Christopher Reeve as Superman

Posted on October 17, 2004 in Courage & Activism Culture Milestones

When Christopher Reeve as Superman narrowed his eyes at evil doers, you could feel his righteousness. The man in the blue and red suit who fought for “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” never snarled or bullied. He simply created conditions in which it was impossible for evil acts to occur. He stopped catastrophes and brought malefactors to justice. Superman didn’t hold himself above the rest of us. He strived to represent our noblest values. This wasn’t Nietzsche’s man-god who makes his own rules, but to put it in a Freudian sense, a superego, a conscience. You could see this all in his dark eyes.

Certain others who play heroes of sorts — Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, and AHnold, — never evoked this goodness. In Eastwood, for example, you often saw the outsider who hated his fellow men. Willis came a little closer to Reeve in Unbreakable, but even here, the vision of other people was always dark, always suggestive of malevolence. Unbreakable and Superman both suggest the need for heroes. But Willis only fights crime: Superman saves people from burning buildings, dam collapses, earthquakes, affirming that his job is protecting human life. What’s more, Unbreakable makes being a superhero very nearly amoral. Willis’s character slogs through the motions of being cop who sees all to the world. We don’t feel the energy of goodness, but of resignation. He’s stuck doing the job. The world where he exists reeks of human depravity and monsters who wear the masks of men.

Ahnold springs from yet another mold for the Hollywood hero. Where Eastwood doesn’t give a damn except for the buck and Willis is always tired, Ahnold marches cold. Governor Schwartzeneggar epitomizes the bully as champion. But of what? Of the performances that I have mentioned, Schwartzeneggar’s is the most jarheaded of the lot, the man-machine who plunges the heads of women into toilets, who belittles men with consciences as “girlie men”.

It is no wonder to me that these three pretenders to the role of hero should be registered Republicans. They will go out of their way to pat a kid on the head or, as in the case of Eastwood, sleep with a plain woman just to show the prettier ones. When it comes to accomplishing good, however, the three fail. Eastwood entered politics in Carmel as a one man special interest who wanted to add another story to his bar. Ahnold entered last year’s Gray Davis bash mostly on a whim and a desire for a new kind of fame. Willis has yet to perform on the political stage as more than a sideshow. When the three of them speak of the opposition, they lacerate and brutalize them. Eastwood mutters under his breath. Schwartzeneggar calls them Girlie Men. Willis tries to stay out of the tabloids.

And what of the late Christopher Reeve? He gave his time to causes which affirmed human life. You did not see him as spokesperson for the negativity, greed, and contempt for human beings that characterize the politics and the performances of these other three. Superman used his strength to release the bound and bind the criminal. The others destroy and humiliate. The actor who played Superman alone of them all understood that the American Way meant respect for difference. So did Christopher Reeve who championed the rights of the disabled and opposed wars for oil. Truth, Justice, and the American Way. The Man of Streel spoke of them as equal. And I do not believe that when he did, he meant it in the jingoistic sense. Truth stood for an accurate accounting of the facts. Justice stood for seeing that those who hurt others are put behind bars and that the innocent do not share their fate. The American Way, I sense, never stood for the state religion but for something that didn’t have a name.

If resembled anything, I suspect it was charity. Superman, literally rocketed into our world when his own was destroyed, was picked up by a pair of kindly farmers. Their values became his values, the good old morality which gave food and clothing to the needy without demanding a plaque, a gift, or a name on a soup kitchen. No one knew that Clark Kent, ordinary citizen, worked wonders. And Clark/Superman liked it like that.

This Superman, this hero, showed us how to live — using our strength compassionately. Though we could not move faster than a speeding bullet, were not more powerful than a locomotive, nor could we leap over tall buildings in a single bound, Superman reminded us that we, too, had the power to be good. It was in that look, that stern look which reminded us that we had to live in this world with other people, that he said that to us. That stare came out of Christopher Reeve who likewise embodied the values that propelled them.

Alas, we have lost a hero and we are left with bullies who cannot measure up to him on the screen or in the mortal arena.

The Right is whining about Edwards “exploiting the death of Christopher Reeve” in recent comments on the campaign trail in advocacy of stem cell research. Like they never did that when Reagan died or when they ran Ahnold for governor in California? Edwards, at least, praised the man for the right thing — for wanting the disabled to recover the use of their arms and legs. It almost seems that the Right doesn’t want paraplegics and quadriplegics to walk — for what cause would they collect on behalf of their charities? Certainly not the poor!