In the 900th anniversary graphic issue, Action Comics Superman refused American citizenship. This event caused a storm of popular perturbation. On Fox News, the main conservative channel, the discussion of this act was devoted to the whole essential program. Did you have a superman for this right? Is he, the personification of the American dream, the main pop cultural scrap? Does it belong to humanity or the nation with which the cultural code shares? Does the superhero have a cultural code? Can he be a cosmopolitan or should be fully devoted to the American nation? One of the invited speakers Fox News said that Superman "demonstrated the absence of patriotism" and "humiliated the United States of America."
Superhero in America is more than a superhero. He has a special status and special responsibility. The most acute theme for American society is prepared primarily in pop cultural discourse. What comic characters say is hardly no greater resonance than the statements of public intellectuals, especially when traditional media are discredited - as now, on the wave of fighting fake news. League of Justice (2017) Zack Snipher is a good example of this.
This is one of the five franchise films of the extended DC Comics universe about the Superhero team, called the League of Justice, the third film with the participation of Superman (the first two - "Man of Steel", 2013, and "Batman against Superman: at the Dawn of Justice", 2016) .
The film begins with sketches of the coming on Earth of Chaos - with a brutal dickencian universe, where violence and terror reign. The wines of the whole death of Superman. The little man turned out to be forgotten and crushed: even at the Clarker Kent's family, Alter Ego Superman, predatory bank takes house and land. But the current turbulence is the attacks of terrorists, parademonov, volatility in the markets is only a prelude to the upcoming apocalypse. The Archzlodein Spepe Wolf with his Army Parademov wants to destroy the world with the help of three sources of force - artifacts hidden at different points of the world. To stop him, Batman (Ben Affleck), who, after the death of Superman, with the military honors buried in the final film of the DC Franchise "Batman against Superman ...", took responsibility for the salvation of the world, hastily collects the team of superheroes (justice league), realized In the course of the case, that without superman she does not fold. So Superman has to be resurrected and heading it. Moreover, the Batman / Bruce Wayne himself in this film - the tasteful, unshaven, tired - appears in the image of the patriarch, little similar to the dark knight from the Gothic trilogy of Christopher Nolan. It seems the only thing he really wants is to go to privacy and grown cabbage, like the Roman emperor Diocletian. Alas, he is a slave on gallery and can not leave without finishing the case.
Batman is not alone in his desire to rest. Printing fatigue is noticeable on the faces of his associates - Wonder Women (Galo Gadot), Flasha (Ezra Miller), Aquamena (Jason Momoa) and Cyborg (Rei Fisher). Boring even the main villain is a steppe wolf. He, oddly enough, it sounds, remains over the fight. Methodically pursuing its goal (Eco-transformation of the Earth, as a result of which it will be destroyed) and simply facing members of the League, it practically does not interact with them. As if fulfilling a bureaucratic formality, steppe wolf says that he wants to seize the world, while he has a facial expression, like an artist from a bad theater, after which it is hastily removed, leaving the enemy unfamiliable. Such a Buddhist removal of the antagonist leaves another choice, except to focus on the relationship within the League itself. And here everything is much more interesting.
The most intriguing and most reflective character is a wonderful woman. At the end of the previous film, the saga on the offer of Batman to join his team of superheroes. She is responsible for refusing, adding that "I decided to remove from humanity for another 100 years ago," because "people turned the world into a place where it is impossible to hold together." A wonderful woman - a veteran of the First World War, which began a global meat grinder of the twentieth century, and its centance about the incurable aspiration of people to violence and enmity expresses the dominant mood of the current era - disappointment. Batman constantly pushes a wonderful woman to her leadership. Very time: the film was released in 2017, his creators were pleased with the next wave of feminist activity and to the walfth of the #Metoo movement. Bruce Wayne is a successful businessman, he will increase his fortune by participating in the bidding on the stock exchange, so that the flair for new trends is the same integral his feature as a desire to take revenge on the death of parents, as his hatred of the world evil. By happy coincidence, the idea of Batman find a successor to the idea with the ideology of Women Empowerment, so throughout the film he does not get tired of repeating that it is a wonderful woman who deserves to become a leader: they say, do not be afraid of anything, sweet, because you are capable of everything. Since his exhortation proceeds mainly from the desire to threaten from the element of the struggle and (temporary) lack of the main leader, how radical feminists would say, he "masks his menplaining for an empower."
In addition to gender quota in the film, ethnic has been made. Among the participants of the League - Black Scientist Victor Stone / Cyborg. He gained supersyl, contrary to the desire (his body, as a result of an unsuccessful experiment, became half mechanical), suffers from the fact that everything is not like that, and therefore is full of reventive. Joining the league of justice allows it to apply newfound skills for the benefit of mankind and establish themselves in the identity of the superhero, which he will try to taste over time by entering the taste. With all that Kyborg is so incomprehensible, which seems to be its only function - to provide notorious representativeness and demonstrate a positive pattern of the behavior of a black hero.
"League of Justice", 2017 "League of Justice", 2017The most difficult thing to understand Arthur Carry / Aquamena. He is Narciss Single - to start with how he broke off the conversation with Batman, when he found him on the god forgotten island and asked for help (undershed to the belt and, playing the muscles, disappeared into the sea underlying). Batman, whom aquamen, in turn, will constantly be uninstalled, skillfully uses his narcissism "for the use of the case", providing enough time and space to "speak" and enjoy a minute of glory, and after - to prove that he really deserves this love And admiration. However, the only thing perhaps the irrefutable dignity of Aquamena is an attractive charisma of Actor Jason Momoa, the artist of this role.
The main enthusiast of the heroic selection - Flash, "Good Jewish boy," as he characterizes himself. It is formed, smart and slightly infantile. Against the background of the extremely serious serious seriousness of the senior team members, the flashy flash looks like a soldering chair: letters jokes, playing around others and in general having fun. However, Flash is not as frightd, as it may seem: he studies forensic to prove the innocence of his father and help him get out of prison. It turns out that a character resembling neurotic intellectual from Woody Allen films can well combine reflection with the salvation of the world.
Perhaps, of all heroes, the most interesting transformation in the films of this franchise survived Superman. From the canonical, enshrined in the comic DC images, where Superman was largely likened to Christ, he approached the odious Nietzshean Übermensch, superman (which in English is translated just like Superman). In 2014, the Biblical Society of Great Britain conducted a sociological study, as a result of which it turned out that every fourth considers Superman Character of the Old Testament. Not surprising: the name of Cal El, given to the superman at birth, consonant with the Hebrew voice of God. In addition, there are a lot of other alluzi, pointing to the similarity of Superman and Christ, of which the most expressive - the death of Superman in the final of the film "Batman against Superman ...", which he chose voluntarily, having sacrificed to mankind. Director Zack Snider confirms:
"This is not an accident. The plot came to the film straight from the canonical mythology of the comic book about Superman. He is the only one of the superheroes, who bears such a spiritual religious cargo, and this is him, oddly enough, goes. " 
The cultureologist Arno Bogartts in the essay "Rethinking Nice Svoshevsky Übermensch as a heroic ideal for Superman", opposes the simplifications and identification of Superman with superholecom:
"Due to the fact that Übermensch ideals power, strives for her, despising weak, and in the future, and because of the fact that this image was actively used by the Nazis, from the desired ideal of mankind, he turned into someone to fear. While this image was actively operated in the superhero genre and pop culture, I am ready to argue that the superman philosophy is the anti-human ideals of the heroic (even superheroic) Niceshevsky Übermensch. "Even in the previous film, Superman has noticeably deviated from the role of the righteous to the personality, which drives the "will to power" (Der Wille Zu Macht). But if in the "Batman against Superman ..." the biggest sin, which he succumbs in, is a pride (he then takes on his own death), then in the "League of Justice" Superman becomes the most Übermensch, which, having lost and revooning the previous values, begins all over again. The finale "Batman against Superman ..." is a pidish, and the resurrection scene of Superman in the "League of Justice" is practically the beginning of the Judgment Day: he either save or destroy the world. As Nietzsche wrote:
"Look, I will teach you about the superman: he is zipper, he is madness!"Reza from the dead, Superman begins to twist everything and all around him - until the comrades tell him, who is actually a friend, and who is the enemy, what is good and what is bad, and who is generally such. Its identity is proceeded again, and reconstructed by other people. From the demigod, albeit the doubting, asking for advice - is it worth sacrificing? - At his father, as Christ in the Garden of Garden, he is revealed to the status of the "ordinary" superhero - emotional, gusty, and only closer to the final returns to the former equilibrium. And yet, Übermensch, striving for personal achievements, does not die in it completely - in the last scene of the film, he guadesly competes with Flash: who will fly away to the earth faster.
While the fate of Superman is the personification of how difficult it is to be God, his comrades are trying to try on the role of God, disposed of by ordering only to him - life and death. Deciding, resurrecting superman or not, they are trying to find a response to a moral dilemma: whether they have the right to do this, given that in case of disadvantaged outcome (he wakes up with another consciousness and memory), this may lead to the potential death of many, and possibly, all mankind? At this point, lying in the grave and unsuspecting Superman is relegated from the Uverman to Vunderwaff. League led by Batman decides, to live him or not, guided by purely practical considerations. And then Batman again manifests itself as hard, calculating commander: IL FI NE Giusti Fi Ca I Mezzi - the target justifies the means. Any consequences, including the moral and physical suffering of the superman itself, would only be accompanied by damage. And in this sense, Batman is also close to the ideal of Nietzsche. And much more than the superman, whom he in this film eclipsed. Bruce Wayne is zinicic than ever, and I do not try to cover your cynicism: maybe this is the same "new sincerity"? To the question of Flash "What is your supersila?" He replies: "I'm rich." In motivating speeches addressed to members of the League, Batman broadcasts intake optimism, idealism and faith in the team. Maybe strength - not in truth and not even in money, but in a postwatch? Who was convinced that he was strong.
Such stylistic characteristics are straightness, pathos and redundancy - give the "League of Justice" the shade of KIC. However, somewhere it is intentional, and therefore close to Campu - maybe, that's why the film is interesting to look at all unfortunately. So, the scenarios demonstrate the non-light self-irony in the episode, where Flash saves a Russian family. Not knowing what to say to them, he smiles awkwardly and says: "Dostoevsky?", After which he pulls his hand and flies with the speed of light. True, the irony ends and begins "Cranberry" as its best subventor - the representation of the Russians in American films.
"Russian Question" generally occupies a special place in the superhero epos. In the previous movie, Superman saved the Soyuz Space Rocket, which exploded at the start. In the "League of Justice" in the north of Russia ("the place where no signals do not occur," as explained by the members of the League) the steppe wolf decides to arrange a base to begin to transform energy and matter of the Earth to restore their power. It is the Russian family (in Russian dubbing - the Polish) will save members of the League. Despite the fact that the Russian family, they live for some reason in Pripyat, but look like peasants from the cheating pictures of the XIX century. They are very pretty and obviously virtuous. It is impossible not to compare them, they must be saved, because right above them, in the highest spheres over Russia, now absolute evil is performed. It is difficult to imagine a more straight metaphor. However, the supercine films about superheroes are not in politics, but in mythology.
The text was first published in # 9-10 Journal "Art Cinema" for 2018 under the headline "Superman and a citizen".