Arms, men, supermen, superheroes

I don't think I'll get around to it this weekend, but I kind of want to see Iron Man. As I've said before, I like superhero movies if they're well-done, and Iron Man has gotten great reviews--plus my housemate, who saw it the day it came out, really enjoyed it.

One of the biggest Iron Man raves comes from Time magazine, but the review also contains an error that amuses me. What's wrong with this sentence: "Tony is an arms dealer, an occupation that has fascinated playwrights for ages (George Bernard Shaw in Man and Superman, Arthur Miller in All My Sons)"?

Answer: Man and Superman isn't Shaw's play about an arms dealer--Major Barbara is. I wonder if the reviewer slipped up and wrote Man and Superman because he had superheroes on the brain? And I also wonder if it's possible not only to mix up Man and Superman and Major Barbara, but to add Arms and the Man to the confusion. Out of all these titles, Arms and the Man sounds like it really OUGHT to be about an arms dealer (and would make a good alternative title for Major Barbara), but it's not.

Speaking of superhero movies, in my post about The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (linked above) I made a parenthetical remark about enjoying the first two Spider-Man movies. I didn't realize at the time that Michael Chabon actually helped write the story for Spider-Man 2 (which I like even better than the first movie)! So now it seems that I adore superhero books and movies only if they are written by Chabon. Or something. Because I really hope that I'll have fun at Iron Man too, when I get around to seeing it.

Amazing Adventures in Escapism

Spent today riding to the coast and reading The New Yorker's "Style Issue" (which is off the newsstands now, but oh well, I always seem to be a week or so behind). One of the articles finds Michael Chabon analyzing superhero costumes, which was especially interesting for me because I just finished--and loved--his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The New Yorker article even made me appreciate Chabon's achievement more. At one point, he writes about the various theories why Superman appeared at the end of the 1930s:

In the theories of origin put forward by fans, critics, and other origin-obsessives, the idea of Superman has been accounted the offspring or recapitulation, in no particular order, of Friedrich Nietzsche; of Philip Wylie (in his novel “Gladiator”); of the strengths, frailties, and neuroses of his creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, of Cleveland, Ohio; of the aching wishfulness of the Great Depression; of the (Jewish) immigrant experience; of the mastermind stratagems of popular texts in their sinister quest for reader domination; of repressed Oedipal fantasies and homoerotic wishes; of fascism; of capitalism; of the production modes of mass culture (and not in a good way); of celebrated strongmen and proponents of physical culture like Eugen Sandow; and of a host of literary not-quite-Superman precursors, chief among them Doc Savage.

Now, the "amazing" thing about Kavalier & Clay is that it puts forth evidence for about two-thirds of these theories, while describing how its young protagonists create superhero "The Escapist." Joe Kavalier, the artist, has just escaped Nazi-occupied Prague (the Nazis, of course, were inspired by Nietzsche) and wishes to create a character who can smash evildoers in a way that he himself is powerless to do. Sammy Clay, the writer, is a devoted reader of pulp fiction, a keen believer in American capitalism, and a repressed homosexual whose father works as a strongman. Yet it never feels like Chabon is laboring to prove, or disprove, these theories--but rather to dramatize this complicated stew of influences on the development of superhero comics, and make it interesting to people who haven't read comic books for their whole life.

Despite this, I suppose that both Joe and Sammy both have stereotypical, schematic elements to their characters--Joe the quiet, brooding Czech immigrant, Sammy the short, wise-guy Brooklyn kid. But they eventually gain depth as well. It is just heartbreaking to see Joe draw comic-book stories where the Escapist vanquishes thinly disguised Nazis, while in the real world he despairs that he can do nothing more to help the Jews of Europe. So, too, to see the compromises that Sammy must make because of his sexuality.

Kavalier & Clay uses superhero comics to get at a lot of themes--striving, success, entertainment, freedom, America--and one of the cleverest things Chabon does is to name Kavalier and Clay's trademark superhero "The Escapist." He is a Harry Houdini-inspired escape artist whose mission is to "free all who are bound by the Iron Chain, using his Golden Key!" First, the theme of escape resonates with both Joe and Sammy, two somewhat frustrated young men who want to escape to a world of limitless possibility. Second, "escapist" is like "escapism"--the most frequent charge leveled against superhero comics, that they are mindless entertainment with no redeeming value. But Chabon proves that they are a deadly serious matter, especially for a certain kind of young person. As he writes in the New Yorker article: "It was not about escape [...] It was about transformation."

Indeed, when I bought Kavalier & Clay, my mother dismissed it with a "Why'd you want to read about comic books?" but truth be told, I learned a lot from it, not just about the early years of the superhero comics industry, but from Chabon's detailed early-1940s setting (coincidentally, he said he picked up many of his flourishes from old New Yorker magazines). Besides, I used to be a devoted reader of fantasy books, and I'm not averse to a dose of whiz-bam-pow sci-fi on occasion. (I once went on a date with a guy who seemed amused to learn that I enjoyed the first two Spider-Man movies. I think he had pegged me as too "intellectual" for that. Pshaw!)

My copy of Kavalier & Clay is back in Poughkeepsie, otherwise I'd quote some examples of Chabon's gorgeous prose, which--like everything about his book--is expansive and intricate and a fresh perspective. Two metaphors in particular stick out: one where he compares the Manhattan skyline to a bridge--the way that there are high-rises in midtown and the Financial District, and a dip between them at Greenwich Village, like a swooping suspension bridge. And another where he compares the bridges of New York City to various other things: I especially remember his description of the Queensboro Bridge, "two tsarinas dancing, holding hands."

But what I love most about Chabon is his huge imagination--unafraid of kitsch and unafraid of grandeur. Sammy Clay has his first kiss atop the empty Empire State Building at two AM, with a handsome radio actor, during a thunderstorm--and Chabon makes you believe it. Or rather: even if you suspect it's too good to be true, the atmosphere, the slow-burn sexual tension, the sheer audacity of it is so compelling that you want to believe it. You want to shout, "Whoever said that books had to be about dull everyday people doing dull everyday things? Dammit, what are novels for, if not to make out-of-the-ordinary events feel vivid to the reader?" Back when I subscribed to McSweeney's, the first issue I received was the Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, guest-edited by Michael Chabon, prefaced by his manifesto attacking "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story." If that short-story collection was a minor skirmish, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a major salvo in the quest to meld "literary" and "popular" genres. Chabon is a Maximalist, an Optimist, and probably a Great American Novelist. Hey, that sounds like the description of a new superhero...

Flight or Invisibility?

Would you rather fly like Mr. Incredible or be invisible like his daughter, Violet? Images from allposters.com

There's a famous "This American Life" episode where John Hodgman puts the choice "Your superpower: flight or invisibility?" to people, and analyzes what their response says about them. Evidently, men and extroverts choose flight, and women and introverts choose invisibility. Is that because our culture encourages strong, active men and passive, quiet women? Still, this doesn't square with the fact that most people who choose invisibility say they'd use it "to spy on naked women." Somehow I feel that men want to spy on naked women more than women want to spy on naked men.

Besides, I always felt like an exception to these patterns: I'm a female introvert, but my instinctive choice was Flight. I liked the idea of soaring carefree--very "I Can't Be Bothered Now":

I'm up above the stars
On earthly things I frown
I'm throwing off the bars
That held me down

Flying also offers a convenient way to get out of my suburban neighborhood, going as-the-crow-flies rather than following the twisty streets. Invisibility, I decided, was for dishonest, sneaky people who find strength (surreptitiously spying and gathering information) in weakness (not being noticed). Flight has no such moral ambiguity.

But today, as I slipped by one of those ubiquitous signature-gatherers in the Pearl District, silently praying he wouldn't turn around and try to engage me in conversation, I was reminded again of flight vs. invisibility. I realized I'd probably use invisibility a lot more, if I had it. I'd sneak past all those friendly young people who exhort me to donate to Save the Children. Or those poor (homeless?) guys who hang out on Burnside, try to talk to me, and when I walk away without responding , say "That's a hard-headed woman." Rather than being morally ambiguous, invisibility would save me the ethical angst of not knowing what to do in these situations situations: these people are human beings and deserve my respect and attention, don't they? But I am usually in a hurry and Can't Be Bothered Now!

And, if I were invisible, I could sneak into any Broadway play, movie premiere, or exclusive event that I chose. I'd certainly learn a lot more from invisibility than from flight. I mean, don't you sometime wish to hear what people say about you when you're not around?

The main reason to fly is to be free, to soar untethered, to see beautiful vistas and marvel at them. I wanted the exhilaration of it. But I know that a lot of people get that feeling from athletics--the runner's high--and I hate running. Flying is the jock option, isn't it? Then again, I could also use flight in many situations where I planned to use invisibility--to escape attention when I'm trying to go somewhere in a hurry. But I still feel like I wouldn't actually use it.

As "This American Life" says, accepting invisibility means accepting your guile or deviousness or antisocial sides. No, it's not as simple as introverts versus extroverts, men versus women. It's thinkers versus doers, figureheads versus powers behind the throne, those who accept their dark sides versus those who wish to suppress them.

I just caught sight of Book Six of Harry Potter, which I am currently rereading. Harry has both flight (via broomstick, etc.) and invisibility (via cloak)--which helps him most? Invisibility gives him access to crucial information, but often the information is misleading or confusing. And in the grand climaxes, flight plays more of a role than invisibility. But since I have more use for gathering information than battling nasty wizards, this proves, again, that I might not use flight if I had it. Invisibility it is! At least for the moment.