Superman in Myth and Folklore looks at how the fictional character Superman, pop culture phenomenon propagated through mass media, has become part of folklore, thus indicating the character’s importance in the lives of individuals as well as within the larger American populace. Examining how Superman and symbols of Superman are transformed by individuals into recognizable genres, such as tattoos, life story, festival, ritual, and myth, Daniel Peretti locates how Superman is used to create meaning through everyday lived experience, often outside of officially licensed products. Using an ethnographic and folkloristic perspective based on performance theory, Peretti focuses on individuals and the situated contexts of vernacular interpretations in which Superman is used to create meaning.
According to Peretti, the book oscillates primarily along the dialectic of the individual and the group. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the book and describes what the folkloristic perspective brings to the study of a popular culture staple like Superman, namely an emphasis on the individual and the importance of context. Chapter 2 makes good on this premise through the analysis of three case studies concerning individual interpretation of Superman, presented through self-reflection via the sharing of personal narratives and tattoos, demonstrating that Superman is a character that is “good to think with.”
Chapters 3 and 4 are framed as considering the group through ideas of truth and a Superman celebration. Much of the content of chapter 3 comes from an interview conducted with comics writer Josh Elder, and Peretti uses this fieldwork as well as published accounts to consider how people express the influence Superman has had on their lives. To understand these accounts he uses Hans Vaihinger’s ideas about useful fiction and the “as if” mode of understanding that fiction. Moving to the Superman celebration held annually in Metropolis, Illinois, in chapter 4 Peretti examines Superman’s connection to ritual and, paying particular attention to the opening ceremony, conducts a structural analysis of the tensions underlying the celebration and creation of communal integration.
In chapter 5 jokes are analyzed as an entry point into a cultural perspective on Superman, wherein the heroic attributes of the Man of Steel are rendered humorous when juxtaposed with the difficulties of everyday life. Chapter 6, mirroring chapter 2, compares how Superman has affected the way two ostensibly different men use Superman to think through the same issues of morality. Peretti weaves these threads together in a conclusion that focuses on Superman as a variable and polysemic myth through an analysis of the form, content, context, and function of Superman stories as myth.
Even in chapters that are framed as being more about group considerations, such as chapters 3, 4, and 5, the individuals with whom Peretti conducted fieldwork remain the stars of every chapter. In considerations of Superman and truth, Peretti’s interview with Josh Elder is the most striking feature of the chapter. In the analysis of the Superman celebration, a decidedly communal event, Brian Morris, a fan and opening ceremony organizer, takes center stage. The continuous presence of the individual in this work highlights what folklore can bring to the study of mass and popular culture, which are often conceived of in terms of their groupness. Individual vernacular response to popular culture is where folklorists can assert their usefulness, and where Peretti’s work really shines. This work is ultimately about the spectrum of individual relationships that develop around a character. As Peretti states, "Superman resonates; this book explores how" (18). A lot of ground and many genres are covered in the brief 190 pages of this exploration, and as Peretti admits, many of the chapters could have morphed into books of their own.
Though Superman’s presence is found in many genres, as Peretti illustrates, the generic focus of the book seems to be on myth and personal narratives, and on how Superman is used by individuals to think about truth, morality, religion, and other existential questions. Some topics, such as tattoo and costume, while clearly important as indicated by their recurring presence in the book, are ultimately given little individual consideration in comparison to genres such as myth, joke, and personal narrative.
Much scholarship has been done on the use of folklore in popular culture; Superman in Myth and Folklore provides a useful case study of the inverse relationship. This book offers an outline for an approach to studying vernacular response to popular culture, and the use of Superman in the lives of individuals to create meaning provides a compelling argument for continued attention to the mutable boundary between popular culture and folklore by folklorists.
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[Review length: 757 words • Review posted on September 27, 2018]