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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

super-exes

Fate would have it that in the last two days I've paid good money to see both SUPERMAN RETURNS and MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND. And the heat wave is over, so I can't even blame it on the need for AC.

Both movies amused me, (the later more in ways that seemed intentional on the part of the writers/directors) and both disturbed me. They came out at roughly the same time, so one could not be a direct parody of the other, but MY SUPER EX certainly plays on the superman story. When not saving the city from missiles, (or men from dangling off the statue of liberty) G-Girl (Uma Thurman) is disguised as a mousy brunette with glasses and an alliterative name. The similarities don't end there. Both super-exes take their love interest on a flying trip over the city, although G-Girl's flight laughs in the face of metaphor as she coaxes (perhaps too gentle a word) a weary Matt (Luke Wilson) into getting it on as they dip and swirl over Broadway. Superman's trip w/ Lois seems more to show off his importance; he sweeps her off a roof to give her an aerial view of all the people who need him. Both also stalk their exes. Superman flies over to the house where Lois and her new boyfriend and child live and uses his superpowers to eavesdrop on their conversation. G's tactics are less subtle, and involve showing up at his place of employment, stealing his car and throwing sharks through his window.

Their respective relationships are different too. G turns Matt down when he initially asks her out, but develops a crush on him after he tries to help her when a man steals her purse. "I help people all the time," she says, "but nobody had ever helped me." Unfortunately, she got involved with an emotionally unavailable man who had not yet come to terms with his love for someone else. Superman, on the other hand, is returning after some time on Krypton aligning his chakras and apparently expects he can just pick up with Lois where things left off. She, however, has moved on--with Richard, a hapless co-worker she has somehow convinced is the father of her child. The child, (who looks about 11 but is only given lines like "You're bald!," "Who are you?" and "I like him!") is also convinced Richard is his father, which is his saving grace, as his real father (SM) only has time to slither in through his window while he's sleeping and whisper passages from Robert Bly in his little ear. His mother, meanwhile, forgets to pick him up at school and drags him with her as she walks into super-villains' homes. It's no wonder the kid walks around clutching an inhaler when he could be throwing pianos and breaking locks.

The real difference between the two is that while G-Girl is a joke, a craaazy (but HOT!) ex-girlfriend, SM is still purported to be a hero. Or is he? Clearly both movies play with the state of affairs between genders. Clearly most of us think a man looks silly in tights. But what are we supposed to do with a movie where the same man who saves the world from giant meteors abandons a pregnant woman and then re-inserts himself into her new life? Is that the moral ambivalence of the new American male the New York Times was talking about a couple months ago? And what about Richard--is he a saint or a fool for playing taxi driver to his partner while she visits the man she really loves? He is the "good man," loyal, reliable and supportive, and what does he get for it? He is robbed of the truth about his own life.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I haven't seen the Ex-Girlfriend movie yet, but obviously I agree with you on Superman. (Obvious since I sent that e-mail agreeing with you last week.) I don't know if I think the moral ambivlence on Superman's part is really just about the American male, I think that's too easy. I saw Superman as a very apt illustration of the worst parts of the American mindset, while lacking the very best parts of the American mindset. Superman stalks his ex at her home which is much like our tendency to believe in Team America: World Police style of existence. But he is only stalking her out of a selfish need. At least the best ideals of American interventionism are meant to offer a way of life that benefits a larger number of people than most other forms of government have offered (certainly more than communism, socialism and so forth have offered anyone). In other words this new Superman is America without ideals. He strikes me as a very secular super-hero. Beholden to no higher authority and lacking humility.

As for the end of that heat wave: what city are you living in? We're getting another week of it, at least!

5:23 PM  

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