the punctuation. When people tell a joke out loud, it becomes their own by means of memory, inflection, and taste. When they copy a joke on-line, the variables are different. But variation still happens, despite the potential for verbatim copying. This is fascinating.

Celebration

This past weekend, I went to Metropolis, Illinois, for the Superman Celebration. I spent the weekend conducting interviews, recording events, and watching stuff.

The Celebration is organized by a committee of citizens of Metropolis who are devoted to their jobs. They're friendly and amazingly organized. Everything went smoothly, and they answered all my questions. I talked to some of them for half an hour or more, and they were gracious and excited about everything going on, even my book. They're led by Lisa Gower and Karla Ogle, who are sisters.

The events were spread out across the town, but many of the activities happened on Market Stree, which runs northeast from the 15' tall Superman statue, famous most recently for a picture of Barack Obama standing in front of it with arms akimbo. Here's the strip of food and vendors looking northeast toward some ominous clouds. About five minutes after I took this, it poured.

And here we are looking southwest, toward the Statue and the courthouse that sits beyond it.

The local businesses, which are located behind the tents in these pictures, use the occasion to try to sell more stuff. Superman gets an endorsement, whether he likes it or not. Here he is, in a collage that includes Obama and a better picture of the statue, advertising for a store. The Skin Shop has super deals (The Skin Shop is a mini day spa, by the way).

Here you can get an idea of the statue's size. These people are standing on the pedement, which is shaped like the Superman s-shield.

There were many people in costume, but only on officially sanctioned Superman, who's name is Josh Boltinghouse. He won the Search for Superman context and a five year deal to play Superman at the Celebration. Here he is, with my son Jacob.

Jacob, by the way, turned 2 this past Monday.

Inside the chamber of Commerce. There are tons of Superman souvenirs there, in case the vendors outside and the Super Museum shop didn't provide enough. (there's also, incongruously, a poster of the Wesley Snipes/Tommy Lee Jones film US Marshalls--which I came to learn was filmed partly in Metropolis). For some reason, I thought this section of the Commerce gift shop worth photographing.

I got lots of good stuff for a book here. If I was ever in doubt that this book will be about something important to people, that doubt was put to rest by this trip. People really make Superman an importatnt part of their lives, and not always for the same reasons. The Superman Celebration crystallizes that into one weekend. For some, it serves the same function that Halloween costuming serves: a chance to put on another face for a day or two, to let loose. I interviewed a pair of brothers, Alex and John Rinaldi, who do not put on costumes but are devoted Superman fans. They said that to dress up like that is to become interesting to others, like becoming a god for a weekend. An interesting observation.

For the town, it's an economic goldmine. They have other things that help this, a casino, a revolutionary war fort (with its own festival and re-enactment), and a harley davidson ralley. But many of them, while not necessarily fans, really get behind Superman and the Celebration. they love the work and the result. They love meeting the people. Karla, one of the chairs of the committee, compared it to a cross between Disneyland and a small town Festival. I'd replace Disneyland with a comic convention, but that might just be because I haven't been to disneyland. But my reason for the convention is the sense of community, which I doubt exists at Disneyland. Do many of the people who run the theme park know the guests by name? Perhaps, but do they incorporate the guests into the opening ceremony, allow them to run a trivia game? My interview with Karla included several moments when attendees would come up to her to chat for a bit. She knew them all by name.

All told, some 40,000 people attended the four day event. There were costume contests, a soft ball game, a car show, and scores of other events. I can't even list them all here, but they spread all over the town. I'm not that adept at fieldwork, having had little practice but a lot of theoretical instruction. I think I may have to go back next year.

A bit of this, a bit of that.

I suppose that the recent passing of David Carradine makes his speech in Kill Bill a sensible link at the moment. It is a good speech, so good that it was more or less written in 1968 by Jules Pfeiffer in The Great Comic Book Heroes, reissued by Fantagraphics Press not too long ago. Tarrantino often borrows liberally from other movies (so much that it's even commented on in other movies--Swingers, for example [Swingers...haven't thought about that movie in a while]), which makes me wonder if he's read Pfeiffer's book.

I'm not sure what to make of the St. Cloud Superman. Evidently he's all about free speech.

Again with Flickr. The makeup artist says it's inspired by Superman. Red, yellow, blue. Are there flickr people out there who come up with new make up designs (is that the right word) and post them regularly? Interesting. (sorry, the picture won't post.)

This review of Irredeemable is as good a reason as any to bring up the Superman pastiche. It's pretty common in comics to have a character who's not Superman, but is really Superman in all the important ways. This way creators can tell Superman stories that couldn't otherwise be told. It's akin to the Imaginary Stories, which I think have given way to Elseworlds (if those are still around, my comics information isn't the most current), which is similar to the Earth 2 stuff from a while back. In this version, the Plutonian is more or less an evil Superman. I think. Haven't read it yet, but I intend to. It's written by Mark Waid, who claims to be the only person on the planet to have read, watched, or listened to every Superman story ever told (in Superheroes and Philosophy).

Speaking of which, here's a blog entry Waid wrote earlier this year, which cover one of the reasons why he loves the character so much. Here's a passage:

It didn’t matter that he wasn’t real. What mattered was that he cared about everyone in the world, without exception, without judgment.
Everyone.

Waid has become one of the superstar writers in comics, and he's moved from a regular gig writing for DC comics, where he got to retell Superman's origin in a series called Birthright, to Boom! Studios, where he's now the editor in chief.

I’d walked into that theater with a very short future ahead of me, and I’d walked out feeling safe and inspired in Superman’s orbit. Without that, I can promise you I would not be here today.

That's a good note on which to end. Well, not as good as this:

Religion

So a friend, and sort of a collaborator on this Superman project, sent me a link to this site, which delcares 10 Reasons why Superman is better than Jesus. That article links to another, in which a father recounts his daughter's reaction to Superman. According to the daughter, Superman is better than God.

It is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Superman, that he is simultaneously conscripted by Atheists and Christians as an important character, one which points toward all that is good and right about the respective belief system.

Here's another site: "S" for Superman or Savior?

I'll leave you to figure out the specifics of the religions of the two writers above. But in published books, the comparison works out more favorably. Take Greg Garret's Holy Superheroes. Or Steven Skelton's The Gospel According to the World's Greatest Superhero. On the other side of that issue John T. Galloway points out all of the ways in which Superman fails to live up to the ideals of Christ. There are others.

Perhaps the most interesting aspects of the on-line articles are the comments, in which things can get pretty heated. What we learn most of all is that people really think this through. And both sides conclude that Superman is or is not for them. (I think there may be a parallel to this article, in which Superman is cast as a liberal opposed to Batman's conservatism.)

I think the Superman as Christ thing really took off with the Richard Donner film in 78. He and the writers made the parallels (which weren't always in the comics) too obvious to miss--or to ignore. For my own part, I dislike the blatant mapping of one character onto another. But I still loved that movie.

This article shows a bit of how the plot of the Superman story fits in with Otto Rank's Myth of the Birth of the Hero. Rank's is a psychoanalytic sort of study, one which begins with the reduction of the story to a basic structure, but goes on to interpret it in interesting ways that the author of this article never really deals with in his brief analysis. Alan Dundes, freudian folklorist, edited a version of it a while back that is probably the most interesting one to examine.

Rank's study is an interesting one to combine with Lord Raglan's The Hero, which takes the hero's whole life instead of merely the first adventure. He, too, reduces it to a series of episodes and demonstrates that a great deal of heroes will experience many of the 22 episodes he chronicles. I think Oedipus scored the highest. Back to Dundes, I think he determined that Jesus scored 19 of 22. Pretty good score, though not quite up there with Oedipus, if I recall.

So, to sum up...Superman is Jesus to some people, and the anti-Christ to others?

What's that one movie...

You know...where Richard Pryor tries to get a donkey to "sit."

Oh, yeah. It's Superman III.

This is just an awful movie. I hadn't seen it since it came out, with good reason. And yet...

There's the hint of something spectacular here. There's the way it opens, without Superman at all. We watch Richard Pryor get denied unemployment benefits. Magnificent.

Then, there's the city scene. It's not well done, but it could have been the best part of any Superman movie ever. If we had seen Clark Kent subtly saving various Metropolitans from disaster and pies in the face, then this could have been great. There's a scene in issue 5 of All Star Superman, where Kent works to quell a prison riot, save the guards, and keep Lex Luthor alive all while avoiding the Parasite and never changing to Superman. If the scene in Superman III had gone that route, it could have been great. Instead, Superman arrives to rip a sunroof off a car. Couldn't Kent have flicked a beer nut to shatter one of the windows (which he does later in the film under the influence of wacky kryptonite)? And what's with that pie?

The rest of the film is really only notable because of the split between the good and bad Supermans. Exposed to a tainted kryptonite, he becomes evil--which consists largely of leering at Lana Lang, arriving too late to save a truck driver, putting the leaning tower of Pisa upright, and flicking beer nuts. Then he divides in two: Superman (whose red is now marroon) and Kent. They fight, Kent wins. Literally, Kent is the good in Superman, who would run rampant, mildly disturbing tourist attractions and otherwise making a nuisance of himself.

I don't know why I never tire of seeing Obama as Superman. It's always interesting to me. this one is stencilled graffiti, looks like it's on pavement somewhere.

Then there's the cover for this Taiwanese magazine. Flickr is absolutely wonderful for this project.

For a mere 29.95, you too can own your own Superman Obama bobblehead.

American Dreamtime

I just finished the book called American Dreamtime, by Lee Drummond. Its "an anthropologist goes to the movies" angle is an intriguiging one, of which I approve. I believe it shows its age a bit, being writting way way back in 1995, with all of its defenses of choosing to study movies, but that's a minor quibble.

There are major quibbles, thought. First, Drummond doesn't mention Superman even once. What's the deal?

On a more serious note, Drummond lays out his theory of culture, which he derives from science and the notion that humanity is not a discrete species. He problematizes boundaries throughout the book. His overall argument is that"culture created humanity" rather than the other way around, by which he means that culture preceded homo sapiens and thus played a key role in evolution. There are some very interesting arguments made about myth, its nature and its importance. There's some pretty good macro-level points here.

On the micor-level, the book falls apart. The writing itself is annoying, but that's another minor quibble. Drummond chooses to focus on four films and series of films: James Bond, Star Wars, ET, and Jaws. Good choices overall. The Bond chapter is probably the most successful, and I wouldn't be surprised if Drummond is a huge fan. The chapter that follows it, on Star Wars, is simply inexcusably bad. Never before have I encountered a scholar who makes up data to fit his theories. Yet Drummond seemingly does so. Star Wars was pretty important to my childhood, so I know the films pretty well (but not the books or comics, which is why I have to say "seemingly does so"). So when Drummond puts certain scenes in the wrong movies (such as the first glimpse of Vader's face being in Empire instead Episode IV, as Drummond has it), I notice it but excuse it. However, Storm Troopers (which Drummond labels Imperial Guard but describes clearly as Storm Troopers) are not machines in the sense that he labels them--robots. He invents a scene where Han tells Luke not to worry about killing them because there's nothing inside the armor.

Everybody who's seen the prequels knows that Storm Troopers are clones. Devotees knew it a long time ago. it's not a recent idea. This is just crazy.

And no Superman. It's too bad, really. Then I might have something to say about it.

This article about the reasons for the success of Batman movies and the failure of the recent Superman movie raises some interesting questions and makes a couple of good points. This paragraph, however, is probably a bit off.

So let's break this down into superheroes and its current trend in film. “Superman Returns,” the 2006 Bryan Singer dirge, didn't fail because audiences no longer resonate with a super being that can fly, shoot heat from his eyes and is immune to bullets. It failed because Superman is the epitome of good morals and justice, which today's audience find boring and childish.

I disagree with his reasoning here. I don't think that "today's audience" finds that boring at all. Success for Superman and for Batman do not have to be mutually exclusive things. I think, rather, that it's entirely more probably that people going to see a movie went with the idea that they'd see a Superman movie. Instead, they got something else. I'm not sure what that something else was--all I know is that it wasn't good by any reasonable standard. They got a lame plot. They got too much nostalgia and too little adventure and excitement. It failed because it wasn't a good movie.

SPORTS

I've been compiling a list of athletes (among others) who are called Superman. The Bleacher Report has done a short one, too, but with the added critique of pointing out how everyone on the list is not Superman for one reason or another.

Art

Evidently the term Superman in fitness (at least in this article) refers to "Lying flat on your stomach, simultaneously raise both arms and legs (knees locked) as high as you can". From the pose Superman makes when he flies, no doubt.

Interestingly, that pose is sort of justified in The Iron Giant. I watched that not too long ago. It's fantastic, but I watched it because there's a lot about Superman in it. In an essay in the Man From Krypton: A Closer Look at Superman, David Hopkins says that the movie uses Superman as a guide to morality for powerful people. But Hogarth (the kid who befriends the Iron Giant) tells the giant to hold his arms out like Superman to steady himself as he flies. It works.

The latest edition of Wired UK has the Superman logo on the cover. For whatever reason, the computer I'm using won't download the on-line sample of the issue, so I don't exactly know why, but the cover blurb reads "How science is re-engineering your mind, body, and spirit..." so that may have something to do with it. Superman is, in some ways, and especially in the All Star version, about perfecting humanity.

A while back, Neil Gaiman and Adam Rogers wrote a brief piece in Wired called "The Myth of Superman." It's not a bad little essay, though I disagree with their assessment of Superman's villains. Sure, a lot of them are disposable, but as far as I know the only villain who's entered the general lexicon of pretty much everybody is Bizarro. Brainiac gets used pretty often, too. And everybody knows who Lex Luthor is.

I read a really good article on Halloween, called "Does the Word 'Dog' Bite?" It's by the legendary folklorist Linda Degh--legendary because of her primary area of study (legends) and her stature within the field. Her book Legend and Belief changed the way I approach narratives in general. The article only mentions Superman once, as a disguies for children on Halloween, but it's just generally interesting, so I thought I'd mention it. She points out that dressing up as Superman is enacting the legend of superman, a retelling of the story that she labels ostension (after Umberto Eco).

Then there's this, Superdavid:

There's a site called worth1000.com. It ran a contest called Superhero ModRen. People were invited to take a renaissance painting and photoshop in a superhero or villain. Three different entries portrayed Michaelangelo's David as Superman. I liked this one the best, but that's just me. Looking at that statue from the front, it's easy to forget that it's actually a portrayal of David of David and Goliath fame. Once around back, you can see the sling draped over his shoulder in detail, and the story comes into focus. He was supposed to be perfection, I guess, as is Superman. He sired a line of kings that putatively lasted until Jesus.

In a related story, my wife Mandy and I went to see that statue in Florence. Waiting in line, a pigeon pooped on her head.

I wrote my dissertation on Prometheus, and I analyzed every use of the character I could find, from references in books to businesses that are named after the character. I also studied the use of the name as a referent in conversation. What did people mean when they referred to something as Prometheus, or Promethean?

I'm not doing this for Superman, because that would take the rest of my life, but I still think it's interesting. Take, for instance, the story "Sometimes You Feel Like a Man of Steel". It's hilarious for two reasons: First, because of the description of the pump at the beginning, which goes into far more detail about big macs than is necessary. Second, for the ending, and the perfect way the writer handles being punched in the stomach by a random drunk girl. I think the series of which this is a part, "Life is Real: Writing the final chapters" is a really great idea. I can barely imagine what it must be like to fight terminal cancer, but I think that having a forum to write about it must help in some small way.

Then there's stuff like this. The meaning that people find in Superman's secret identity takes a long time to catalogue. I hadn't come across a homosexual interpretation until now. I don't recall for sure, but I seem to remember a lot of people writing about the homosexual subtext to Superman Returns, basing it on the director's sexual orientation more than anything else. Wait a minute, I don't have to recall anything: i've got the internets...

Here's just about the only one worth a look:

"I think the generation of gay men that grew up on Superman and a few of the other comic superheroes probably read a lot of stuff into it that they recognized -- the whole double-life situation and running into 'closet-like' spaces," Lock says.

In Other News...

Superman Cakes

Back

Since I discovered that someone is actually reading this (see the comment for the last post--by a real guy!), I figure I should remark on what I've been doing in my absence. First of all, I went to Los Angeles to deliver a portion of this project as a paper for the Western States Folklore Society annual meeting. The reception was enthusiastic, and there was a good discussion afterwards. It prompted one scholar--the incomparable Wolfgang Meider--to give me a book, which was nice. I got some nice feedback, notably from Elliott Oring, a humor scholar of much renown. The paper, by the way, was on a joke:

A guy walks into a bar on the top of a very tall building. He sits down, orders a huge beer, chugs it, walks over to the window, and jumps out. Five minutes later, the guy walks into the bar again, orders another huge beer, chugs it, walks over to the window, and jumps out again. Five minutes later, he re-appears and repeats the whole thing. About half an hour later, another guy at the bar stops the first guy and says, "hey, how the heck are you doing that?!" The first guy responds, "Oh, it's really simple physics. When you chug the beer, it makes you all warm inside and since warm air rises, if you just hold your breath you become lighter than air and float down to the sidewalk." "WOW!" exclaims the second man, "I gotta try that!" So he orders a huge beer, chugs it, goes over to the window, jumps out, and splats on the sidewalk below. The bartender looks over to the first man and says, "Superman, you're a jerk when you're drunk."

It's the same joke I posted a link to (in video version) in the first post. I must say, it got a good laugh when I told it to the crowd of folklorists. The meeting--and my talk in particular--were well attended, which was really nice. It was a good group of people, most of whom I'd never met before.

The other reason for the lack of posts is that I've been writing the next chapter. It's called "The Apotheosis of Our Former Selves" because why wouldn't I use the most ridiculous-sounding chapter title ever? It makes me laugh to think that I may be delivering a paper with this title at the next American Folklore Socity conference. It's in Boise. I've never been to idaho before.

This next chapter is about a joke as well:

At his request, each morning 3-year-old Ray's mother pinned a bath towel to the back shoulders of his size two T-shirt. Immediately in his young imaginative mind, the towel became a magic blue and red cape. And he became Superman. Outfitted each day in his "cape," Ray's days were packed with adventure and daring escapades. He was Superman. This fact was clearly pointed out last fall when his mother enrolled him in kindergarten class. During the course of the interview, the teacher asked Ray his name. "Superman," he answered politely and without hesitation. The teacher smiled, cast an appreciative glance at his mother, and asked again, "Your real name, please." Again, Ray answered, "Superman." Realizing the situation demanded more authority, or maybe to hide amusement, the teacher closed her eyes for a moment, then in a stern voice said, "I will have to have your real name for my records." Sensing he'd have to play straight with the teacher, Ray slid his eyes around the room, hunched closer to her, and answered in a voice hushed with conspiracy, "Clark Kent."

This one has gotten a few laughs as well. I've found it, verbatim, on five different websites. in the process of studying this joke, I've come to invent a whole biography for Ray. he and I don't get along very well.

While we're on the subject of fashion: It seems as if this warrants mentioning:

The "Superman" is what we work-hard-play-hard ladies named our semi-public wardrobe change ... where we wiggle out of the boring business suit and throw on a halter or the cocktail dress that's been smashed in the bottom of a work tote all day.

I'm not sure if this is an example of a journalist inventing a term, or it's real. Either way...

Finally, because there hasn't been a picture of Obama as Superman here in a while:

The Cape

One thing that keeps coming up is the importance of Superman's cape. Alvin Schwartz insists that the cape is indestructible (in his book An Unlikely Prophet), and the cape appears to be the most common item donned by children when they pretend to be Superman. it's iconic and essential. You can't be Superman without the cape.

That being said, you can buy a reproduction (so is there a real one out there somewhere?) at a comic shop in cincinatti for $295. The article and shop in question (the shop's name is Up Up and Away, which is what I wanted to call this blog) are promoting Free Comic Book day, which is coming up in a week and a half. In case somebody beside me is actually reading this, and that person doesn't know, Free Comic Book Day is exactly what it sounds like. You go to a comics shop and they give you a few free comics that publishers send to the expressley for this pupose.

The cape is one of the two places where the S-Shield is featured. Its color scheme on the cape varies. But since Superman wasn't the guy's name on his home planet, and yet the S-Shield was explained to be part of the blanket or something that he had when he arrived on earth, people started to wonder what the S was all about. So, somebody came up with an explanation, one that involved creating a new language, Kryptonese (later, Kryptonian--they're #'s 10 and 11 on the list of languages on the site I linked). Kryptonian is becoming pretty common in tattoos, such as in this guy's tattoo of his name:

What's weird is that in that Kryptonian alphabet, there's no symbol like the one on the S-shield. The closest is the equivalent for the letter S. I seem to recall that the S-shield stood for the family, the House of El, if memory serves. I'll have to find out.

RANDOM STUFF

I suppose it's inevitable that the world turns into a musical someday. Half the world is busy lip-synching to some song or other on youtube. So why not revive the old Superman broadway show, with a new book?

This one's come up a few times now. Not sure what to make of it yet. Evidently it's in answer to a question about why the crime rate never ends if Superman is so great.

At long last, action-hero-pant-wearing day has the green light. In the UK, anyway. And it supports charity. Evidently, it's not a day when everybody wears a Superman costume they bought at the story; they simply put their underwear outside their trousers. There will be stickers, and the article makes use of the word "whilst." How very English of it.

A guy proposes to his girlfriend while he's wearing a superman outfit.

"She calls me her Superman because I look after her and make sure she doesn't do anything wrong."

That's not the first time this has happened. The Superman guy in Confessions of a Superhero does the same thing. Then gets married in his costume underneath the Superman statue in Metropolis, IL.

There's something called the superman punch.

I don't watch the show HEROES. I found this reference to Superman in the most recent episode. Are there lots of these sorts of things in the show?

You're noble like Superman, you believe in truth and justice like Superman. You're a little fascist like Superman.

Evidently this is a villain calling a hero superman in an attempt to make the hero out to be a fascist.

Superman is real...?

I've come across this kind of thing before. I've never known what to make of it.

And I was just reading about Superman being a mass hallucination. Then this came up.

This long essay is a good one to have on file. It's got lots of good pictures, including the one that caused much trouble recently--of Clark Kent drinking.

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:

More Obama

Just when i think I'm done working on this for the day...The Daily Show has to go and compare Obama to Superman.

"If you're going to steal from a Superman movie, don't make it Superman IV." That's a paraphrase. Evidently Obama's speech about ridding the world of nuclear threats echoed Superman's speech about throwing nuclear weapons into the sun.

Does anybody else think that the Daily Show will now only be making fun of Fox News?

Superhero decadence

Superman stands at the forefront of the superhero genre. And thus he comes up a lot in discussing its finer points, its tropes, its triumphs and failings. And so it's natural that he comes up as the first example of what's wrong with superhero comics in Bill Willingham's discussion of the degradation of the superhero, which has been referred to as the age of superhero decadence. More on this to come

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.

Recently, I've noticed a more populist view of Superman. I sense it lurking underneath All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison, and in a whole lot of articles. Here's one about Superman, Obama, and Warren Buffett.

Speaking of Obama, the Guardian calls him, President Barack Hussain Obama, the multicultural Superman for the globalised world. And i don't think I've posted this picture yet:

Then there's Indonesia. Apparently, Superman and other pop culture heroes have become icons for the ballot, with at least five aspiring legislators superimposing their faces on the bodies of superheroes and using the images on their campaign posters, according to CNN. They neglect to show pictures of these, unfortunately. The article I've linked to is fascinating, actually. It's largely about visual imagery and democracy--how candidates are employing pictures to win votes. It's light on the details of Indonesian democracy, which has only been around since 1998, but the few facts are interesting. I guess I just never expect for there to be other systems of democracy, which seems as if it's taught in schools as a monolithic thing: there's democracy, as opposed to monarchy, or despotism, or oligarchy or Felocracy. But there are forms of democracy. In Indonesia, until recently, voters could only vote for parties. And there is an election to determine which parties get on the ballots.

I guess the most surprising thing is how diverse the topics become when doing a search for Superman.

More Nicknames

Stephen Ireland, who plays soccer for Manchester City FC, is known as Superman.



Glenn Beck calls himself Superman. I don't think it's a nickname is you apply it to yourself. Probably won't stick.



New Zealand Chief's rugby player Dwayne Sweeney became Superman quite recently, if I'm reading the article correctly.



Li Ka-Shing's son, Richard Li, is apparently being called Little Superman, mostly because his father is called Superman. It's all about business acumen.



Here, a high school soccer team is like Superman because they play well when the sun shines.



Then there's Nolan Belcher. I'm beginning to wonder if all of these Supermans are speculative, like this one, or if there's more to it.



Maya Moore plays basketball for UConn, and is called Superman in this article. Evidently, she juggles, too.



This one's all about golf, not specific to any golfer:



The fashion experts can say what they like about the Green Jacket but it has transformative powers, like Superman's cape or a bite from a radioactive spider. Slip one over the shoulders of a golfer and it turns a man into a boy, a jaded professional into a joyful ingénue. The eyes widen, the arm hairs bristle and the spirit soars.



So the cape turns Clark Kent into a boy, a joyful ingenue. Interesting.



I can only describe this as an article confirming that technological progress will either transform us all into Superpeople, or will render Superman unnecessary. Here's a relevant passage:



This is the first of the lessons I have for new smartphone owners: You will drop your phone. You cannot reverse time by flying around the globe. Your phone will be OK. So don't baby it. You bought it to be used, not put in a display case in your living room.



The article itself opens with two paragraphs about the author imagining flying around the globe in reverse--as Superman did in the 1978 movie--so as to reverse time and prevent the accidental fall of a cellphone.



I suppose that the DC Comictitian is going to come up sooner or later. Might as well be now.



Everybody else is linking to this video on YouTube, so I will, too.



And I know that you can see my underwear

And you can joke about it all you want, I really don't care.



Finally. I suppose I should post a picture of Action Comics #1. In the beginning...

A central focus of my book is the morality at the heart of Superman. The jokes about him lead me there, as do the conversations I've had about the character. So I'm glad to see essays like this one, at FaceTheReckoning.com. It's a response the idea that Superman's morality would be shaped by his powers, that he would inevitably give in to the temptation to use them for his own selfish ends and because he doesn't, he's not an interesting character. The response is well articulated.


The list of people given the nickname Superman grows every day. Here's Shane McConkey, extreme skiier. Then there's Dr. Gahl, about whom I know nothing other than that he's associated with the fight against Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome.


The title for the Dr. Gahl post refers to him as "our Superman." I recently read that superheroes are not so much gods in the sense of a lot of gods whose nature gives them provenance over some force of nature or human institution (i.e., Zeus was god of justice and lightning; Athena was god of wisdom in battle and weaving), but rather superheroes are tutelary deities who protect specific cities. It's not entirely true, but super heroes are first and foremost associated with cities, especiallly Superman. Superman is also associated, with varying degrees of agreement, with "the American way," which makes him a patriotic figure more so than pretty much any other super hero. The iconography supports the argument.


What I'm getting at here is the "god's on our side" attitude. It crops up in sports, in war, and probably in lots of other places. Several religious people have written books on Superman, mostly to point out the parallels with Christ and show us the way, so to speak. John T. Galloway, Jr. wrote perhaps the earliest one of these, The Gospel According to Superman. More recent books attempt to demonstrate that Superman is Christ-like, and that this is a good thing. Galloway goes in the opposite direction, labeling Superman a false god and saying that the best response to his story is to compare it unfavorably to the gospels. In particular, he notes that Superman is "on our side," which he criticizes because of his belief that god is on everyone's side. I've simplified his argument perhaps too much, but I hope the point is clear.

If there's "our Superman" there can be one for other people, too. All of which is sort of beside the point. I think the post I've been discussing labels Dr. Gahl as Superman because of his tireless efforts attempting to find a cure for the disease in question. So "our" here isn't a form of patriotism, and in fact includes everyone. I don't even necessarily agree with Galloway. Just writing and writing and writing. Here's a patriotic picture:







Interestingly, the image came up on a website devoted to stem cell research, something Christopher Reeve advocated, if I recall correctly, because it could lead to advancements in treatment for the injuries he sustained. There was an episode of South Park about this, which pitted Reeve against Gene HackMan. Funny stuff.





Then there's this: