Superman jettisons the American way.
Superman jettisons the American way.
W e don’t know yet whether Superman reads Ibram X. Kendi and dutifully attends diversity, equity, and inclusion workshops at the Justice League, but at this point, who would be surprised?
The latest on the straight-arrow, earnest do-gooder who used to help sell war bonds is that he is forswearing any further reference to “the American way.”
No, as the chief creative office of DC comics explained, Superman is “evolving” from his iconic credo of “truth, justice, and the American way.”
The new motto is: “Truth, justice and a better tomorrow,” which according to DC comics will “better reflect the storylines that we are telling across DC and to honor Superman’s incredible legacy of over 80 years of building a better world.”
As Variety puts it, the change “appears to be a pointed statement that the Man of Steel is a hero for everyone, part of a wider effort across the company to broaden its representation.”
So, there you have it, the American way, broadly defined as the core national characteristics of this country, including fair play, optimism, lawfulness, and striving, are passé and exclusionary.
Will Herberg wrote a famous description of the American national spirit:
The American Way of life is individualistic, dynamic, and pragmatic. It affirms the supreme value and dignity of the individual; it stresses incessant activity on his part, for he is never to rest but is always to be striving to “get ahead” it defines an ethic of self-reliance, merit, and character, and judges by achievement: “deeds, not creeds” are what count. The “American Way of Life” is humanitarian, “forward-looking”, optimistic. Americans are easily the most generous and philanthropic people in the world, in terms of their ready and unstinting response to suffering anywhere on the globe. The American believes in progress, in self-improvement, and quite fanatically in education. But above all, the American is idealistic.
You can argue with elements of this and point out how we’ve fallen short of such a standard, but who reads that passage and thinks “Well, that’s needlessly divisive and we need to get beyond it?”
It is certainly true that Superman and the nature of the stories have changed over time in response to the general political and cultural environment. But the American way is an unalterable part of the character’s identity.
Originally, his motto was only truth and justice, but patriotism came to the fore during World War II. The famous opening sequence of a radio program in the 1940s — “Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive!” — said he “fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!”
After the war Superman’s emphasis shifted to becoming a crusader against intolerance (“a valiant courageous fighter against forces of hate and prejudice!”), but the 1950s TV show returned again to “truth, justice, and the American way.”
In the iconic 1978 movie, when Lois Lane asks the late actor Christopher Reeve’s Superman why he’s here in a winsome interview scene, he answers with the traditional tripartite formulation.
If this trinity has to be jettisoned in keeping with our era, so much the worse for our era.
The change speaks to how progressivism and its fellow travelers aren’t opposed to, say, nationalism or American exceptionalism, rather to patriotism itself, which is considered too constraining and small-minded and a celebration of a deeply flawed country that doesn’t deserve the adulation.
Over the decades, Superman has battled sundry forces hostile to America. In this instance, they have prevailed, and it’s an inside job.