Will ‘Man Of Steel’ Fight Childhood Autism?
Rumor has it that a third (and likely final) trailer will debut today for Man of Steel, the Superman film-franchise reboot.
Already two previews have released, an initial teaser1 a more-detailed trailer, and, most recently, this viral-marketing-style garbled deep-space broadcast from none other than General Zod 2.0, warning Earth’s residents to extradite Kal-El.
That second trailer (note: this is not the new trailer, not yet) hints at a deeper exploration of Clark Kent’s boyhood struggles.
(Images of pencils. Writing on a blackboard. A young boy’s frenzied feet dashing down a school hall. Then the boy sits in a school closet, huddled into himself, his fists pressed desperately to his ears. What does he want to shut out? Sounds. Sensory overload.)
“The world’s too big, mom.”
“Then make it small. … Focus on my voice. Pretend it’s an island, out in the ocean. Can you see it?”
Earlier this morning I realized where this was likely going.
Autism sufferers and parents of autistic children, look up in the sky. None other than the titular Man of Steel will, on his journey to become the world’s most powerful and famous superhero, struggle as a boy with something very like autism.
What do you think? Will this help to “humanize” this film’s Superman, even while (as a child) he struggles with superhuman gifts?
- One version featured dialogue from the film’s Jonathan Kent, Superman’s adopted father from Earth. A second version featured lines from his real father, Jor-El. ↩
I don’t think you can humanize Superman. Like Captain America, he’s always been an ideal more than an actual person, and usually his best stories are about how he as an ideal reacts to real life. Like Kingdom Come, where he embodies gold or silver age thinking in a world where people want dark age heroes. The first movies really were about seriously showing the idea of a superhero in live action rather than Superman himself, and without the meta-commentary he becomes a boring hero. You have to radically change him to make him interesting, whether making him communist (red son,) or changing the nature of his origin and powers (a kurt busiek novel that I can’t remember, where superman actually declines as he ages and has children.)
In the voice of another man associated with a particular metal, Tony Stark:
Naturally my first reason is theological:
Theoretically, then, it’s possible to translate this to a fictitious equivalent. We need neither Gritty Reboots or unapproacable paragons. Reality proves it.
One name: Aslan. Some have said “he” feels more real than Christ. (As Lewis famously answered in a letter, that only means one is being drawn to the real Christ and His perfectly robust personhood, even if we don’t know it.)
As I understand it, the makers didn’t compromise the hero’s true goodness. He’s a real patriot, idealistic yet also human. Of course, it also helps to have an Origins Story of someone who came from weak beginnings (or wasn’t always a truly good hero). Now let’s see how he works in the sequel!
It’s a deceptively simple idea (Nolan is famous for these): hero struggles against strengths, thinking them weaknesses. So far this hasn’t been done so directly in a superhero film — only more-generic awkwardness, not fitting in, or over-the-top Angst.
If I’m right, this a perfect storytelling solution to keeping Superman all-powerful and iconic, yet also (at first) vulnerable and sympathetic.
Yeah, I don’t know about this. The 3rd trailer is pretty much blatant about him being an ideal than mankind should follow, and that he’s more than a normal kid. Superman’s point is always that he is not human, and he embodies virtues more perfectly than others. He’s not Jesus because he’s not fully man nor a mediator between man and God. Usually the point is not to humanize him, but bring out both his alien nature, his morality, and his difference from others.
I just don’t think he can be humanized in any real way. There’s something about DC heroes where they tend to be more like gods than men, with the exception of Batman and other fringe heroes. Like Wonder Woman never can really settle into being anything more than Diana of the amazons, and heroes like Captain Marvel seem to be inhuman more often than not.
Cap is different, because he’s just a pure, empty suit. Its funny, because Chris Evans is the only actor to do two Marvel Heroes, and the difference between his Cap and his Torch is like night and day. Cap usually seems to fill roles, like the leader, or 1940s masculine archetype, or a political statement. In his own book he keeps getting overshadowed by others like USAgent or Bucky.
I love Captain America best of all the Avengers because not only does he have those humble beginnings, but he’s more concerned about his country and those he serves with than his own ego, unlike the villain Loki or the good guy Iron Man.