A Pigment of My Imagination

About two years back, I had to read this article in an English class about Superman and his role as an American icon. Written by Gary Engle, the article “What Makes Superman So Darned American” is an excellent look into the character, his development, and his significance on American culture.
http://cc.ysu.edu/~satingle/gary_engle.htm

Then I had to write a review/summary of it:

In his essay “What Makes Superman So Darned American?”, author Gary Engle describes the myth of Superman and his alter-ego Clark Kent and discusses how it relates to America’s history of immigration and assimilation. Engle starts by revisiting his childhood dilemma—deciding who would win the fight between Superman and cowboy legend John Wayne. His constant back-and-forth ended, he says, when he realized that the two would never battle because they didn’t start fights, but rather defended the American way of life.
Even in a country full of regional legends and myths such as Davy Crockett and Paul Bunyan, Engle comes to realize that Superman is “the great American hero”, one who incorporates the cultural traditions, beliefs, and indomitable spirit of the American way.

Although Superman has endured many transformations over the years, there is a core to his story, and this is key to its meaning. Superman is orphaned on planet Earth after the destruction of his home planet, Krypton. He is then rescued and raised by the Kent family of Smallville. Once grown, Clark Kent moves to Metropolis to be a reporter by day and world savior by night. Along the way, he falls in love with Lois Lane.
According to Engle, Superman is such a popular and resonant character to Americans because he is an orphan and an immigrant. From the first Pilgrims to today, America has been a country of immigrants. Like Superman, many Americans were forced to flee their native country because of famine or war, and traveled to America, in hope of a better life. Engle says that, as opposed to Batman, and other superheroes who wear a mask to hide their humanity, Superman actually is an alien, who wears the disguise of a human to hide his special powers.

Engle shows that much of America’s history rests in dealing with cultural dislocation. In literature, he says, American legends like Daniel Boone, Natty Bumppo, and Huck Finn are all condemned to restless travel, searching for the American dream and a national sense of identity. Individual mobility, Engle states, is an “integral part of America’s dreamwork”. This is why learning to drive is a part of manhood, and why writers like Charles Kuralt and William Least Heat Moon take to the roads of America to expand their humanity. Engle says it is no surprise, then, that Superman can fly. This flying allows him great personal freedom, making him essentially omnipresent, thus eliminating the curse of dislocation.
Superman the orphan, like many Americans, is forced to form a new identity, so he can assimilate into his new culture. He chooses to be the geeky Clark Kent. And while Kent seems far from heroic, Engle says, Superman and his weaker alter-ego are required for the myth to be complete and succeed.

Indeed, Engle argues that Superman is more effective than the Western legend because he transcends the Western’s flaws. Westerns were in many ways a precursor to Superman, tales about men exiled from their homes traveling west to start a new way of life, and, along the way, having to learn from and incorporate the traditions of the natives who were already there. The limits to the Westerns, as Engle says, are that they were pastoral, set in rural locales, and historical, forced into a specific, although inaccurate point in place and time. Superman solved these issues by being contemporary and global. Clark Kent moves from a rural town into a cosmopolitan metropolis, a move that many Americans could relate to personally.
The creators of Superman tried to give him not just cultural, but also religious significance. Engle highlights Superman’s bright red cape, which unlike any cape before it, seems to grow right from his chest and serve as the wings of an angel. After further research, Engle shows great spiritual symbolism in Superman’s Kryptonic name, Kal-el. In Hebrew, the affix “el” (Isra-el, Micha-el) means “of God”. “Kal” means “swiftness”, and “hal” translates to “all”, making Kal-el mean “all that God is”. The name Kent appears in the Bible meaning “I have found a son”.

Because America has no national religious icon, Engle argues that Superman himself has become a kind of religious myth, a “visitor from heaven”. An American’s non-denominational tale of a savior, the protector of the helpless, the defender of justice, truth and the American way. Engle argues that Superman is a young child’s ideal vision of a hero, and puts John Wayne to shame.

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