Comics and Culture

Super-Obama: A Look at Art, Culture, and History

18th January, 2009 - Posted by LK - 7 Comments

Today kicks off Barack Obama’s inauguration weekend, and thus I thought this would be a good time to look at the strange and interesting phenomena that has occurred in the past year: the implied national connection between Obama and Superman.

The concept, I believe, isn’t just that Obama is seen as “saving” a hurting and cynical nation, but the nature of the saving and the inspirational quality that goes along with it is not unlike Superman’s early success. For example, as Les Daniels has mentioned, Superman is shown time and time again as embodying Rooseveltian values. In his own inauguration speech, F.D. Roosevelt laid out his image of the struggle ahead, and how it could be met with American unity:

[W]e now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline…We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife. (Roosevelt para 17)

With this political and social climate in the air, perhaps it is no surprise that this address was given in the same year that two high school students in Columbus, Ohio dreamed up a man who could lighten the burden of the Great Depression and symbolize the unity and purpose that Roosevelt described.

Superman was seen in the 1930s as a champion of the everyday man—the ones who toiled through the Great Depression but who could not help themselves in the same way a kind, super-powered alien could. What the colorful pages of Superman offered was an alternative—“the common man could not expect to prevail on his own in this America, and neither could the progressive reformers who tried to fight for justice within the system” (Wright 13), but Superman could be the common man’s champion and  fulfill those dreams for only 10 cents a comic.

Comic books may cost 40 times as much as they did back then, but the dream has come full circle—Americans are once again looking for something bigger than themselves to save them, and thus the 1930s symbol of hope that has permeated our culture and the “new” symbol of hope in our President-elect have fused together.

And the “common” people aren’t the only ones to notice—at the 2008 Alfred Smith Memorial Dinner, Obama himself joked that he “was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father Jor-El to save the planet Earth.”

Politically, it’s not much of a stretch. At yesterday’s Whistle-Stop speech in Baltimore, Obama’s call to action sounded not unlike FDR’s early words of a “larger purpose”—

…while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required… is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives – from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry – an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.

This call to be better, to be the best people we can be similarly echoes Superman’s words throughout the years. Or, as Saturn Girl said in the Legion of Superhero’s recent appearance on the CW show Smallville: “Kal-El… it’s true what history says about him. He really does bring out the best in people.”

Only history will be able to show whether a real United States president will be able to maintain the same level of inspiration as the fictional superhero. But for now, here are some examples of fiction and reality meeting:

Street/dumpster art found and captured by Flickr user "Stribs"

Alex Ross did this artwork of Obama, mimicing the classic Clark-Kent-Superman transformation

While it may be difficult to see, a recent THIS WEEK cover showed a SUPER-Obama and transition team

An election tee-shirt from an internet giftshop

An election button from mybuttonstore

And, of course, the president meeting the Man of Steel himself:

7 Comments

philippos42

January 20th, 2009 at 1:20 am    

You missed this one:
http://sinfest.net/comikaze/comics/2008-11-09.gif

Rhiannon

January 20th, 2009 at 10:11 am    

huzzah! that’s pretty funny. I wonder how Obama being a man definitely middle-aged and sliding towards not-so-young, feels about all the portrayals of himself as the perpetually young, spandex-clad man of steel.

Phi Le

January 20th, 2009 at 11:17 am    

Hm, I wonder what a Batman president would be like. I guess he’d strike terror into the hearts of the nation’s enemies and make them fear the night or something.

Hm, that’s a whole lotta apotheosizing of one person though. He said it himself, WE need to band together to work towards something greater than ourselves.

That Alex Ross painting is pretty badass though.

sweetestbaboon

January 21st, 2009 at 9:30 am    

Have you seen this?-

http://www.hyperakt.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/the-man-of-hope.jpg

Lisa

January 22nd, 2009 at 1:16 pm    

I just read this post, Lauren. It’s really thoughtful–and the use of visuals is terrific.

Chris

February 15th, 2009 at 10:14 am    

Nice essay, and I like how you tied in what the country was like at the time Superman was created.

Also, those pictures are great!

LK

May 1st, 2009 at 9:50 am    

Thanks, Chris!

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