This short essay responds to the video “Superman Saves the Cat” by essayist Maggie Mae Fish.
My problem begins with the slap. The child, having met and interacted with Superman, and having received a light scolding from him, heads indoors and — by her mother — is slapped. I agree with you about the cycle of violence and the message conveyed — that Superman is the embodiment of America’s better nature — but the truth of the scene is belied in that slap. Richard Donner is a cynic; I don’t think it’s credible to claim that the director of Lethal Weapon is so doe-eyed that he was unaware that this is how the scene plays out. Superman could have intervened and prevented that child coming to physical harm; he could have walked her home and met her mother, and found out for himself what kind of cycle of violence was being incurred. But Donner’s Superman does not use his powers to fix the world.
There is a difference, as I don’t believe you note in your video, between the things that happen in a film and the message the film sends about them being done. I agree that the sequence of shots from Batman v Superman are intended to convey Superman’s actions with a degree of ambivalence and separation. The sequence is intercut with talking heads criticising Superman, if it weren’t clear enough. But crucially, the actions he is depicted as performing are heroic. They might be presented in any given way, but they are unambiguously heroic and are not undercut for humour or cynicism like Donner chooses to do. Is it not heroic to save people if you feel conflicted about the positions you are put in? Does it become less heroic to have rescued people from a burning building if you are later frustrated or angry when criticised? Which is to say: your thesis appears to be that the content of a message is irrelevant if it is perceived to have the wrong tone. This is the crux of your criticism of Man of Steel.
Clark in Man of Steel is never shown to do other than the correct thing, save human life discerningly and unconditionally. You specifically mock the scene where he kills Zod to protect a cowering family; would it have been more heroic to let them die? He acts; he would presumably have intervened in the young girl getting slapped. Perhaps he would have overreacted, as when he wrecks the driver’s truck. Donner’s Superman, for all his merits, does not act in the scene. He rescues the cat from the tree, a trivial, superficial heroism, but he goes no further. His heroism is restricted to maintaining the status quo. You compare the Superman of Man of Steel to a cop in that he “doesn’t care about human life”, an utterly torturous (and perhaps distasteful) allusion to of the problems with policing in the United States. But what is worse, to use power fairly but wrestle with misgivings, or to use power unquestioningly to maintain the status quo?
Man of Steel does not literally save a cat, but it has scenes where Clark performs selfless acts which help others at a cost to him; it is slightly dishonest, in my opinion, to intercut these with scenes from Batman v Superman which are intended to distance us from the character, as if they were all of a kind. Donner’s Superman has a scene where he literally saves a cat, and literally allows a child to be slapped. Cinematic language can convey many things and is very interesting to develop, but it first and foremost conveys the literal events which happen onscreen and a project which bypasses those to speculate on psychoanalysis of the director is misguided at best.
If you’re interested in more writing on Man of Steel, please check out my essay “Morality and choice in Man of Steel”. For more of my long-form work on comic book films, watch “Sixteen attempts to talk to you about Suicide Squad”.
