Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Everybody Wang Kryptonite
April 18, 2007 at 8:52 am
Perry White would be proud.
The Washington Post is not only diligent about getting real facts straight, apparently it’s also adamant about getting fake facts straight, too.
Evidence today’s Daily Planet, er Washington Post Corrections box:
A Reliable Source item in the April 17 Style section incorrectly said that actor Nicolas Cage’s son Kal-El was named for Superman’s father. Kal-El is an alternate name for the comic-book superhero himself; Superman’s father was Jor-El.
You can only imagine the stability of Washington Post readers who complained about that one. Of course, it’s a little known fake fact that after coming to Earth, Kal-El was bar mitzvahed at Temple Beth El.
And a few years later, this glorious event occured (alas, the Washington Post political unit got beat)
Maig Cruller said,
April 18, 2007 @ 9:42 am
Did you get the idea for this item from CRC’s Keith App-El?
Micha-El said,
April 18, 2007 @ 1:26 pm
Well, it’s out of the bag now. True: Superman is an extended Hebraic fable, an allegory of the Jewish presence in America, made up by two Jewish teenagers in Cleveland. Before we said “Google it,” there was “Youse can look it up.” The joke was on Nietzsche, no? So keep in mind that one real Superman just took 9mm of kryptonite for the team, at VT.
Jim O'Sullivan said,
April 18, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
An allegory, huh? Intersting. Krypton blowing up was the diasphora or the holocaust? Wait a minute. Too early for the holocaust. How does the secret identiy stuff factor into the allegory? The Frotress of Solitude. Lex Luther and Brainiac? C’mon. Elaborate!
Don Surber said,
April 18, 2007 @ 2:47 pm
Now we know why Kennedy was killed: He knew Superman’s secret identity
Rick said,
April 18, 2007 @ 3:04 pm
I want to thank you for posting this important story, possibly at great risk to yourself.
I didn’t realize until seeing the comic panel that JFK knew Superman’s secret identity.
Did JFK know too much?
Did Superman kill the President?
I think we’ve finally solved it.
Micha-El said,
April 18, 2007 @ 11:26 pm
Jim, “holocaust” was first applied to Jews by an English monk in 1290. Lent used to be the season for pogroms–Hitler didn’t invent anti-Semitism (compared to the French, the Germans were pikers at it, until they applied industrial management). Martin Luther said some dark things, but I guess Lex Luthor is a pastiche of prominent plutocrats and antis from the “International Jew” period. The Man of Steel’s arrival is late enough to have been based on Kristallnacht–reflecting all that crystalline imagery on the home planet, and in the Fortress? Identity is a gimme. We hardly remember, here and now, but Jews used to change their names. A lot. No kidding, look this up: there are pop-culture scholars who’ve made a career of it. The big joke is that some rabbi would have had to bring a diamond cutter to the bris–but face it, if you were looking for a first-rate diamond cutter, who would you ask first? Superman (early version) is the stuff of real myth, not camp; I also don’t tolerate Lassie jokes, and I know what Kemo-sabe means. What’s so funny about truth, justice, and the American way? Up and away.