"Truth, Justice, and the American Way"

For John, BLUF:  Literature is a pretty big universe and I can't hope to real all the books and watch all the movies in my lifetime.  But, I am bothered when themes or characters are not just emulated, but stolen, changing the original model.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Winning the woke war

From Substack, by Journalist Don Surber, 20 March 2023.

Here is the lede plus nine:

Disney’s ABC attacked Ron DeSantis and other conservatives for using the word woke, in a piece headlined, “What does ‘woke’ mean and why are some conservatives using it? The definition of ‘woke’ changes depending on who you ask.”

The quote marks are unnecessary and the Oxford English Dictionary defines its current use as an adjective as, ahem, “Originally: well-informed, up-to-date.  Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; frequently in stay woke (often used as an exhortation).”

But ABC insisted on bashing conservatives for using the word.

Published January 20, 2023, the piece said, “The term has since been co-opted by some Republicans as a pejorative term this midterm election cycle to signify the identity-based social justice issues that some Democrats and progressives push for, representatives from the Democrat Governors Association and Working Families Party tell ABC News.”

By co-opted, ABC means used. Apparently, conservatives are not supposed to share the same language with liberals.

The reason lefty loons hate conservatives using woke as an adjective is the backlash against woke.  The left is poisoning society with political correctness, with a poison that is worse than kryptonite because it almost killed Superman.  Making him gay and an illegal alien crippled the comic because readers want a hero, not a propagandist.

That is changing.

Breitbart reported, “The upcoming Superman movie to be directed by James Gunn is set to restore the ‘American way’ portion of Superman’s ages-old motto after DC Comics removed the patriotic segment back in 2021.

“As Breitbart News reported in October of 2021, DC Comics dumped the Man of Steel’s ‘America’ replacing it with ‘a better tomorrow’ by rewriting the original slogan — ‘truth, justice, and the American way’ — to read ‘truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.’”

Welcome back to the USA, Clark Kent.  His DC Comics is owned by Discovery as part of its purchase of CNN and the like.

I am glad to see Superman back as his orignal, 1940s, form.  A more "Woke" versiono didn't meet my needs.  I am looking forward to the new Superman movie.

That said, as a friend in San Francisco reminded me, Superman isn't a human.  He is from Krypton.  In the 1930s, when Superman was conceived, the tendency would have been for a anthropomorphic view of aliens.  Besides, the story line wouldn't work out if Clark Kent had the pointy ears of Spock. a Vulcan.

But, this raises some interesting questions.  What if Kal-El (renamed Clark Kent) had landed on a sharecropping farm in rural Alabama?  Would he still have appeared as a Caucasian or would his powers allow him to appear as a Black child?  Would he have ended up in Metropolis, or would it have been Montgomery?  What would truth, justice and the American Way have meant during that period of segregation and Jim Crow?

And, while returning Superman to his cisgender Caucasian male roots meets the needs of tens of millions of Americans, should there not be legitimate heroes for people of other races and genders?♠  There is, for example, Supergirl.  While they might, or might not, appeal to me, individually, they are a legitimate source of inspiration for those who are Hispanic, or Black or Asain or LGBT or whoever.  But, perhaps they should not be the fictional heroes of the past, reformatted.  Would that not be cultural appropriation?  Same themes, but new personalities.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Until the day when we can all celebrate other peoples' heroes.