By Drew Dietsch | publishing
I have ravaged the resistance of the creation –Superman Words. Since the world continues to make me angry and angry, I think it’s nice to make another equally ridiculous mindset opponent tear up another equally ridiculous mindset opponent: the idea of super characters as characters/concepts has become irrelevant.
I’m going to say that you show your ass again. You know nothing about heroes, storytelling, pop culture, or human psychology.
God of Story
There are many stories and story types, but my personal belief in storytelling is that there are two stories of gods. These are primitive narrative needs that drive human ideas and society to evolve into our entire perception: heroic stories and horror stories.
These are two story templates that we as human beings need to achieve. This is why we have religious myths so far. The power of these two stories will always be relevant and will be essential to feeding collective consciousness.
On this elemental level alone, Superman is a permanently relevant idea worth exploring our relationship with the hero story. In many cultures, these characters and stories have persisted throughout history. As long as someone makes a story in a cave, we need to use iconic role models to reflect our hopes and aspirations.
Honestly, this should be the end of the conversation. But, so I can say that I covered enough foundations for us to introduce the particularity of Superman and why he remained significant nearly a century after his creation.
Superman is American myth
While I won’t go into the entire biography of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, I’ll emphasize that they are both children of Jewish immigrants and that their legacy is nothing wrong with Kal-El’s character, a Hebrew name. Just listen Batman Producer Michael Uslan legendarily tells the story of connecting Moses to the Superman story.
Kal-El is a foreigner who illegally entered the country. He was sheltered and raised by two American heartland farmers in Kents and grew up believing in the best people in all cultures and creeds. He made a purpose to protect those who could not protect themselves.
This is the story of us Americans telling our own national myths. While I certainly don’t mean that this reflects the truth about America, it’s the story we want and need to believe: America is a force of goodness from another place, realizing its incredible power, and using that power to help the world rather than hurting it.
No matter what cynicism or fascist is cast in the flag, the idea of absolute goodness of absolute power should be the basic narrative of American efforts. This is the heroic story of our nation’s commitment. If this is related to eternity, then we will no longer tell a heroic story about America. We are feeding this horror story.
And, if you’re still sure Superman is irrelevant after that, let’s take some time to shoot down some expected, boring and downright worm-brained arguments in this regard.
“Superman doesn’t matter!”
“Superman is an outdated view of superheroes. Just because he is a primitive superhero, that doesn’t make him special.
I’ll introduce you to the concept of prototypes and why it is so valuable and versatile in the relationship between human history and storytelling. Superman’s status as a primitive superhero did not make him a character. In fact, it is fascinating how many Superman iterations exist in the incalculable media. His position in pop culture never fades, and his influence on the fundamental aspects of superhero templates will only create more reasons to constantly examine him through his own story.
“Superman doesn’t work in today’s more demanding world. People won’t believe in a character from a simpler time.”
Superman got on the shelves the year before World War II and found his popularity in the most devastating conflicts in history known to our planet. If that was the world where Superman was born and he succeeded in becoming a symbol of hope and kindness, then when the world was most demanding, one needed a simple and relevant hero to look up to.
“…Superhero fatigue.”
If you’re tired of superhero stories, that’s great! Stop putting superhero stories in front of your eyes. As I’ve talked about, hero stories are always about collective consciousness. Even if superhero cinemas are widespread, superhero stories will remain here, and since the dawn of the story.
According to his character and the story told by the world, Superman may not continue to play in the cinema, but people will never stop wanting Superman’s stories.
Siegel and Shuster occupied Friedrich Nietzsche’s nihilistic übermensch and reformed it as the ultimate symbol of sympathy and justice. So a hero who fights for truth, justice, will remain in touch as long as we want to believe.
