The Pop Punk Superman Movie

Who knew we needed a pop-punk Superman? 

Well, in an era -- perhaps the tail end of one -- where Marvel Comics dominated everything, DC Comics was sort of an afterthought in terms of big blockbusters, and the Man of Steel had become probably the least cool of the superhero genre, it seems like a reboot and makeover is just what Superman and movie audiences needed.

I'll be honest, I did not see the latest rendition of Superman that hit movie theaters this summer, and I didn't really have any interest in it. But, then I ran across this cool piece of commentary on NPR from Ann Powers - "Why the World Needs a Pop-Punk Superman" - and I am definitely intrigued. The film is now on my to-watch list. And the inclusion of the Teddybear's song "Punk Rocker (ft Iggy Pop)" on the soundtrack as the closing credits song is an added bonus.

Like so many hope-seeking people sweating out this summer, I plunked down my dollars last week to see director James Gunn's Superman. I showed up for the superpup Krypto, but found the old-fashioned Earth-saving shebang to be a balm — a sweet shot of moral clarity at a time when that can seem to be in short supply. And I joined the chorus of surprised chuckles when the scene destined to go viral arrived. In it, reporter Lois Lane and her metahuman lover are sharing a moment of vulnerability that turns into a low-stakes but highly revelatory argument. Wondering what he sees in her, she calls herself "just some punk rock kid from Bakerline," to which he indignantly responds, "I'm punk rock!" Then they're off, thrown into one of rock and roll's classic showdowns, between a "real" punk who found her tribe in the underground and a former clueless kid who probably bought his first Ramones t-shirt and Green Day CD at Target. It's a great early-in-the-relationship values check, as two people still feeling each other out voice their anxieties in the form of a tussle over definitions.

And Powers at NPR is not the only one weighing in with some interesting thoughts about the pop-punk angle of the new Superman. Author, music critic, academic, and lifelong punk Gina Arnold also noted the merging of what would seem to be arguably disparate and contradictory traditions with the inclusion of punk references in one of the nation's oldest superhero comics - the archetypal hero of "truth, justice, and the American Way." In her substack post "Man & Superman: 'Superman' and the Politics of Punk," Arnold explores the inspiration and effect of James Gunn infusing the Superman story with the punk ethos.

I don’t feel qualified to write about movies, especially “Superman,” but I do feel qualified to muse at length about the brief but apparently important reference to punk rock that is threaded throughout “Superman,” because I am the (co) editor of the Oxford Handbook of Punk! If the movie had confined itself to the brief exchange between Lois and Clark/Superman, where she says she’s a punk rocker and he says he likes punk rock too, and then she mocks the bands he names that he likes, saying, “that’s not punk, that’s corporate pop sell out stuff!” (or something like that), then I might just have passed on by. The exchange seems to be shorthand for character-building: Lois is supposed to be edgy, and Clark is supposed to be square. And maybe that is the purpose of the exchange, although if so, I still think it’s kind of interesting that the term ‘punk’ has taken on that shading. But later the theme continues when Clark announces to a skeptical Lois that exuding kindness is being punk rock.

I feel like that’s a lot of air-time for the idea of punk, at least in a movie that has nothing to do with punk, and who’s original texts predate the genre by many years. My friend Marie, who is associated with DC Comics, tells me that the director James Gunn used to be in a punk band, which may explain his interest in inserting this concept here, and I appreciate that impulse. I have all these great ideas (and scripts) for movies about those days, and I know, and James Gunn knows, there’s no actual market for them. Punk has to be inserted like a virus into other texts for it to have resonance.

But what is being punk, or rather, what does it mean NOW, as opposed to then? People have always accused punks of being phony in some way, because of the way they dress - and the subsequent revelation that it is actually more “punk” to not be punk is another oft-bandied about interpretation of the genre. In some ways Superman’s defensive words are just a gloss on that, but it also touches on what I have always thought was a major a part of punk philosophy: in the world of punk, all the outsiders (and let’s face it, being an alien from outer space makes Clark Kent the ultimate outsider) are now on the inside, and here on the inside, love will prevail.