Here Comes the Sun - The Monday Morning Memo

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‘Superman did not become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red S, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak. He’s unsure of himself. He’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.’

So says Bill, the eponymous villain of Quentin Tarantino’s revenge epic Kill Bill, at the film’s climax.

[5,500 words later] …When Clark wakes up in the morning, he’s neither the symbol nor the secret identity. He’s the boy who grew up in Smallville, the son of Jonathan and Martha, the friend and colleague and sometimes husband of Lois Lane, a journalist for a great metropolitan newspaper, an immigrant, a child of adoption who yearns for a family he never met, a person who accepts the responsibility his power implies, who tries to reciprocate the love he received to the world that took him in. Clark Kent is not a critique of the human race. He is part of the human race. In all the ways that matter, including and especially his weaknesses, he is human. He is one of us. As he says in Lois & Clark: ‘Superman is what I can do. Clark is who I am.’

Yes, I know. I just spent six thousand words refuting one fictional character’s argument about another fictional character. I should probably go outside.

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- Evan Puschak (The Nerdwriter,) Escape into Meaning, p.163 and p. 184

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