It’s a good fifty minutes into the film before Clark Kent leaves the family farm to become a city beat reporter in the great city of Metropolis. Filmed on location in New York, the newspaper scenes are classic Hollywood journalist camp: fun to watch, utterly separate from reality—at least today’s reality. The Planet newsroom is packed with people and rings with the steady clatter of typewriters. The editor-in-chief, played by Jackie Cooper, rants and shouts and offers advice like “a good reporter doesn’t get great stories. A good reporter makes them great.” When giving his troops a pep talk about their upcoming flooding of the zone on the Superman story, he begs his reporters for answers to questions like “Does he have a girlfriend?” and “What’s his favorite ball team?” You like the guy, but you don’t get the sense that he or anyone else at the paper is overly concerned with acting as “a symbol of hope for the city of Metropolis.”
The Daily Planet may seem like an oddity to modern journalists for more reasons than just the packed newsroom. In a moment that requires at least as much suspension of disbelief as any other point in a film that features intergalactic space travel, Air Force One being struck by lightning, and nuclear missiles hijacked via a damsel-in-distress stunt straight out of Rocky and Bullwinkle, the Daily Planet has its own helicopter, Planet One, that it uses to fly reporters to assignments.
Of course, the outlandish plot is not only forgivable but the entire point of the film. You need some pretty crazy stuff to happen if your main character is a walking, flying deus ex machina.
If there’s any journalism-based theme to be taken from the story, it’s that, unsurprisingly, Superman doesn’t feel that his talents are best used at a newspaper. For a guy whose father conveyed to him “the total accumulation of all literature and scientific fact from dozens of other worlds spanning the twenty-eight known galaxies” Superman doesn’t seem to be much of a reporter. Instead, he flies around, throws missiles into outer space, collars criminals. This is as it should be. I doubt anyone’s ever been inspired to be a journalist by Superman, but we should be nothing but grateful for the association. We need him now more than ever.
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Next up: The Year of Living Dangerously
I think this story really missed the mark. Journalism isn't an afterthought in the world of Superman: http://www.oliverwillis.com/2011/07/01/superman-the-reporter-for-real/
#1 Posted by Oliver Willis, CJR on Fri 1 Jul 2011 at 04:00 PM
Between this and the puff piece on charming racist misogynist Jeffrey Wells, one wonders if the Columbia Journalism Review has better things to report.
#2 Posted by Allen, CJR on Sat 2 Jul 2011 at 05:14 PM
I think that because you are a journalist you look at the movie as a journalist, and you do not go into that make believe world that most of the general public does. It is having a super hero! It is knowing that someone will always help you. Simple as that.
Tina Savas
#3 Posted by Tina Savas, CJR on Sat 2 Jul 2011 at 07:22 PM
Superman isn't a real journalist, he's a comic book/TV/movie character, just like John Stewart is not a journalist, he's a comedian. It's true that people often attribute the characteristics of faux journalists to real ones, so its important to continue to distinguish between fantasy and the real world. Superman and John Stewart both elevate the the role of journalists in their fictional realities. And when you think of it, that's a good thing, as opposed to the damage done by medial outlets like the Fox News Network to the population's view of journalists and what they do.
#4 Posted by Michael Grinfeld, CJR on Mon 4 Jul 2011 at 11:20 AM
I can't think of any group who has so damaged our society as much as journalists. They tear down respected institutions (the church, the family) for the sake of being iconoclastic while defending Big Government unquestioningly. They damage our security by leaking secret programs that keep us safe and free while defending politicians and policies that destroy freedom and real civil rights and equality. They despise free markets and self-determination and promote socialism and government controls. They slant the news to fit their own devices and openly denigrate and insult Middle America with their coastal elitism. They have no more understanding of the majority of Americans and what we feel, believe and value than a European Union bureaucrat. They believe America to be intrinsically evil, hence American power is bad, so they seek to destroy America. By their own actions, journalists have destroyed any credibility or respectability their trade (it is not a profession by any stretch of the imagination) once had, if it ever did. I rejoice at the fall of the big newpapers and network newscasts. Good riddance. May they all burn in hell with Cronkite for the lies and evil the unleashed on this country and the innocents who died because of their despicable ideological crusades.
#5 Posted by docweasel, CJR on Mon 4 Jul 2011 at 05:41 PM