Oh, Superman!
Clark Kent isn't a real punk, but Lois Lane is
For a veteran of the ‘77 music wars like me, the best moment of the new ‘Superman’ movie comes when Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) breaks it to Clark Kent (David Corensweet) that he isn’t a true punk rocker.
Clark protests that he likes bands like The Mighty Crabjoys. Lois snorts that they are ‘pop radio’; not real punk.
It echoes many a conversation held in the wake of the Summer Of Hate, when a legion of ‘New Wave’ bands emerged, playing fast and furious music but wearing skinny ties and shying away from politics.
As The Clash sang, “They’ve got Burton suits/You think it’s funny/Turning rebellion into money.”
Is Superman itself real punk? Director James Gunn does his best….
The caped crusader’s arch enemy Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) is a US President who spreads fake news, has with suspicious links to foreign states and a less than enlightened attitude to women. So far, so Trump.
Chucklesome satire apart, though, Gunn’s movie reverts to traditional superhero fare - of course it does. The overamplified bish bash bosh of the franchise demands that it must. Even the magnificent Deadpool had that. but was truly subversive of the genre to which it belonged.
Like Clark Kent himself, though, Superman ultimately plays it safe; it’s The Jags not the Pistols.