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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| There's a lot to be said for the American Way |
| 2006-07-09 |
| By James Lileks Outrage of the summer: The new "Superman" movie edited out "The American Way" from the Krypton immigrant's rally cry. The Daily Planet editor says Supe's now all about "Truth, Justice and all that stuff." Makes perfect sense. Consider the foreign markets, where "The American Way" means Abu Ghraib and McDonald's. Don't remind them! They might burn the theater. (If that's their way.) Besides, it makes sense to have a newspaper editor treat the line with gruff dismissal, because hard-bitten editors don't get starry-eyed over patriotic hogwash. Except when discussing the people's right to know the GPS coordinates of Superman's fort. As it turns out, however, the omission was intentional. "The American Way" sounds Krypto-fascist. The movie's authors are the usual moderns, serenely above rude jingo pride: "We were always hesitant to include the term 'American way' because the meaning of that today is somewhat uncertain," said co-writer Michael Dougherty. "I think when people say 'American way,' they're actually talking about what the 'American way' meant back in the '40s and '50s, which was something more noble and idealistic." Ah. Well, in the '40s, the American Way included incinerating German cities, nuking Japan, installing occupying armies and imposing our form of government — all the while referring to the enemy with hurtful ethnic slurs. All this plus forced relocation. If these actions are deemed noble and idealistic now, it'll be a handy sentiment the next time the United States gears up for total war. But the inconstant left doesn't believe any of this is permissible in the service of a noble goal. The right, after all, can't lead the war on terror because they don't "walk the walk" on human rights: Witness those POWs slaving away in the cane fields of Gitmo. Unless we lead by example, no one will choose the American Way. Never mind that the internment of the Japanese didn't keep the Germans — or the Japanese, for that matter — from following our example after World War II. (Note to the dense: That's not an endorsement of internment. Just a reminder of which party has more practice.) It's also odd to see the '50s held in high esteem. The '60s will be ever bathed in the holy glow of boomer self-regard, a mystical era of great causes and cheap weed; the '70s have become the decade equivalent of a sitcom running in eternal repeats. The 50s, however, have long stood for stifling conformity, the Mandatory Gray Flannel Suit Act, duck-and-cover nuclear paranoia, and of course the communist witch hunts, which, history recalls, turned up no communist witches. It all ended when Saint Elvis performed the miraculous Swiveling of the Hips, loosening mores that had been cinched tight since Ike banned premarital soul-kissing. Do the '50s get to be cool again? And not Fonzie-cool, but cool in the sense that confidence, optimism, technological progress, increasingly sophisticated mass culture and the rise of the suburb are now seen as fascinating elements of a complex, hopeful era? Well, that's a start. But of course that's not what the screenwriter meant. To right-thinking people, the "past" — that nebulous era when everyone wore hats and blacks couldn't vote and cars had fins — was a time where one could say "The American Way" without irony, because they were uninformed, and President Bush hadn't invaded Iraq yet. Nowadays you cannot tout "The American Way" without adding footnotes about slavery and the Philippines war and pre-FDA meat safety and women's suffrage and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Did you know they blocked the fire exits? Women jumped to their deaths. And you think we're something special? Well, yes. Especially given the alternatives. Especially when considering the vast record of oppression, lawlessness and miserable inescapable poverty that has characterized most of human civilization up to, and including, noon today. When compared against some ideal country — say, a solar-powered pan-ethnic secular Switzerland with a socialist economy based on bartering hemp — the messy realities of America past and present come up short. But this has always been an imperfect nation. Accepting our faults, correcting our wrongs and using the revolutionary founding concepts to improve ourselves further: That's the American way. If you can't say it without choking, practice. If you can, please write the Superman sequel. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #4 Why can't they just leave? |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2006-07-09 13:59 |
| #3 I'll go see it when they put "The American Way" back in it. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2006-07-09 13:13 |
| #2 Simple test. Which country do most people want to immigrate [legal or illegal] to? Which countries do they want to emigrate from? From the numbers I’ve seen, ‘The American Way’ still has its appeal. Now not with those who need to blame life’s challenges upon someone else, not those with come variation of BDS, not those who whine because they lack the power to alter the world in an order they believe is better than the ‘consent of the governed’, and certainly not those who’d rather be in comfortable, but all too familiar chains rather than risk an uncertain future as America’s prior generations have done. When you get away from the fairy tale of ‘perfection’ as a standard, then it stands above all other mass societies in history in providing more opportunity, freedom, and enrichment not only for its own citizens but millions and millions more around the world. As long as they keep coming here in such large numbers, be assured, the American Way has value above the other real world alternatives in history. |
| Posted by: Gleresh Whomort8073 2006-07-09 08:53 |
| #1 Beautiful. A splendid vivisection of Hollywood idiocy - and moral cowardice - in Technicolor. |
| Posted by: Uleatch Cheanter5148 2006-07-09 06:50 |