Where's The Film About Our Real Superheroes?

The flood of superhero movies in the past several years has become increasingly worse. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, X-Men and, oops, Catwoman, and then what? Underdog … these bustards are everywhere and they keep coming. Even bums are superheroes now – Hancock.

Ogres are superheroes – Hulk. It’s so bad that even the creatures of underworld are being enlisted into the superhero category, and I don’t mean Al Gore. (Although, what do you think Al Gore was doing in his documentary if not saving the world?) Who I mean is Hellboy, a creep who looks so evil that the logline’s compelled to explain, “Believe it or not, he’s the good guy.”

How much of this nonsense can the public take? In its dynamic, this superhero hysteria is reminiscent of the escapism of the 30’s musicals, but only in its dynamic. Essentially, escapism was not deception but a convention to ease the burden of everyday life. People who went to see the musicals were very much aware of their personal economic hardship; they just didn’t want to deal with it for a couple of hours.

Superhero movies are simply a lie, not because they’re fantasies that take us into imaginary worlds, but because most of the contemporary superhero movies are a guilt trip – substitutes for real stories of real heroes not being told. And that real story is the story of the men and women of the U.S. Military.

This is the greatest story not being told, or rather the greatest story not allowed to be told. This is the real superhero movie. After their country was attacked these ordinary people discovered a power within to go and combat the evil order of powerful demons who spread fear and terror around the world. The world does not support these ordinary people and most of their countrymen do not support them out of the fear of demons. But these ordinary people succeed. Outnumbered (100 thousand in a country of 25 million), under excruciating heat and with danger hidden behind every stone, they continue to fight the evil as their own city makes pacts with the Joker to abandon them.

Superhero movies as a genre are fine. I’m not waging war on the genre since I am well aware that “nuclear weapons will only irritate Godzilla.” I’m just stunned by the sheer quantity, frequency and, of course, stupidity of superhero extravaganza.

In a world where beheadings are videographed and pitched to major networks, I guess, it’s hard to find an appropriate way to express the gravity and seriousness of our struggle. We know we can’t escape, although the musical is surely coming back (only “Mamma Mia” could compete with Batman at the box-office last year). We cannot escape but we still haven’t developed the guts to tell stories about what’s really going on. We’re afraid to call the evil to account and we’re afraid to call our own sons and daughters the real heroes.

How sad that the only time they’re portrayed on film is when we rush to condemn them, like in Brian De Palma’s “Redacted.”

To conclude, superhero movies are fun. So the next time a pissed off worshiper of a Joker-god sets a bomb off and/or tries to behead you, make sure to call Batman, aka Christian Bale … if he is not too busy berating a cameraman that day.