Ese Two Books Are Very Different Beasts. Superman: E Movie
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Medien / Kultur 47 Sammelrezension: Superman: Comics, Film, Brand ese two books are very diff erent are stories from e New York Times, beasts. Superman: e Movie – e 40th Rolling Stone or Newsweek. Two or three Anniversary Interviews is focused on a references hail from University Pres- single fi lm text, whereas Superman and ses, and yet this material underpins the Comic Book Brand Continuity ranges whole book. across the cultural history of Superman. Whilst Bettinson’s interviews are However, the diff erences between these always interesting, ranging across two studies go far deeper. people such as executive producer Ilya Bettinson’s book is an “oral history Salkind, director Richard Donner, and [… ] of big-budget fi lm production in Lois Lane herself, Margot Kidder – the new Hollywood era” (p.11), but interviewed relatively shortly before it assumes that such a thing requires her passing in 2018 – it is diffi cult to nothing much in terms of methodolo- see how they diff er from standard fan gical discussion or theoretical framing. convention fare or DVD/blu-ray extras. Consequently, it contains almost no What, if anything, is added to the pro- content communally identifi able as ‘aca- ject via its publication by an academic demic’ – the References page (p.131) press, and having been written by a lists a mere 13 entries, of which several Senior Lecturer? e entire volume 48 MEDIENwissenschaft 01/2020 seems to be aimed at a fan readership, of academia’s cultural distinctiveness. and not as a crossover from the acade- If hybridised aca-fandom lies beneath mic market, but in place of it instead. Bettinson’s work, as I would suggest, Pull-quotes occupy entire pages, and then nevertheless the published out- 16 pages of colour photos crop up; this come targets (and resembles) fandom feels like an ‘academic’ work that is per se, suggesting at least one strand of thoroughly and paratextually compli- contemporary aca-fandom which leans cit with the industry and the fandom heavily towards fannish identity and it is engaged with. Interviewees’ words moves signifi cantly away from recog- are never theoretically (re)contextuali- nisable academic performativities, e.g. sed in any way; they are simply left at the mobilisation of cultural/social/ face value, without analysis. And some media theories. of the interview questions are no less Phillip Bevin’s monograph for Rout- blandly self-congratulatory than con- ledge is the very opposite; here is a study vention time-fi llers, e.g. suggesting to which fruitfully occupies aca-fan territory Richard Donner, “It must be gratifying by expressing high levels of fan cultural that audiences continue to appreciate capital at the same time as engaging Superman: e Movie” (p.48). critically and creatively with prior theo- Were any scholar to be researching ries of superhero franchising. Centrally, the late-seventies or early-eighties Bevin’s work is in dialogue with Will Superman movies, then the interviews Brooker’s Hunting the Dark Knight (Lon- set out here could furnish them with don: I.B. Tauris, 2012). In his study of useful source material, especially on the Christopher Nolan series of Batman “behind-the-scene problems” (inter- fi lms, Brooker identifi es three paradigms view with Sarah Douglas, p.111) such of meaning through which the character as the absence of Christopher Reeve is realised: myth, matrix and canon and Margot Kidder from international (2012, pp.152–154). Myth concerns the publicity for Superman II (1980). But as character’s most general circulation in pop an “anniversary” celebration of Super- culture, well outside the control of DC man: e Movie (1978), this feels indi- (p.152). By contrast, the matrix of Bat- stinguishable from authorised, offi cial man is the level of offi cial DC branding, paratexts. “a smaller, more contained and more Neoliberal academia may well be controlled network of texts, defi ned by under pressure to reach out beyond its their current status as Warner Bros. conventional domains (scholars/stu- Batman products: expressions of the dents), and to adopt a more commer- contemporary corporate template, cialised model of ‘knowledge exchange’ rather than a broader, folk identity” with corporates or fan cultures, but (p.153). And lastly, canon “is the most this title seems less like a transfer of rigid”, defi ned by DC comic book con- knowledge from academic subculture tinuity and policed by fans through to wider culture, and more like a who- resources such as the DC Database lesale abrogation of any (residual) sense (p.154). Medien / Kultur 49 Bevin reworks these levels of mea- the character, such as that in the fi lm ning-making as cultural continuity, Man of Steel (2013), can be devalued or brand continuity, and narrative conti- rejected (ibid.). nuity respectively (p.82). By so doing, Bevin’s argument plays out across he argues against the way in which Superman’s cultural career, and his Brooker treats the paradigms as a conti- Conclusion is especially productive. nuum moving from looseness/open-ness Here, he analyses the reception of Jus- of meaning (myth) through to the clo- tice League (2017), a fi lm which had sed-off , constrained meanings of canon. been directed by Zack Snyder, in line Instead, Bevin argues via his Superman with his reputation for crafting a ‘dark’, case study that what he terms “cultural auteurist take on the Superman cha- continuity” can in fact provide a pro- racter, before Joss Whedon took over blematic weight of expectation acting and reinstated a more Reeves-esque on new versions of Superman, coming version of the Henry Cavill-played to stand for the fi gure’s “correct” or Superman. As Bevin notes, “it’s not the essentialised ur-rendition rather than retconning of Superman’s personality working as a loose, multiple sense of in Justice League’s Narrative Continu- the unoffi cial character. At the same ity that seems so out of place but the time, changes in “narrative continuity” disconnect between the fi lm’s simplis- can open up new possibilities, instead tic story and often bright, breezy tone of simply reinforcing a rigid, fi xed per- and the previously dark branding of spective (2019, pp.82–83). Zack Snyder’s more dense and complex Interestingly, Bevin’s theorised prior DCEU [DC Expanded Universe] arguments reinforce the importance of fi lms” (p.153). the very fi lm to which Gary Bettinson ough it’s certainly possible to read devotes his commemorative inter- the Whedon reshoots as restoring a views, since Bevin locates Superman: “true” vision of Superman, where tau- e Movie, and Christopher Reeve’s tologically the character is assumed portrayal of the character, as a limiting to be essentially Reeves-esque, and incarnation which has come to domi- so should be represented in this way, nate the popular imagination, i.e. acting Bevin also notes that for DC fans who as a prime source of Superman’s cul- had valued the darker world of Snyder’s tural continuity. For later critics, and Superman, then the Reeves-ifi cation of potentially generations of fans, Reeve’s Justice League can be counter-interpre- idealistic, good, bright and cheery por- ted. It becomes, instead, “an inauthentic trayal has arguably come to stand as the and lazy restoration job done to a […] one “true” Superman that subsequent more interesting work and as an uncon- blockbuster fi lm versions must live up vincingly shiny veneer pasted on top of to. As such, Superman: e Movie has a more complex original” (p.153). Here, become “timelessly defi nitive” (p.85) for cultural continuity becomes an object commentators, operating as an inter- of fan contestation in relation to brand text through which ‘darker’ visions of and narrative continuity, rather than a 50 MEDIENwissenschaft 01/2020 guarantor of textual authenticity. Bevin (2017) and e Rise of Skywalker (2019) shows how Snyder’s version of Super- have both represented brand continuity, man may have brought brand continuity whilst using narrative continuity to wage – a current, offi cial and ‘mainstream’ a semiotic ‘war’ over the role of Star Wars’ version of the character – into tension cultural continuity, stretching the ten- with Superman’s established cultural sions in Justice League’s reception across continuity. e end result, played out back-to-back franchise entries. across the palimpsest of the Snyder- Bevin’s fertile approach indicates a Whedon Justice League, was hence a markedly diff erent mode of aca-fan- relatively incoherent narrative conti- dom to Bettinson’s, one where acade- nuity through which diff ering factions mic identity is prioritised over fannish of fans could read ‘their’ Superman, attachments. Of course, these negotia- whether Snyder-dark or Whedon-light. tions of the aca-fan cultural economy By analysing how cultural, brand, and are refracted through each book’s posi- narrative continuity can dynamically tion in the political economy of aca- intersect and work in diff erent ways, demic publishing: one is a fan-friendly Bevin makes a valuable contribution to £20 paperback, and the other is a £120 the wider theorisation of long-running hardback aimed at University libraries. franchise media, as well as paying off is commodity splitting, and ideolo- Bettinson’s focus on the production gical distancing, of fan vs academic is details of Superman: e Movie. Indeed, lamentably reactionary at a moment it is tempting to transfer Bevin’s argu- when media franchises are proff ering a ments to Disney’s Star Wars (2015-), cultural space through which concepts which has also run into tensions between of representation can be self-refl exively cultural, branding and narrative conti- fought over. nuity, perhaps more profoundly than Superman and the DCEU. e Last Jedi Matt Hills (Huddersfi eld) .