On the death of Superman and Mr Bigley
Seeing the news on the BBC news site about the
death of Christopher Reeve, who played Superman in the eponymous films of the
seventies-early eighties and the comments of some friends in their LiveJournal
pages, made me think.. and brought back some memories and feelings of long ago,
even though I didn't follow Reeve's career, tragedy and epiphany that
much.
One evening in 1959 I was in bed watching television before going to sleep when my dad arrived and said to me: "Superman is dead". Now I was, whatever I was at the time, six or seven years of age, and replied "But Superman cannot die, they shoot him and he doesn't die, how can he?". Much later on I learnt about the peculiar circumstances of the death of George Reeves, the TV Superman of the Fifties, and the many conspiracy theories surrounding it.
fast forward a bit... my dad died in May 1980 -after the very conflictive relationship I had with him, it was difficult for me to grieve and I was in denial until the evening of the 8th of December when I was sitting outside the little room which was the headquarters of the Students' Union which we had set up at the conservatoire where I was studying, practising guitar or putting the world to rights... when Mariana my girlfriend comes along and tells me that they've shot John Lennon. I was stunned. It couldn't be. The Beatles weren't human beings any more than Superman was, they were sort of mythical semi-deities in the Pantheon of my childhood. Therefore they couldn't die. Of course I didn't 'see' it that way consciously, it is all retrospective, but the incredulity was there, and as it sank in I found myself crying -which made no sense. I didn't know John Lennon and, if I liked his music I am not sure I actually liked the guy. But it had got tangled with something else: just like the Beatles were not really 'human' and mortal, my father wasn't. The death of one your childhood 'heroes' (for lack of better term) was a reminder that they were, indeed mortal and it triggered the realisation of the loss of my father and, by extension, of my own mortality.
So, the death of Superman, of somebody I knew very little about who also almost had the same name (Reeve, Reeves) as that childhood Superman of the telly, resonated for me in ways that went well beyond whoever that guy may have been or done or his particular circumstance or predicament. I was pondering about that and what I see as the related grief for people we've never met. I wasn't that affected by the death of Princess Diana, it was a bit too remote. It was much closer to have that poor bloke kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq and being subjected to the horrific game of cat and mouse publicly before being finally beheaded anyway. There I felt there was a little bit that I could relate to, the being a powerless pawn in somebody else's power play, trapped in a nightmare the end of which you would have known all along. The horror of all this bringing into question again what can be the purpose of existence and, if there is a superior power or a creator, what sort of being it is that allows all the horrors of the world to unfold every day, all the suffering this time personified in this man dying a horrific for nothing in the glare of the world's media...
I wouldn't want to trace any parallel between the two. We all are doomed to die and we are all trapped in our particular circumstance, most of us unable to do anything to get out of the trap. Reeve was at least able to fight his desperate fight even though he couldn't lift a finger in order to do it, or even breath unaided. But he was in control in ways that Mr. Bigley was not during the very long two or three weeks that his torment lasted.
'But Superman cannot die', I replied, and hid under the blanket to sob. Why was my father telling me such cruel lies? I needed my heroes immortal and all-powerful to help me keep faith that I could make sense and get through in an incomprehensible world. At the end of it all, you grow up and are left without the heroes and still failing to make sense of such a world ruled by mean, malevolent, vindictive gods.
One evening in 1959 I was in bed watching television before going to sleep when my dad arrived and said to me: "Superman is dead". Now I was, whatever I was at the time, six or seven years of age, and replied "But Superman cannot die, they shoot him and he doesn't die, how can he?". Much later on I learnt about the peculiar circumstances of the death of George Reeves, the TV Superman of the Fifties, and the many conspiracy theories surrounding it.
fast forward a bit... my dad died in May 1980 -after the very conflictive relationship I had with him, it was difficult for me to grieve and I was in denial until the evening of the 8th of December when I was sitting outside the little room which was the headquarters of the Students' Union which we had set up at the conservatoire where I was studying, practising guitar or putting the world to rights... when Mariana my girlfriend comes along and tells me that they've shot John Lennon. I was stunned. It couldn't be. The Beatles weren't human beings any more than Superman was, they were sort of mythical semi-deities in the Pantheon of my childhood. Therefore they couldn't die. Of course I didn't 'see' it that way consciously, it is all retrospective, but the incredulity was there, and as it sank in I found myself crying -which made no sense. I didn't know John Lennon and, if I liked his music I am not sure I actually liked the guy. But it had got tangled with something else: just like the Beatles were not really 'human' and mortal, my father wasn't. The death of one your childhood 'heroes' (for lack of better term) was a reminder that they were, indeed mortal and it triggered the realisation of the loss of my father and, by extension, of my own mortality.
So, the death of Superman, of somebody I knew very little about who also almost had the same name (Reeve, Reeves) as that childhood Superman of the telly, resonated for me in ways that went well beyond whoever that guy may have been or done or his particular circumstance or predicament. I was pondering about that and what I see as the related grief for people we've never met. I wasn't that affected by the death of Princess Diana, it was a bit too remote. It was much closer to have that poor bloke kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq and being subjected to the horrific game of cat and mouse publicly before being finally beheaded anyway. There I felt there was a little bit that I could relate to, the being a powerless pawn in somebody else's power play, trapped in a nightmare the end of which you would have known all along. The horror of all this bringing into question again what can be the purpose of existence and, if there is a superior power or a creator, what sort of being it is that allows all the horrors of the world to unfold every day, all the suffering this time personified in this man dying a horrific for nothing in the glare of the world's media...
I wouldn't want to trace any parallel between the two. We all are doomed to die and we are all trapped in our particular circumstance, most of us unable to do anything to get out of the trap. Reeve was at least able to fight his desperate fight even though he couldn't lift a finger in order to do it, or even breath unaided. But he was in control in ways that Mr. Bigley was not during the very long two or three weeks that his torment lasted.
'But Superman cannot die', I replied, and hid under the blanket to sob. Why was my father telling me such cruel lies? I needed my heroes immortal and all-powerful to help me keep faith that I could make sense and get through in an incomprehensible world. At the end of it all, you grow up and are left without the heroes and still failing to make sense of such a world ruled by mean, malevolent, vindictive gods.
Posted: Tue - October 12, 2004 at 10:22 AM
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Published On: Jul 08, 2005 02:13 PM
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Published On: Jul 08, 2005 02:13 PM