So, in hindsight not my best idea. The housemate and I here in Gore Towers decided to watch Superman II. I was full of regret and remorse before the thing finished.

Even his name, “Superman”, has my cringe gland working overtime, flooding my brain with cringesterone and cringealine.  And that outfit he wears… how could you have a romantic candlelit dinner with someone wearing that outfit and not spend the whole evening being distracted by the cape and shiny red underpants?

So it offered excellent heckle opportunities, of course – I observed the main villian “General Zod” and his obsession with having everyone kneel before him. “Kneel Before Zod!” he said, I think, roughly 300 times during the film.

“You know,” I said. “I think General Zod is a bit of a mental. That kneeling thing? That’s quite the pathology.” Such is the problem of looking at the behaviour of characters in children’s films and trying to apply a real world interpretation of their behaviour and personality.

But what really made me angry, though, was that scene where Superman talks Marlon Brando. I realised, there and then, that Marlon’s done a real number on his son’s head.

See, Superman’s been told that he must use his absurdly over the top powers to serve the humans.

There’s no reward. Very little in the way of thanks. He must, in effect, fly from disaster to disaster saving people and must do that until he dies of old age. And, if he’s not going to do that then his ‘only choice’ is to become a normal human.

We call him Superman, but really he’s humanity’s biyatch. He’s our slave.

The alternative presented – demonstrated in the form of General Zod – is that he uses his powers for ‘evil’ and dominates the world. So, there using powers to indulge a fetish for having people kneeling before you, or sacrificing your own life with no reward.

Sheesh… some choice that is. In hindsight, the choice to go to an Alien planet and have super powers and live your life as the servant of the planet’s inhabitants or stay on your own planet and have a bit of free will? I know which one I’d choose.

See, the Libertarian Superman would, I suspect, use his powers to help save Nasa a good $500,000 off the cost of putting satellites in orbit, and his strength could be invaluable for doing away with the need for cranes in certain construction projects. In fact, in all walks of life there would be a use for a man with his powers – sure, it’d be expensive because there’s only one of him, but Superman, if he really believed in Truth, Justice and the American Way should be able to make quite a comfortable living doing lots of interesting things.

Of course, Libertarian Superman wouldn’t really be as exciting for the young nippers watching the film – Hey Kids, look! It’s the Super Invoice!

But why did this make me angry? Well, it’s when Superman’s Dad, having explained Superman’s shite life to him, says something like, “you reward is a hidden inner happiness. You can’t deny that you feel it.” and Super replies, “Yes, yes I feel it.”

Bollocks he feels it! That’s the Big Lie, you see – the idea that if you completely subjugate yourself to others that it somehow brings a ‘deeper’ fulfilment and happiness, that if you’re not feeling it then you’re not doing it enough – or worse, that you’re just a profoundly immoral person and it’s you that’s the problem. Thing is, doing something for absolutely nothing – no thanks, no gratitude, no respect, no hope of cash or future favours in return? You might do something like that because *you* want or need something done, but what if it’s something you don’t care about, have no interest in, has no impact on your life whatsoever? What if the impact is that it hurts you? What possible, possible inner happiness can anyone gain from that?

Poor Superman, I say.