"American Way" be damned

There’s been a lot of pissing and moaning among conservatives (i.e., hawks) because the old “truth, justice, and the American Way” slogan is dropped in Superman Returns. During a Daily Planet staff meeting, editor Perry White (Frank Langella) refers to “truth, justice, and all that stuff.” I first heard this gripe about the phrase change a week or so before the movie’s release in a post by Jason Apuzzo on the Libertas blog:

“The Superman Returns press materials tell me that Superman now stands for ‘truth, justice and all that is good.’ ‘All that is good’ is apparently the phrase of choice when ‘The American Way’ sounds too — what? Imperialistic? Jingoistic? Symptomatic of Bush-style militarism? I’m not sure, exactly. All I know is this ‘American Way’ stuff is now apparently too edgy and controversial for a Warner Brothers product shipped to Peru, Pakistan and Malaysia. Don’t want to offend anyone!”

Fact is, if memory serves me, “The American Way” was not part of the Superman mythos until it popped up on the old George Reeves TV series of the 1950s — 15 years after Superman’s comic book debut — when the Cold War was in full bloom. This was about the same time, incidentally, that the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance in order to thumb the Collective American Nose at godless commies.

I kinda like “...and all that stuff.”