Superman as a paranoid schizophrenic

Rating: 5/10 (25 June 2013)

Anyone who has ever studied or worked with schizophrenics will immediately recognize the paranoid flavor of this story. Young Clark Kent discovers that Kevin Costner is not his real father, at which point everything falls apart. The triggering moment in paranoid schizophrenia always concerns some version of an impossible paternal identification. Usually, the failure of the father is linked with an inability to articulate id and ego in a satisfactory way. The only way Clark can save his sanity is by constructing a paranoid delusion that would replace the defective Costner with some higher father. Enter the two godlike alien fathers, one a force of pure good and one a force of pure evil. Ever wonder why there were so many Jesus Christs in psych wards? In addition to a pervasive existential homelessness (= Clark's troubled peregrinations), the absence of a paternal legacy (a "symbolic phallus") renders the schizophrenic incapable of being a man with a woman. Notice how Superman trembles when he finally kisses Lois Lane. Superman had to destroy the world simply to be able to approach a woman sexually. Of course, as soon as he kisses her, General Zod rises from the dead for his last stand...for schizophrenics, the "evil" father incarnates and displaces the unruly (sexual, aggressive) drives that cannot be integrated into the fragile ego (incarnated by the "good" father). In other words, Superman needs to kill Zod so he can finally have a sexual relationship. Incidentally, this gives us a clue to why the Superman/Zod fight scenes are so boring: we sense intuitively that no matter how hard they punch, neither can actually hurt the other because they are just two aspects of the same person. Notice too that although Superman is very good-looking, he is completely asexual. This is because our sexuality is simultaneously what makes us human and what corrupts us. Only a eunuch can be super in the way that Superman is.
The phallus is front and center here. It seems like everything has a phallic shape: the rockets, the spaceships, the guns, the knives the weird snakes that attack Superman when he tries to destroy the world engine, the "key" given to him by his father...the only way to destroy the evil machine at the end is by shoving the key into the hole, but there's a problem: "It won't go in!" (Read: Superman, unable to integrate his primordial drives, cannot conclude the sexual act when he is called upon by Jor-El to do so.) The phallic key represents Jor-El's entire symbolic legacy (the future of his entire race), one that is just too much for Superman to bear, hence his inability to take rightful possession of the key and dispatch Zod.
The end of the movie shows Clark finally abandoning his delusion and accepting Costner's humble but human paternal legacy, which allows him to occupy a place in the world (as a "stringer").
Enough for the psychoanalytic interpretation. This completely unintentional exploration of paranoid schizophrenia is by far the most interesting thing here. The movie itself is not that good. We are treated to the same boring, meaningless CGI destruction that we get in every other movie. With no external limits to what can be shown, everything turns into a video game. Actually, the logic here is psychotic as well: in the absence of externally-imposed "paternal" boundaries, there is nothing to stop the on-screen phantasmagoria from degenerating into a seething, vague imaginary chaos that infects everything until the entire world has been destroyed/purified. This schizophrenic logic of an absolute split between good and evil can be seen in the two female leads as well: the blonde, boring, sexless Lois Lane and the super sexy evil lieutenant of General Zod (those blue eyes!). The actress who plays Lane deserves to be singled out for her awful performance and total lack of charisma. Who cast this sub-Nicole Kidman nobody? On the other hand, the actor who plays Superman is excellent. His too-innocent good looks and smile capture perfectly the schizophrenic nature of the character, one whose preternatural goodness must be understood as a (failed) attempt to refuse his sexualized dark side.
I wanted to yell at the screen every time a character clenched his fist in resolution or cocked his head before attacking somebody...pure stock blockbuster tropes. I find it interesting that these superhero movies are often directed by young no-name technicians. I suppose that everything has to be so formulaic that the studios just pick some visionless clone whom they can dictate to. I think here of Jon Favreau, fundamentally a spineless nobody, one who probably believes that he is somebody because "Iron Man" has marginally more personality than the other boring superhero movies out there.
Verdict: charmless, but of didactic interest for psychiatrists.