Truth, Justice and the AMERICAN way!

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Well all the talk in the entertainment world is about this week’s premier of Superman Returns. I remember watching re-runs of the old George Reeves Superman TV show when I was kid. We all knew that Superman was faster than a speeding bullet, ore powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. We knew that Superman would always fight for “Truth Justice and the American way.” It turns out that the makers of Superman Returns don’t think so.

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Apparently in the movie “When Daily Planet editor in chief Perry White (Frank Langella) asks his reporters to find out if the returned hero still stands for “truth and justice,” the phrase “the American way” is conspicuous by its absence.”

In fact, what he says is “truth, justice and all that stuff.”

Apparently this was not an unintentional slight. Here’s what Mike Dougherty and Dan Harris, the two credited screenwriters for ‘Superman Returns’ had to say about it.

Dan: “I don’t think ‘the American way’ means what it meant in 1945.”

Mike: “He’s not just for Metropolis and not just for America.”

Dan: “He’s an alien, from Krypton; he has come to Earth to be kind of a savior for this world, not our country . . . And he has no papers.”

Mike: “What would happen with the immigration laws we have now?” Dan: “I’d like to see someone kick him out!”

Well you won’t be getting any of my good old AMERICAN dollars, this weekend or EVER.

11 thoughts on “Truth, Justice and the AMERICAN way!”

  2. If you remember the old SNL skit “What if”, they had a skit one day which was “What if..Superman had landed in Germany rather than the USA during WWII.” In the skit he was Uberman.

    So just imagine if Superman had landed in Berkeley California and/or any other liberal hellhole, what would be the result?

    Perhaps, SuperCompasionate Man? Fighting for same sex marriages, abortion on demand, and fighting globalization and corporations in favor of the lazy ass rich hippie wannabes. He would drink starbucks mocha soy latte and instead of fighting criminals, he would try to reform them and simply have a talk with them and empathize with them since they were driven to crime by the captialist system which represses the little man.

    or SuperMarx Man? I dunno. It is sick. Reminds me of that stupid politically correct version of the comics that came about in the 1970’s called Superfriends. Instead of kicking ass, all the super heroes essentially concluded that the whole incident was a misunderstanding and set the record straight and let the criminal go free.

    Oh the humanity. Or if he had landed in San Fran who knows, he would have been hitting on Jimmy Olsen instead of Lois Lane. Or he may end up as Transgendered Man?

    Isn’t anything sacred anymore? Gay Cowboys? Marxist Superman? Batman on crack?

  4. I saw that line in the movie’s trailer and kind of liked it. I caught the omission of “American way” and thought it might just sound a little corny if he had used it… classic but corny. It seems that the trend lately has been to stray from the old corniness of the comic hero and give the story a more serious, more badass, perhaps even dark complexity (see Spiderman, Batman Begins, X-Men, Daredevil, etc.).

    It’s a shame that THIS was the motivation for the omission, though. I kind of figured it was because it sounded less awkward (I think this is true)… until I read this.

  5. Mike,

    I remember that SNL skit. Superman used his x-ray vision to determine that one of the other actors was a jew. Very funny and irreverent as SNL is when it’s at its best.

  7. That’s why I always preferred Batman and Spiderman when I was a kid and still do (especially Batman — he whacks the criminals and he has awesome gear! To this day, Superman is a little too fucking goodie-two-shoes for me.

  10. “…When he moved to the big screen they turned him into a dork.”

    He’s kind of ALWAYS been a dork. It’s actually part of his charm. I’m reminded of Lobo telling him something to the effect of “you may have super strength and all, but you fight like a butler.” (And not like Michael Caine’s version of Alfred from Batman Begins, either, who I both hope and expect to see kick ass and take names in the sequel.)

    As you can already tell, I’m far too much of a comic-book to miss this for any reason.

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