Forging Man of Steel: A Review of the Film

I like Superman—as a character, as a superhero, as an embodiment of (certain) values. I had looked forward to seeing Man of Steel. Although I was disappointed (more on that later), I’ll start with what I liked. Warning: I’m assuming that readers have a basic knowledge of Superman’s origin story. I discuss some details of the film, so you may want to see the film before reading this review.

First, I liked this incarnation of the “villain” of Zod. In What Is a Superhero?, I have an essay on the typology of supervillains (“Sorting out Villainy”). According to my classification scheme, Zod is a heroic villain. His actions are motivated by—what is to him—an altruistic cause (saving Krypton/Kryptonians). This is made explicit at the beginning of the film, when Zod says to Jor-El (Superman’s father) that he’s taken up the sword against his own people for a greater good. Jor-El, too, could be considered a heroic villain in that he’s done something against Kryptonian law, but is doing so for what he believes is a greater good. The importance of point-of-view in defining “good” versus “evil” is nicely portrayed. It’s not a “black and white” morality tale.

Second, I like the way the film (accurately) portrayed the social challenge of being gifted (i.e., “super”). Like many superheroes, gifted children in our world sometime hide their talents and abilities from others for fear of social ostracism or harassment. (In Clark Kent’s case, though, it was because the government might want to “take” him.) Like some gifted people in our world, the young Clark views his budding powers as burdens—to be hidden. Clark’s father explains that one day he’ll view his abilities as gifts, not burdens. This is also true for gifted people in our world. (For more about the ways that superheroes are similar to and different from gifted individuals, see my essay with psychologist Ellen Winner, “Are Superheroes Just SuperGifted?” in Our Superheroes, Ourselves.)

Third, this version of Lois Lane is the best screen version thus far. She’s smart and spunky but not high strung or temperamental. It’s easy to see why Clark would like her (which isn’t true of the Loises in the other films). She’s an admirable character. Way to go!

The aspects of the film that I didn’t like were, unfortunately, numerous. One fundamental flaw rests on the reason for Jor-El and Lara trying to conceive “naturally” on Krypton: To bring a child into the world that wasn’t pre-conceived or pre-programmed with a destiny. (On this version of Krypton, it seems that children’s DNA is genetically engineered to fill society’s niches—soldier, scientist, etc.—and fetuses are externally incubated.) Yet the young adult Clark, on Earth, discovers a holographic-type projection of his long-dead father, and this Jor-El tells Clark what Clark’s destiny is—why he was sent to Earth!! He’s “supposed to guide humans, to be a force for good. You will help them to accomplish wonders.” This hypocritical stance about destiny versus free choice is a major plot flaw, in my mind.

Another significant problem with the plot rests on the idea that humans would freak out if they knew an alien lived among us. Yet by the end of the film, after downtown Metropolis has been practically laid waste by aliens, there is no sense that humans are freaking out about Superman being an alien, or even freaking out that there was an alien battle on Earth. This basic fear of people’s response to knowing about aliens, which drives much of story of Clark’s childhood, is carelessly thrown off by the end of the film.

And then there is the wanton destruction, the endless fight scenes, explosions, buildings collapsing. It became boring. I couldn’t help but notice that the Daily Planet building took its share of damage, yet by the end of the film, the Planet’s office looks fine, and there no sense of the trauma that Metropolis’s citizens must have experienced since their city was a center ring in which the aliens fought. And the city is magically clean and rebuilt by the end! Yes, we have to suspend disbelief in most superhero films (perhaps Christopher Nolan’s Batman films being the exception), but not this much.

The film was called Man of Steel, but it felt that too little of the film was actually about Superman. It was really about Jor-El versus Zod, with Superman acting as proxy for Jor-El. I wanted to see more character development about the adult Clark/Superman. In a film over two hours long, it seemed that his screen time—when he wasn’t in a fight scene—was too brief, totaling perhaps 20 minutes. (If you were to time it, it’s possible that there was more screen time on this. But it felt too brief and his “character development” superficial.)

This contrasts dramatically with the Nolan Batman films. Which is ironic because the script was written by the same folks who wrote Batman Begins: Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer. Whereas Batman Begins provides wonderful and psychologically insightful character development, Man of Steel does not.

References:

Rosenberg, R. S. (2013). Sorting out villainy: A typology of villains and their effects on superheroes. In R. S. Rosenberg & P. Coogan (Eds). What is a Superhero? New York: Oxford University Press.

Rosenberg, R. S., and Winner, E. (2013). Are superheroes just supergifted? In R. S. Rosenberg (Ed). Our Superheroes, Ourselves. New York: Oxford University Press.

Copyright 2013 by Robin S. Rosenberg.

Robin S. Rosenberg, Ph.D., ABPP is a clinical psychologist in private practice in San Francisco and Menlo Park, Calif. She often writes about the psychology of superheroes. Her latest books are What Is a Superhero? and Our Superheroes, Ourselves. Her website is www.DrRobinRosenberg.com.

SXSW: What's the Matter With Batman?

Here's the link to my talk at South by Southwest about  What’s the Matter With Batman? An Unauthorized Clinical Look Under the Mask of the Caped Crusader

https://soundcloud.com/officialsxsw/whats-the-matter-with-batman

The Liberation of Anonymity, Part II

As noted in my last blog post, I've been thinking about alter-egos, masks, and the psychological effects of choosing to be anonymous (think of the online anonymity found in Second Life, World of Warcraft, and even anonymous commenting on other people's websites). And let's face it, Halloween is the right time of year to think about masks.

So I'm going to talk more about deindividuation, which social psychologists define as the loss of sense of self that occurs when people in a group are anonymous. More generally, deindividuation can also be thought of as the loss of self-awareness the comes with anonymity.

First, what's the effect of wearing a mask? Psychologists have addressed this question. Research on the effect of wearing a mask goes back at least as far as the 1950s. Research on mask-wearing among stutterers finds that they stuttered less when they wore a mask (e.g., Pollaczak & Homefield, 1954). In another study, children who wore masks were more likely to take (e.g., steal) extra candy when the experimenter left the room, compared to children who didn't wear masks (Miller & Rowold, 1979).

Psychologists Mullen Migdal, Rozell (2003) did a study that had participants answer various questions about how aware they felt about themselves, such as "I am thinking about who I am" and "I am alert to changes in my mood." The part of their study that is relevant here is that some of the participants answered these questions while sitting in front of a mirror; other participants answered those questions while wearing a "feature-less" mask, without a mirror. The results, graphed below, reveal that participants who wore masks reported that they were less self-aware than participants who sat in front of a mirror. (The results may seem intuitively obvious, but part the role of research is to find out whether intuitions are accurate.)





So how might this relate to superheroes (and supervillains) who wear masks? In addition to the utility of the mask—it hides the "real" identity to of mask-wearer—it can have some interesting psychological effects on the wearer. We can hypothesize that wearing a mask—and being less self-aware—might confer a variety of advantages. If you're less self-aware, then you might:
• Feel less pain
• Feel less angry, sad, etc.
• Be more aware of what is going on around you (because of being less aware of what's going on inside of you). This could be a very good thing to have happen during combat. And when fighting, you'll also be flooded with adrenaline, which will narrow your attention and further heighten your awareness of what's happening around them.

The down side, though, is that by being less self-aware, you're also more likely to have your anger, frustration, and aggressive impulses get out of control while you're fighting (and so you might inadvertently kill your enemy). For superheroes worried about not crossing the line—not being more violent than they need to be to apprehend the villain—wearing a mask can make it harder to monitor that line.

Speaking of villains, wearing a mask--being anonymous—makes people more likely to break rules. (Think back to the kids wearing masks, who took more candy). This might advantage mask-wearing villains.

So does the Joker feel that he's wearing a mask—or does his permanently disfigured face feel like that of his "real" self. What do you think?

The Liberation of Anonymity, Part I

Sorry for taking so long to blog again…been up to my ears in work, but in the future, I will post at least monthly (at the beginning of each month).

Last week, I was part of a symposium at Ashland University; we panelists addressed the question: What is a (Super)hero? Joining me on the panel were Tom DeFalco (current writer and former editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics) and Mark D. White, editor of Batman and Philosophy; Ashland history professor, John Moser, did a great job moderating the panel.

Before the panel, I had a chance to ask Tom DeFalco his opinion about a particular aspect of the alter-ego relationship between Peter Parker and Spiderman. Some background first: I've been doing some reading and thinking (and soon, some writing) on the topic of alter-egos. I've been thinking about what it would be like to be Peter Parker, and then to become Spiderman—to go swinging around the city, cracking wise, acting with derring-do—and then to go back to being Peter Parker. It's the going back to being Peter Parker that's stumped me. I imagined that, for the most part, being Spiderman was liberating. How could he then stuff this big personality (as Spiderman) back into the contained and relatively demure Peter Parker?

Tom helped me see the situation differently. First, he suggested that Peter Parker's appearance is deceiving: Basically, he lets himself be dressed by his aunt. Taking Tom's point a step further, in a way, his Peter Parker clothes are a kind of costume. They make him appear more nerdy or geeky than he actually is (although clearly he's very bright, being bright isn't the same as being nerdy or geeky). Riffing on what Tom said about this, there's a sense in which Parker's high school persona isn't dissimilar to Clark Kent's—the nerdish exterior hides a different personality underneath. (More food for thought in that, I think.)

Back to Tom: He also pointed out that, in fact, Peter Parker often has witty retorts to people, but these comebacks often go over everyone's heads. So Parker and Spiderman are similar in their dry, smart-ass sense of humor, but Parker (at least the high school version) is surrounded by people who don't get his jokes. Spiderman's villains are generally smarter than average, and so more likely to get his jokes. Extending this point, that fact that Parker has a different sense of humor than that of people around him heightens the sense of his being different than his peers (e.g., nerdy/geeky).

Tom's third point about PP/Spiderman was that wearing a mask can be very liberating, and can lead people to act differently—or in more extreme ways—than their usual selves. Tom said he'd talked to people who have gone around wearing masks (e.g., "real life superheroes"), who described the experience as being very liberating.

This last comment of Tom's got me thinking about the something I was pondering over the summer—the ways that the internet allow people to electronically wear a mask (that is, to be anonymous, or a different persona) and how it changes—or can change—our behavior. Just read comments on any newspaper, magazine, or blog website to see proof of how anonymity, or the ability to hide our identity by assuming another one, does change how people behave. The most vitriolic comments are likely to be from people who are not identified by their real names. For some people, the anonymity afforded by an internet mask leads people to let go of some—or all—of the restraint they impose on themselves in their everyday lives.

Psychologists have examined an aspect of this phenomenon that typically happens not over the internet, but in actual face-to-face encounters where otherwise law-abiding citizens lose their moral restraint. One situation in which this occurs is among soccer fans who, after their team has lost, take to the field and become violent. Psychologist explain the underlying phenomenon as deindividuation: the loss of sense of self that occurs when people in a group are anonymous—not seen as individuals and their identities are unknown to others in the group.

More about deindividuation in my next post.