Thousands of people lost their lives this weekend in theaters around the world. Their broken, delicate bodies crushed and mangled under tons of rumble. The largest city in the developed world suffered devastation far greater than 9/11 as skyscrapers were senselessly sliced in half and toppled onto one another like so many dominos. And no one mourned the great loss. Instead, more than $120 million in tickets were sold and audiences cheered with our children enthralled calling Man of Steel “epic.”
The story at the heart of Zack Synder’s blockbuster is one of classic American comic book lore. And the intimate moments that principally focus on his relationship with his two fathers (on Krypton Jor-El and on Earth Jonathan Kent) are moving. Unfortunately, Man of Steel had to be bigger than anything that came before it. And that meant those thousands had to suffer sanitized deaths at the hands of special effects wizards.
We saw this coming with the wildly successful and ridiculous Transformers: Dark of the Moon in which an entire city becomes a war zone. That film actually insulted NASA by polluting history with fantastical elements and real astronauts. And then came The Avengers with its comic wit and humor that made us compartmentalize the massive destruction and loss of life. “Hulk Smash,” brings a smile to my face even today. But where Synder and company have taken Man of Steel veers dangerously into morally ambiguous waters.
Those of you who have seen the movie probably know that at one point General Zod starts a machine called “the world machine,” which is sure to destroy our planet as we know it. Because this final fight must take place in the city of Metropolis, part of this machine positions itself in the city, which just happens to coincide perfectly with the other part of the machine half a world away. In that location, it does not appear that a highly populated city is immediately disturbed.
The absurdity of this need not be explored, but consider the character of Superman and how he in previously films drew his enemies away from population centers in order to scrap with them. Instead, Superman, or Kal-El as he is called here, engages Zod and his military personnel in the city leaving broken buildings and broken lives in the wake. Many have pointed out that these scenes are too much and I called them “exhausting.” But it wasn’t until the morning of Father’s Day that I wondered whether they sent the wrong moral message.
Fathers, have our children become too desensitized to violence that we respond to a movie like Man of Steel with cheers rather than a moment of silence? What moral is taught by this film? And keep in mind that in order to procure a PG-13 rating and similar ratings around the world, all reference visually and otherwise to the death of innocents has been surgically removed. And more impressive than Kal-El’s flying abilities and laser vision, is the massive evacuation that might have taken place prior to the climatic battle. Of course, we’re spared those details. The city is almost as barren as the fortress of solitude that is not introduced in this re-imagined reboot.
Next week I’m taking my boy to see World War Z. He’s ready for it having been schooled on the video games that borrowed from Romero’s satirical classic. But am I contributing to the moral decay in exposing him to yet another comic disaster flick? Hopefully, there will be time for a moment of silence…
