Being Superman. Being Clark Kent.

Posted by Tanos on Sun 11 Mar 07, 11:57 PM

Tags: films

We've watched Tarantino's "Kill Bill" films this weekend, and this is a short post I meant to write after seeing Volume II in the cinema. It's about identity and M/s.

Without giving away anything, I can tell you that Bill delivers a typical Tarantino monologue in Volume II which makes an important point about life using popular culture. Bill says:

"Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne. Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S” - that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us."

More and more I'm thinking there is a difference between "fetishistic" (ie driven by sex) BDSM play and ownership relationships that is a difference of type rather than a smooth continuum.

It's like the difference between Spiderman and Superman. They might meet in the middle and have a lot in common, superheroically as it were, but they're coming from very different places.

The identities we talk about here are the real us: the identities we inhabit in our homes with the people that matter to us. Superman not Spiderman.

Edited Sun 23 Nov 08, 9:05 PM by Tanos

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