On Agency: Strong Female Characters, the Myth of Non-Action, and Jupiter Ascending
By now you’ll have heard the “Jupiter Jones doesn’t have agency” criticism of Jupiter Ascending (dirs. the Wachowskis; 2015).[1] The gist of the argument, as far as I can tell, is that Jupiter doesn’t have agency (or enough agency) because she does not become a “strong female character” until the last possible second. Andrew O’Hehir, for example, wrote in his Salon.com review that Jupiter has less female agency than any character ever played by Doris Day. Compared to this movie, the Disneyfied feminism of “Frozen” and “Brave” and “Maleficent” feels like Valerie Solanas’ “SCUM Manifesto.” Peter Debruge wrote in Variety that [although] clearly conceived as an empowered female heroine, poor Jupiter spends most of the movie being kidnapped and shuffled from one unpleasant situation to another, whether that’s being nearly assassinated during an egg-donating operation or pushed into a marriage with a two-faced Abraxas prince. Sam Maggs wrote in The Mary Sue: When I hear “Mila Kunis black leather space princess,” I want to see her bulked the hell up, Emily Blunt style, kicking ass and taking names. We don’t get to see Kunis looking really cool until the very end of the film, at which point I wanted way more of that. Which, I guess, means I would pay for a sequel. The most damning claim about Jupiter’s agency, however, comes from Tim Martain’s review for The Mercury: There’s a little test I like to apply, where you try to describe a character without reference to their physical appearance or occupation. If you can come up with three clear character traits, then you may have a well-crafted character. If not, well, you have a cardboard cutout. Jupiter is a big ol’ flat piece of nothing. She is a name and a device, nothing more. Her character is not developed in any way beyond “special girl who everyone is fighting over”. She is Cinderella with even less motivation or personality. In other words, Jupiter isn’t even a person. She’s a thing. Because she is passive. Because she doesn’t fight (until the very end). Because she is manipulated by others. Because she is a toilet cleaner. Because she is everything other than a “strong female character.” One must ask: why does Jupiter need to take names? Why can’t she just be a space princess? Why can’t she simply get sucked into a world where space princesses are real and people like her (like us) have to learn to navigate the absurd bureaucracy of space royalty? Why can’t she be a confused, naive person like, well, a real person might be? Why isn’t that enough for her to have agency or for her to escape the charge that her agency is nearly absent? Why can’t this also be a story about someone discovering or developing a different kind of agency? Isn’t that enough? Frankly, I’m not sure these individuals understand what “agency” means. At its most basic, “agency” refers to one’s ability to take action to affect their own lives; as such, agency exists on a continuum that is affected by social status, culture, upbringing, economics, and so on and so forth. The degree to which we all have agency, in other words, depends on how well equipped we are to affect our daily lives. Agency can be individual, collective, immersed within or isolated from a specific dominant culture, and so on. In other words: agency is pretty damn complicated, as is clear when you start to look into the sociological, psychological, and feminist struggles to adequately define the concept in a way that incorporates the full range of social interactions. For women, agency has been a key component of the feminist fight for equality. Since the world has historically (and still is to a large degree) favored men in nearly every avenue, women’s access to “choice” in its broadest conception has always been curtailed. Worldbank notes that “across all countries women and men differ in their ability to make effective choices in a range of spheres, with women typically at a disadvantage” in the avenues of control over resources, free movement, decisions about family formation, freedom from violence, and freedom to have a voice in society and politics. Oppression does not necessarily mean that one loses all agency, though. Indeed, how one exerts influence can take myriad forms, including subversive actions within an oppressive situation. Women in violent, patriarchal societies do not lose agency simply by being oppressed; their abilities to affect their own lives, however, do change, limiting the degree of agency they might have, or, in some cases, simply changing how agency is perceived. Lest you think only overt oppression can steal one’s agency, remember that we are all to varying degrees limited by social, economic, and other factors. Some of us, such as myself, just have more advantages — in my case because I am white, male, American, and educated.[2] But in a world where pop criticism often stands in for professional criticism, the buzzword definitions are replicated ad naseum. Women who punch bad guys or take direct action against oppression or in some way “act” in a manner that makes them visibly opposed to a system or individual or in a position to “make things happen” are women who have “agency.” Every other woman? Well, she might have “agency,” but not enough that her agency is worth talking about, except to note that she doesn’t have any (or very little). If she subverts the system, her agency is only valued if her subversion is aggressive. Passive subversion won’t make her “strong.” If anything, “passive” is just another word for “worthless” or “oppressed.” These limitations on “agency” are so pervasive that they affect how we even talk about female characters, particularly when the term “strong female character” crops up. Sophia McDougall’s essay in the New Statesman (“I Hate Strong Female Characters”) points out that the phenomenon of the “strong female character” seems particular to women: No one ever asks if a male character is “strong”. Nor if he’s
On Ridley Scott’s Exodus and Bannings
The Washington Post reports that Egypt has banned Ridley Scott’s controversial Bible film, Exodus (starring Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, and Ben Kingsley), due to “alleged historical inaccuracies and a ‘Zionist’ agenda.” You can read the article for more detail, though I would suggest extra care here given the region under discussion and the inevitable spin that will come out of U.S. news sources. For the record: the BBC has reported the same thing, more or less. I should also note that I’m not going to defend Exodus from the charges that it is inaccurate in any direct sense. Honestly, I don’t think the movie should have been made. Its white-washing of history and clear manipulation of Biblical narrative for “sensationalist imagery” — not to mention Ridley Scott’s absurd defense of the former — have not endeared the film to me. In fact, I’m perfectly content with never seeing Exodus, and I sincerely hope it does so poorly that Hollywood thinks again before letting Ridley Scott ruin anything else. But none of this is a reason to ban the film. They made it, and if theaters want to play it, then so be it. Now, to my thoughts: As a general rule, I am against censorship, allowing for exceptions that might arise in which censorship might be necessary (no, I haven’t a clue what those exceptions might look like). Of course, when I say “censorship,” I mean “from the government or its subsidiaries.” While I might be bothered by a theater refusing to play a film, my objections would be personal, not ethical or legal. Censorship from the government, however, moves beyond a personal level. One business entity making a quality judgement has little bearing on the public’s perception of a work of art. After all, there are theaters devoted entirely to independent films, and so they intentionally leave out all sorts of films that do not fit their criteria, in part because so many of those theaters are small and cannot play every indie film that gets released. The Hippodrome Theater in Gainesville (where I live) does this. They probably play 10% of the “significant” independent films released in a year because they do not have the space — nor the funds — of a company like Regal Cinemas, which receives, I imagine, 100 times the attendance of the Hipp. And so the Hipp must make judgments on what it wants to play and for how long. Those judgments might involve content, the assessment of the local audience, money, and so on and so forth. All fair in the economics game. But the government doesn’t have the luxury of reflecting the voice of one entity, let alone a small collection of people working within that entity. It is meant to reflect the voice of a nation. In the case of the U.S., that voice is a protected voice, not just by our Constitution, but also by the individual laws we have put in place to protect artistic and everyday expression. We have a history of that protection lapsing, and we still struggle with a culture of book banning. Ever more the reason to discuss these rights and to continue fighting for them. Egypt, however, is not the U.S. and is not bound by our rules and legal structures (as should be obvious). Here, I think the principle of expression is paramount, and that’s something that I find difficult to support beyond the confines of the U.S. After all, it’s not every day that I am asked to defend my perspective of human rights with someone who does not share my nation’s history. How do I justify a position which says that Egypt’s banning of Exodus is wrong — even somewhat fascistic — when that position arrives from a growing up in a nation where such values are mostly upheld? Even if I suggest that expression is a fundamental right, can I defend that without resorting to a Western view? As it turns out, I can. Sorta. Egypt has been part of the United Nations since 1945 (Oct. 24). In 1948, they adopted the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, which contains a handy little section on expression: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. In short, Egypt agreed to the same principles which protect artistic and everyday expression in the U.S. (though, I must admit that the U.N.’s language is a tad clearer on the implementation). Egypt’s decision to ban Exodus, in other words, is a clear violation of this right/principle. We could certainly get into arguments about whether the U.N. has any authority or whether its Declaration is anything other than symbolic. Regardless, that Egypt adopted the Declaration suggests that they agreed with the principles written within it — or, rather, that a previous government did and no government afterwards saw fit to contradict that adoption. A banning, in short, is fundamentally unethical, and it sets a precedent that allows for other moralistic decisions about art. After all, that’s what Egypt’s banning is. Exodus was not banned because it is obscene or can be shown to have any real impact on Egypt’s population; it was banned because it does not represent history as Egypt’s government would want it. While it is probably true that Exodus is disgustingly wrong about its history (it certainly failed on the racial front), there is a suspiciously religious-moralistic flavor to this particular banning. If it were not so marked, then one could look back through Egypt’s history and find instances of other blatantly inaccurate films being banned. But Egypt released Gladiator, 300, 300: Rise of an Empire, The Patriot, and 10,000 B.C. One might argue that some of these simply take creative license with historical periods, but you can’t say that they are accurate films; given that at least two of these intended to be accurate, they
Film Remakes and the Necessity for Critical Distance
Hollywood is hopelessly obsessed with remakes. We all know this. And if we don’t, it’s really not that difficult to figure out how obsessed Hollywood really is. But I’ll make it easy for you here: here’s a list of 57 remakes which were marked as “in development“ as of July 2013. Some of those may have been dropped, but the fact of the matter is that there were 57 remakes in various stages of development last year. There’s nothing inherently wrong with remakes, of course. After all, many remakes tackles films that are now 30+ years old, which means the primary viewing audience — let’s say 15 to 40 — probably hasn’t seen them anyway. Some remakes are attempts to update concepts which haven’t aged well, or which really are pretty darn cool and would benefit from newer film technologies and bigger budgets (technically, this year’s Robocop fits into this category, but that film is terrible). It makes sense, too, why Hollywood studios would choose to remake a film: it’s safer to reboot something that was already a success — or which has a following or concept that would work well in today’s market — since the discussion surrounding the remake will naturally include buzz about the previous version; obviously, this can sometimes backfire, as in the case of Total Recall or Robocop (or perhaps it’s more often than not), as it’s difficult to find remakes which are absolutely better than their predecessors. There’s almost always something “missing.” I tend to think of remakes in two ways: They are indicative of Hollywood’s inability to imagine new things and, in a sense, its refusal to take chances; and They are only a good idea if there is sufficient critical distance from the original source material. It’s the latter of these two modes that I want to discuss here. Part of the problem with remakes and reboots, as I see it, is the obsession with doing so before the original material has time to breathe. Amazing Spider-Man may be a decent superhero film, but it comes on the heels of an existing “canon” of Spider-Man films — the Sam Raimi lot. Setting aside what we think about Raimi’s take on Spidey, the films were financially successful and were generally well-received. The latest batch is half a decade removed from the original; rather than continue the story with a new cast, this new Spidey flick completely re-tells Spidey’s origins. If the intended audience for remakes are a “new” batch of viewers, which is, admittedly, my argument, then it makes little sense to re-tell an existing narrative when the audience is hardly “new.” One can point to many other examples of this, such as the Battlestar Galactica movie-reboot-remake-monstrosity that will hit theaters at some point in the next year or so. Would it not make more sense to continue an existing narrative? What I want to suggest about all this is a kind of “too soon”-ness. It’s not that these reboots and remakes of 30-years-or-less-old flicks are bad in and of themselves; in fact, many of them might be perfectly fine movies on their own or improvements over their predecessors (given the absence of emo-hipster jazz dances in the new Spidey films, I suspect this is a point most of you will understand). Rather, the problem these films pose is two-fold: Their “too soon”-ness courts comparison, largely unfavorable, and creates the conditions for viewer fatigue, and They remind us that Hollywood is largely a business, and so any means by which they can procure profit from licensed properties will be taken, including rebooting and remaking things well before they’ve fallen away from public consciousness, perhaps under the false assumption that doing so will naturally draw new and old fans alike. To the first, I think comparison is both beneficial and detrimental. If a film succeeds in remaking something that wasn’t all that great to begin with, but is fondly remembered in a kind of “cult” sense (i.e., Red Dawn), then the comparison to the original is largely positive. If Red Dawn (the remake) were actually better than Red Dawn (the 1980s cult classic), our conversation surrounding it would be about what it does right, how it succeeds where its predecessor did not and where it succeeds on its own merits. But Red Dawn did not have that reception. It is right for us to compare it to the original and laugh at the fact that the remake is an obviously lesser film, suffering from poor pacing, bad acting, and so on. It is also right for us to recognize the absurdity of its altered premise. The original Red Dawn took place right at the tail end of the Cold War, nestling itself right into pre-existing American fears and cultural narratives. In 1984, the Soviet Union was a real threat in America’s public discourse. But North Korea, the primary villain of the remake, is only a threat in the most limited sense. While the U.S. currently considers NK a dangerous nation, it is not one which we actively discuss as having the capacity to invade the United States — if anything, we should recognize that North Korea’s only staying power is a nuclear deterrent. The remake’s politics, as such, are conspicuously nonsensical in comparison to its predecessor and remind us of the specificity of the cultural context in which the original Red Dawn arose: it is simply untranslatable to the cultural context of 2012.[1] Much of the problem with Red Dawn rests in the fact that its conceptual origins are a) not detached from the present era due to chronological proximity, and b) coupled with a narrative which always reminds us that this is a remake. In other words, it is difficult for the studios, let alone the public at large — except, perhaps, a limited portion of the present viewership (teens) — to disentangle the narrative of Red Dawn (2012) from the history and narrative of Red Dawn (1984). And that disentanglement is necessary, I would argue, to avoid the
Month of Joy: “The Joy of City Stomping” by David Annandale
Though their heyday was undoubtedly the 1950s and 60s, giant monsters have rampaged through the movies long before and long after the era that saw the arrival of the Big Bugs, Godzilla and friends, and Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion marvels. Obviously, King Kong casts his long shadow from 1933, but before him were the dinosaurs of The Lost World in 1925 (whose climax features the first city rampage), and even earlier, Georges Méliès gave us the likes of the Frost Giant from The Conquest of the Pole in 1912, and the titular Gigantic Devil in 1902. So, when all is said and done, we have had well over a century of giant monsters stomping (or, in Méliès’ case, cavorting) across our screens. Why? I’m trying to tackle the question from a particular angle, given the theme of Shaun’s site this week. What, exactly, is the joy that these creatures give us? And oh, why be coy: what is the joy they give me. They have for as far back as my conscious memories reach. I could go on about the symbolic riches they provide, such as the multiple, simultaneous readings embodied in Kong, the entangling patriarchy of It Came from Beneath the Sea’s octopus (defeated by the ingenuity of Faith Domergue), or Godzilla incarnating nuclear war in one film, enraged nature in another, or the vengeful spirits of the victims of Japanese war crimes in a third. And while it is true that these represent many of the joys I find in monster films now, they are only partial explanations. These reasons are encrustations, new pleasures that have grown on top of the old ones, but the old ones are still there. To put it another way: while I am fascinated by Cloverfield’s allusions to the first Godzilla film as a way of underscoring the big thematic concern shared by both films (the re-enactment, in fantastic terms, of very recent national traumas), there is no getting away from the fact that my biggest thrill in watching that film is the giddy excitement of seeing that monster wreck stuff. Let me put it more nakedly yet: when, in the VHS era, my brother and I were finally able to binge on all the Godzilla films, one of our primary criteria for deciding which ones were better than others was how much real estate was trashed. Monster fights in urban centres were way cooler than slugfests in the countryside (and this is a treat that Pacific Rim delivers in full during the Hong Kong sequence). So there is joy in destruction, as we have known since childhood. Isn’t this the main reason we play with building blocks? So we can spectacularly knock down what we laboriously construct? In this respect, the monster movie and the disaster film offer overlapping pleasures, but not identical ones. To focus only on the falling skyscrapers would be to miss the importance of the monster itself. It has been said (and I apologize for not recalling where I read this first), that one of the reasons children love dinosaurs so much is that they are non-threatening embodiments of power, embodiments that we first encounter when we are at our most powerless. If the power fantasies in super-heroes are ones where we suddenly have the ability to right the wrongs of an imperfect world, the monster gives us the ability to show an unfriendly world exactly what we think of it. Sometimes, we don’t want to save it. Sometimes, we just want to trample it underfoot. And that trampling is justified: with the exception of creatures such as King Ghidorah or Iris, who are the antagonists fought by the protagonist monsters (Godzilla and Gamera, respectively), the truly evil giant creature is rare indeed.* Kong, Godzilla, Gorgo, Gamera, Rodan, Mothra, Gwangi, and so on and on and on, even at their most vicious and destructive, have a core of innocence. They are more sinned against than sinning. It is telling, too, that though the 1954 Godzilla is still arguably the grimmest, most despairing giant monster movie going, and emphatically not aimed at children, it would not be too many years before the reverse would be the case, and the character had become a super-hero. The joyless film somehow leads to the infamous-yet-infectious expression of joy that is Godzilla’s dance in Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965). So the joys of the giant monster films are very much paradoxical. Even in the case of the darkest films (and let there be no mistake: Godzilla is about as bleak as they come), when the fears and traumatic memories of the audience are receiving their fullest, most graphic expression, there is still that anarchic joy to be had. There is still the excitement inherent to the rampage itself. Let me close by suggesting one further possibility. The rampage almost never truly comes out of the blue.** As baffling as the monsters are for the terrified, fleeing masses, there is always a context for them. I propose that we see the creatures as examples of the Event as defined by Alain Badiou: something that a particular system cannot account for, or even imagine, but that is nevertheless a result of that system, and shatters it. Perhaps, then, at some level, our joy is the result of recognizing the monsters as necessary. They’re certainly necessary for my inner child. ————————————————— * Pacific Rim is no different: the evil kaiju are the antagonists, and while the jaegers are robots, it is significant that the opening narration refers to them as “monsters.” ** Cloverfield is an obvious exception here, in that the monster appears to have literally fallen from the sky. Its anomalous position is, I believe, a pointed one: one of the many aspects of 9/11 that the film is evoking is the confusion and terror of those on the ground in the middle of the event, people for whom, at that moment and in that place, the broader picture of why these things are happening is
A Justice League Movie? (or, Hopefully This Won’t Be a Missed Opportunity)
Since Man of Steel hit theaters, there’s been a lot of talk about a potential Justice League movie. We even mentioned this topic in the latest Shoot the WISB episode on the new Superman film. Much of the discussion is based on rumors, no doubt supported by this oddly blank IMDB page, which suggests that some sort of Justice League film will hit a screen of some description in 2015. Now, Henry Cavill, who plays Supes in Man of Steel, has suggested that a Justice League adaptation likely won’t happen any time soon. What does that mean? I don’t know. In Hollywood time, that could mean 3 minutes or 3 decades, or it could mean a black hole has popped into existence and swallowed DC. A lot of folks want to see Flash and Wonder Woman in film form before Justice League reaches the big screen. I, however, think that would be a bad idea. I am awesome. That is all. First, I don’t know how Hollywood will manage to avoid ruining both the Flash and Wonder Woman without completely revamping the characters, and, thus, retconning most of what has defined the character in the last 50 years. The problem? Both characters are prone to ridiculousness in the Hollywood world. After all, the only serious portrayals of either characters in the last two decades have been in cartoons, which I don’t think necessarily translate well into live action (in part because the things you can do in a cartoon are difficult to do well with real people — see every CG hellhole Hollywood has tried to make, hence my concern). There is also the very real problem embodied in the universe the current film DC adaptations have presented: a dark, serious universe. There isn’t a lot of room for camp in in a world where Nolan’s Batman and Superman exist, and that means any interpretation of the Flash or Wonder Woman has to reject its predecessors quite soundly to make any coherent sense. That doesn’t mean we need a Nolan-style treatment of either character (let alone of the various other members of the JL — Green Arrow (on TV right now, in fact)*, Aquaman, Hawkman, Green Lantern, and so on and so forth), but it does mean DC and Hollywood have to seriously reconsider how to place these characters within a cinematic universe. That said, it’s important to realize that a lot of DC’s characters have baggage from previous film histories. Batman and Superman have mostly escaped their own baggage. Not easily, of course. Batman made a minor shift in the Tim Burton films, fell into the abyss with Forever and Robin, and then took a huge turn (for the best, I believe) with the Nolan trilogy. Superman had a similar journey. My hatred of Returns notwithstanding, the film did at least offer a lead-up to the Nolan-influenced Man of Steel. The same cannot be said for Wonder Woman or the Flash — at least, not within the live action franchises. Wonder Woman, for example, has never seen a big screen adaptation, though many are still quite fond of the 1970s adaptation starring Lynda Carter (not to mention all the love for the various cartoon versions). She’s quite likely to return to the small screen soon, which I think would be a great idea; DC (or one of the studios — not sure which) has actively been trying to bring her back to TV for several years (a 2011 pilot flopped at NBC, but the CW has expressed interest in pushing their own adaptation called Amazon). The same is true for the Flash. He had a TV movie in 1990 and plenty of appearances in cartoons. But he has yet to make the jump to the big screen, and probably won’t (though this IMDB page suggests otherwise). All of these facts are good reasons for both characters to have their own films…eventually. I, however, think DC would be better off going another route. If DC is hell bent on bringing these characters to the big screen, I think the best direction would be to release Man of Steel 2 (whatever it might be called), followed by the first Justice League movie. In the interim, Wonder Woman and the Flash should have origin narratives put up on the small screen; after Justice League (assuming success), new film narratives can take the limelight (or they can stick with TV). Doing so will have a few important impacts: TV adaptations will allow the characters to develop in the sort of depth they deserve. We’ll avoid the uncomfortable mess of 2.5 hour camp-fests (Wonder Woman especially; she’s a cool character, but her origin story will not inspire audiences). I don’t think film origins of these characters will do them justice, in part because most of us haven’t seen the characters outside of the comic “universes.” If you’re not a Flash fan already, you don’t know anything about him (and vice versa for Wonder Woman). And, well, I don’t think characters with super-speed work all that well on the big screen (that’s my personal hangup, though). I think starting with the trifecta of TV series (Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, and the Flash) will also give DC’s franchise a huge boost in the right direction. If you create three TV shows that cross over one another, each leading towards a Justice League film, you cross-pollinate your audience quite brilliantly. A good deal of people will watch all three, some will watch one or two, and some will come from entirely different avenues: following on the heels of Batman and Superman. Basically, hitting almost every direction at once seems like a perfect method for making a Justice League movie a success. Granted, none of this is likely to happen. If DC is hell bent on releasing a Justice League movie in 2015, then it doesn’t really matter what I think. Two years is hardly enough time to get two new TV series off the ground. My hope is
Why I Hated Superman Returns
Honestly, I hated Superman Returns because it established Superman as virtually (though not actually) limitless, at which point he becomes uninteresting to me as a hero. Clearly Kryptonite doesn’t really matter. He can lift entire islands of the stuff into the sky, so all this talk about it being his bad news bears is really just nonsense. At best, it’s a nuisance. And since he can basically do anything, there’s no reason to ever worry that he will fail. That’s what makes a good hero for me. We know, deep down, he won’t fail, but on the outside, we see his weaknesses and know that it’s always possible that he will (or she, for that matter). What also makes Superman a fantastic hero isn’t his strength and other abilities; it’s his constant need to do the right thing, even in the face of terrible adversity. This is why I think the trailer for the new film is so effective (even if the film falls short — haven’t seen it, so I can’t say). The idea that Superman is someone we’re supposed to look up to and an image to strive towards makes him such a compelling figure, not because he’s got all those powers, but because he is the guy who will brave the storm for his fellow “man”, even if that storm is likely to kill him. (You can see why the military is using Superman to sell volunteering in some of their recent ads, since the idea behind the trailer for the new Superman film clearly jives with the mythic formation of the soldier — the one who sacrifices for others). And while a lot of that is in Superman Returns, it is trampled by the complete retconning of Superman’s abilities (in my mind, anyway). Yeah, he does go and do the big, dangerous thing, but in doing so, he ceases to be something for which we can reasonably strive. He becomes god or close enough to it that the distinction isn’t relevant. What might have made Superman Returns a better film is if the great hero had to rely on the help of regular humans for once. Maybe the military storms in as Luther is about to deal the final blow to Superman. Maybe, like in Spiderman (the first Raimi film), a bunch of regular folks start chucking rocks and telling Luther to frak off, because if you mess with Superman, you mess with humanity. This would humble Superman, and it would remind us that his abilities are not what makes him who he is. They’re just icing on the cake, as it were. No, what makes Superman admirable is his personal strength and his ability to inspire. Superman has principles, and he sticks to them no matter what. He fights while the rest of us cower, and in doing so, he gives us courage. But in Superman Returns, I don’t need to create my own courage. The god will save me. I can cower away and let greater beings do everything for me. I am weak. I am nothing. That’s why I hated Superman Returns. ——————————————————— This originally appeared on my Facebook page as a response to Alex Bledsoe.