Outrage of the summer: The new "Superman" movie edited out "The American Way" from the Krypton immigrant's rally cry. The Daily Planet editor says Supe's now all about "Truth, Justice and all that stuff."
Makes perfect sense. Consider the foreign markets, where "the American Way" means Abu Ghraib and McDonald's. Don't remind them! They might burn the theater. (If that's their way.) Besides, it makes sense to have a newspaper editor treat the line with gruff dismissal, since hard-bitten editors don't get starry-eyed over patriotic hogwash. Except when discussing the people's right to know the GPS coordinates of Superman's secret fort.
As it turns out, however, the omission was intentional. "The American Way" sounds Krypto-fascist. The movie's authors are the usual moderns, serenely above rude jingo pride:
"We were always hesitant to include the term `American way' because the meaning of that today is somewhat uncertain," said co-writer Michael Dougherty. "I think when people say `American way,' they're actually
talking about what the `American way' meant back in the '40s and '50s, which was something more noble and idealistic."
Ah. Of course. Well, in the '40s, the American Way included incinerating German cities, nuking Japan, installing occupying armies with remnants to this day, and imposing our form of government — all the while referring to the enemy with hurtful ethnic slurs. All this plus forced relocation. If these actions are deemed noble and idealistic now, it'll be a handy sentiment the next time the U.S. gears up for total war.
But the inconstant left doesn't believe any of this is permissible in the service of a noble goal. The right, after all, can't lead the war on terror because they don't "walk the walk" on human rights: witness those POWs slaving away in the cane fields of Gitmo. Unless we lead by example, no one will choose the American Way. Never mind that the internment of the Japanese didn't keep the Germans — or the Japanese, for that matter — from following our example after World War II. (Note to the dense: The above is not an endorsement of internment. Just a reminder of which party has more practice.)
It's also odd to see the '50s held in high esteem. The '60s will be ever bathed in the holy glow of boomer self-regard, a mystical era of great causes and cheap weed; the '70s have become the decade equivalent of a sitcom running in eternal repeats.
The 50s, however, have long stood for stifling conformity, the Mandatory Gray Flannel Suit Act, the forced relocation of future folk song writers to treeless suburbs, duck-and-cover nuclear paranoia, and of course the communist witch hunts, which, history recalls, turned up no communist witches. It all ended when Saint Elvis performed the miraculous Swiveling of the Hips, loosening mores that had been cinched tight since Ike banned premarital soul-kissing by executive order.
Now it's noble? Really? Do the '50s get to be cool again? And not Fonzie-cool, but cool in the sense that confidence, optimism, technological progress, increasingly sophisticated mass culture and the rise of the suburb are now seen as fascinating elements of a complex, hopeful era?
Well, that's a start.
But of course that's not what the screenwriter meant. To right-thinking people, the "past" — that nebulous era where everyone wore hats and blacks couldn't vote but cars had fins — was a time where one could say "The American Way" without irony, because they were uninformed, and Bush hadn't invaded Iraq yet. Nowadays you cannot tout "The American Way" without adding footnotes about slavery and the Philippines war and pre-FDA meat safety and women's suffrage and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Did you know they blocked the fire exits? Women jumped to their deaths. And you think we're something special?
Well, yes. Especially given the alternatives. Especially when considering the vast record of oppression, lawlessness and miserable inescapable poverty that has characterized most of human civilization up to, and including, noon today. When compared against some ideal country — say, a solar-powered pan-ethnic secular Switzerland with a socialist economy based on bartering hemp — the messy realities of America past and present come up short.
But this has always been an imperfect nation. Accepting our faults, correcting our wrongs and using the revolutionary founding concepts to improve ourselves further: That's the American way.
If you can't say it without choking, practice. If you can, please write the Superman sequel.
