Joy of Steel
Nov. 2nd, 2015 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scarfmanThe Supergirl premiere has shown me how to maybe - maybe - see my way clear to accepting the character in Man of Steel as Superman.
Spoilers below.
The entire first act of the premiere was about how much Kara grew up wanting to find a way to help people, like her famous cousin does, though not because he does it but because it's what she wants to do also; and finally she starts on her path to doing it, exactly the way her famous cousin does, and it brings her joy. Me too. I cried all through.
Then she runs up against resistance from her family. Her foster-sister (Berlanti always invents more family) first tells her that she shouldn't have done it (despite being both the primary motivation for Kara's rescue of the plane and, we find out a few scenes later, the primary motivation of those who sabotaged the plane); then it turns out the foster-sister is an agent of a government task force whose purpose is to contain extraterrestrial activity and she wanted Kara below their radar. Kara blows them off, but ends up working with them, but her relationship with the agency started out rocky and I've no doubt it'll get worse before it gets better.
And here's the thing: Clark in Man of Steel also wanted to help people, exemplified in the film by the flashback to the rescue of the schoolbus. But he spent his childhood being raised by people, family, (I usually complain about Jonathan Kent but the thing Martha says in the first Dawn of Steel trailer shows she's just as bad) who quashed that joy every time they could, in Jonathan's case at the final expense of his own life.
Perhaps the Danvers family in Supergirl would have behaved like that if Kara hadn't decided when young not to go public with her powers, a decision she reverses in the first act of the premiere. She did decide that so we don't know. At least not yet. Their further character development might tell us so later ... but I doubt it. Man of Steel/Dawn of Justice and Supergirl manifestly take place in different universes, given the agency director's dialog that alleges people afraid of Superman don't voice the opinion because it's so overwhelmingly unpopular; that is an entirely different Superman than the graffiti in the Dawn of Justice trailer was about.
But the point is Kara reached adulthood without her joy cut off by negativity from the most formative influences in her life at every impulse to defy it, and as an adult was able without much difficulty to blow it off when it did arise. Man of Steel's Clark lived with that negativity for his first eighteen years. In his adulthood he's much more subject to its influence than Kara is, particularly since he's yet to escape it, as shown in Martha's scene from the Dawn of Justice trailer.
Man of Steel's Clark does not have that joyous desire to help people. He has no joy! His foster parents ground it out of him. The entire movie is engineered to be without joy. Failure to perceive or to validate that lack is why those who tell me that he is the same Superman of the previous seventy five years cannot understand why they cannot persuade me. Superman is for joy, and Man of Steel's Clark has none.
Except maybe, just maybe, it's that he just doesn't have it yet.
So I still maintain Man of Steel/Dawn of Justice/et al. is an Imaginary Story/Elseworlds in which Jonathan Kent is a coward (and Martha too). But maybe, just maybe, it's an Imaginary Story/Elseworlds about how Clark overcomes their influence in the end. Time, and probably Dawn of Justice, will tell.
But, as I've said before, if not we'll always have Supergirl.
Spoilers below.
The entire first act of the premiere was about how much Kara grew up wanting to find a way to help people, like her famous cousin does, though not because he does it but because it's what she wants to do also; and finally she starts on her path to doing it, exactly the way her famous cousin does, and it brings her joy. Me too. I cried all through.
Then she runs up against resistance from her family. Her foster-sister (Berlanti always invents more family) first tells her that she shouldn't have done it (despite being both the primary motivation for Kara's rescue of the plane and, we find out a few scenes later, the primary motivation of those who sabotaged the plane); then it turns out the foster-sister is an agent of a government task force whose purpose is to contain extraterrestrial activity and she wanted Kara below their radar. Kara blows them off, but ends up working with them, but her relationship with the agency started out rocky and I've no doubt it'll get worse before it gets better.
And here's the thing: Clark in Man of Steel also wanted to help people, exemplified in the film by the flashback to the rescue of the schoolbus. But he spent his childhood being raised by people, family, (I usually complain about Jonathan Kent but the thing Martha says in the first Dawn of Steel trailer shows she's just as bad) who quashed that joy every time they could, in Jonathan's case at the final expense of his own life.
Perhaps the Danvers family in Supergirl would have behaved like that if Kara hadn't decided when young not to go public with her powers, a decision she reverses in the first act of the premiere. She did decide that so we don't know. At least not yet. Their further character development might tell us so later ... but I doubt it. Man of Steel/Dawn of Justice and Supergirl manifestly take place in different universes, given the agency director's dialog that alleges people afraid of Superman don't voice the opinion because it's so overwhelmingly unpopular; that is an entirely different Superman than the graffiti in the Dawn of Justice trailer was about.
But the point is Kara reached adulthood without her joy cut off by negativity from the most formative influences in her life at every impulse to defy it, and as an adult was able without much difficulty to blow it off when it did arise. Man of Steel's Clark lived with that negativity for his first eighteen years. In his adulthood he's much more subject to its influence than Kara is, particularly since he's yet to escape it, as shown in Martha's scene from the Dawn of Justice trailer.
Man of Steel's Clark does not have that joyous desire to help people. He has no joy! His foster parents ground it out of him. The entire movie is engineered to be without joy. Failure to perceive or to validate that lack is why those who tell me that he is the same Superman of the previous seventy five years cannot understand why they cannot persuade me. Superman is for joy, and Man of Steel's Clark has none.
Except maybe, just maybe, it's that he just doesn't have it yet.
So I still maintain Man of Steel/Dawn of Justice/et al. is an Imaginary Story/Elseworlds in which Jonathan Kent is a coward (and Martha too). But maybe, just maybe, it's an Imaginary Story/Elseworlds about how Clark overcomes their influence in the end. Time, and probably Dawn of Justice, will tell.
But, as I've said before, if not we'll always have Supergirl.
