By S.D. Davis for Apostoic Venn
For those who are returning, thank you and welcome back. For those who’ve found themselves in the middle of something I encourage you to read part 1 of the series first. Last week I argued that Man of Steel is correctly understood as a philosophical examination of self-control and discipline. Having presented how to understand this movie, now I’ll present why that’s the right understanding.
Some find Man of Steel hard to follow, because of its heavy reliance upon flashbacks. Imagine, for a moment, that rather than trying to relate the chronological order of a narrative that’s been retold for decades – because this is not the first time we’ve seen Zod threaten to invade earth… Imagine instead that we’re getting insight into Clark’s thought process along the way. Yes, the Zod story is unfolding, but meanwhile, each time Clark faces a challenge, he remembers the last time he had to learn the relevant discipline. What kind of movie would you have then?
Many have accused Man of Steel of being too bleak, too violent, or too conflicted to be a proper Superman story. These criticisms miss the mark as clearly as if I told you the full moon is not beautiful because the night is too black. This film does not have a murky subject matter. It does not leave the viewer wondering. The message is clear; having held both power and restraint on its scales, it sets forth restraint as the better superpower. This missive to the viewer is then layered in concentric circles around the protagonist. Jor-El, Clark’s father by blood, first reveals how Krypton met its demise. The willful ignorance of the Kryptonions consumed and harvested without thought for balance. They did not come up empty handed on amassing immense power, but with no restraint, they kept going until they had plundered the planet’s very core, thus cementing their own fall. The tower of Babel is destined to repeat. In the end, Krypton falls not only despite its incredible advancement, but expressly because of it. Clark’s life is set before us as an antithesis to this history, and the movie’s visuals drive it home. Everything about the Kryptonians, their world, and their technology is gray. Strong as steel and just as colorless. By contrast, Earth begins as a place of desaturated colors, of unfulfilled potential. Clark’s costume is the first bright, saturated image in the film paralleling the light of our sun as the source of his strength.
Clark’s earliest lessons are the first circle of self-control, formed by doing battle with his own perceptions rather than any external foe. Long before he encounters maleficence, he must survive his own sensory overwhelm. Panicking when he can see his teacher’s heart beating in her chest, and can’t hear her lesson for the commotion of sounds from miles away, he must lean on his mother, who gives him Stoic advice. Make the world small. Focus on my voice. Be present right here, and only right here. Self control, this film says, begins with correct choices in the gluttonous market of attention. One who fails to direct his own attentions will never succeed in governing the subsequent action. He has to learn to rule over his own attentions, choosing that to which he attends before he can choose how he behaves. You and I will never need to filter x-ray light out of our visual spectra, but our world does daily feed us false and irrelevant information, which we must evaluate and categorize so that we can walk in the way.
In Clark’s second circle of self-control, he learns not to hurt people just because he wants to. Clark has learned to endure the world, now he must learn not to dominate it. His physical power is absolute, and that makes Him dangerous. Man of Steel understands this. Clark’s greatest threat might be, not his power, but his wrath. In his world of paper and glass, Clark can’t afford to succumb to anger anymore than he can afford to sneeze too hard. We see this discipline early. Clark saves every child on the school bus—including the one who mocked him—without hesitation or resentment.
Later, Clark is minding his own business, reading The Republic Of Plato, as though Jonathan Kent thinks the most powerful person on earth should be so “tempered as to have ordered and controlled his desires; that this man should have himself as his master.” When some children pull him away to tease him. He silently endures their jibes until his adopted father dismisses them.. But Clark’s restraint is as yet imperfect, a work-in-progress. As he stands, we see he’s crumpled a steel fence post like a beer can. “I wanted to hit that kid so bad.”
Later in life, when a passing truck driver gets handsy with a waitress, Clark rebukes him and gets a beer thrown in his face. The tough-guy shoves Clark to no avail, and Clark removes his sopping apron with thinly-veiled frustration. As the scene cuts to the outside of the restaurant, the truck driver finds his semi mysteriously impaled upon several of the logs he’d been hauling.
In both of these cases Clark avoids bodily injury, while causing property damage. While this mitigated degree of self-control is relatable to the audience, the stakes of Clark’s failures are astronomically higher than our own.
Clark frequently endures humiliation rather than retaliating. He wants to blend in, not boast. He takes transient jobs, drifts anonymously, and refuses recognition. This is not fear; it is discipline and obedience. Nowhere is this obedience clearer than Jonathan Kent’s death. Clark has the speed to save him easily. Instead, he watches his father die because Jonathan believes the world is not ready to know who Superman is. Clark submits to Jonathan’s judgment. As Lois seeks to understand Clark’s inhuman aversion to recognition, he explains “I let my father die… because I trusted him.”
Some might misunderstand this moment as weakness or passivity. It is neither. It is obedience and restraint. Clark was trusting his father’s judgment more than his own desires and impulse, even at prodigious personal cost. Clark’s anger—at injustice, at loss, at the unfairness of the moment—is brought under control by his love for his father.
More than once Jonathan Kent tells young Clark he must hide his abilities because the world isn’t ready to know and see Superman. Editor Perry White echoes this sentiment when he refuses to publish Lois’ first article about her alien rescuer. “Can you imagine how people on this planet would react if they knew there was someone like this out there?” However, I believe another, and unspoken, item on Jonathan’s mind was that Clark wasn’t ready to be seen and known as Superman. I contend that the world never became mature enough to accept Superman; Zod merely made them desperate enough to need him…
When we’ve watched Clark learn such obedience and suffering that he obeyed his father and stood by as Jonathan died– and still he was not deemed ready?– What deeper discipline awaits? What greater sufferings must he endure until he stands before humanity as a beacon of hope? Writing of Clark’s archetype the author of Hebrews says, “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience through what He suffered, and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.”
Man of Steel is more than a demi-god discovering his strength, it’s a man being alloyed into moral readiness. Power is restrained, anger is governed, obedience is learned, and authority is delayed. Only after these disciplines are forged can Clark face his final, terrible question.
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