The Man with the Iron Fists
Let us not engage in the star-rated review here. This movie was fun, but is more a symptom of social decline than anything. The Man with the Iron Fists is every 1980s rapper’s wet dream. After mentioning the non-actor in the narrative and starring role to a young viewer he informed me that the person’s name was Raz who was once a prominent rapper. The movie itself is not worth review but shall serve as a platform for discussing the concept of Black Superman, which is a subject of some fascination to me, and is the basis for my ongoing novella Poet.
Despite lions and hyenas in China The Man with the Iron Fists makes all the sense in the sick world. The movie is important in that it lays out the fully evolved Black Superman ideal. Mind you that Black Superman of film is based on the Hebrew/American Zionist Superman of comic fame, who is based on a long line of Caucasian supermen, going back to Gilgamesh. In medieval Spain there were even blood drenched novels of crusading supermen. Anthropologically the ideals of Black Superman are interesting in that they represent the aspirations of a formally servile mixed race underclass who are reimagining the mythology of their former masters in their own image.
Recall that the mythology of cultural aspiration represents the setting of a bar for the aspiring class. Black Superman is an ideal, not any black man’s actual view of his own person, but his fantasy. The actual view of the world is only accurate in the case of the whites and other races portrayed in such fantasies.
The character played by Russell Crowe is a ruthless mastermind interested in pure power over the world as an enemy or ally to all other races. ‘Jack’ represents ‘The White Machine’, a force that can only be harnessed by the righteous black man through appealing to the Whiteman’s sense of nobility of character, which is the Whiteman’s own governor; that which holds in check the demonic nature of his degenerate being. In this role Crowe makes the movie, such as it is, providing the only real acting performance.
The plot is dumbed down to comic book level and the setting unreal, with lions and hyenas in China. Justifying flashbacks and clues pop up toward the end to help the unsophisticated viewer maintain a grasp on the elementary school level plot. The message [the subtext] however, of how a man—as personified by an unlikely and vapidly acted Black Superman—stands on much higher moral ground then better performances by the virtuoso A-list actor who has taken on the mainstream role of Black Superman in postmodern film.
The Aspects of Raz’s Black Superman are:
1. His ancestors were slaves. [Which is true of every race, and I think belongs at the base of every manly mythic construct, though it is often veiled or withheld as a shameful legacy.]
2. He labors every day to provide for his family, in this case a fiancé.
3. His work is creative.
4. He is monogamously devoted to his woman, which is rarely a superman quality and when appearing will usually be found to be a reactionary sentiment inspired by hedonistic times.
5. He is alienated from the greater society, which is largely neutral toward his race, the film being set in a fanciful China.
6. His woman is the most beautiful petite mixed race babe imaginable, which is pretty much the standard heroic mating fantasy, which represents the fact that a true superman can have whatever woman he wants.
7. He does not fight, or even work for, money—money being a concern of women and dishonorable men—but works to provide for his woman and fights to uphold his honor.
8. By cultivating an ethos of honor and self sacrifice, he may gain the admiration of the more technologically advanced and conniving races and be able to turn their diabolic skills and tools to a righteous purpose.
9. He does not seek to overturn the world order but combat crime within it.
10. He will ultimately prevail in a confrontation with evil, not through the slight of hand of the Chinaman or the dastardly machines and deceits of the Whiteman, but via a passionate face-to-face outburst of masculine wrath.
We might laugh at this character, being so far from the actual behavior of the intended viewing population. But that is the whole idea. The Zionist/American Superman of comic book fame is actually much more removed from the actual characteristics of his intended audience than Raz’s Black Superman is from the wannabe ghetto banger that this film was crafted to appeal to, who at least practices #10 when he gets his ass kicked by the cops. There is no element—save perhaps #1—in the list above that is not found in the many ethnic supermen of ages past, from Gilgamesh, to Herakles, to Beowulf, to Tarzan, to *Conan, and Eastwood’s ‘Man with no name’.
Consider the list of 10 Black Superman virtues above. Some of these virtues are archetypical and others reactionary. I think any man of any ethnic background would agree that he makes for a compelling hero, and that despite Raz’s lack of acting skills, he is more believable in this heroic role, than would be Denzel Washington, who would insist on playing the character as also being smarter than every other character in the film, a modern conceit which is at odds with the entire heroic image.
Ultimately, when we consider Black Superman, in his various guises from Shaft to The Equalizer, we are considering the question posed by Nietzsche; is the ideal man a real possibility, and if so, what does the world make of him?
*Whoever this knockout baby doll is that Raz managed to get cast as his girl, she is very close to the literary description of the ideal female prize that Conan often tossed over his shoulder, and who fell in love with Tarzan, in the best book of that series, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. If there is one thing that black guys and white guys can agree on it is the cost-benefit equation of slaughtering little brown and yellow dudes and making off with their dusky-skinned night-haired women! Hell, this babe is so fine I would fight Junior Dos Santos for her just on the hope that a bystander would toss a banana peel on the ground and he might slip and fall on it while scattering my teeth to the four winds.
I differ in my assessment of the concept of the black superman as compared to your critique, because I'm very particular about making sure I focus on the actual history of this specific concept. First there is the history of the African Superman in African Myth and African History. Second, there is the history of the Black American/African American Superman in actual black history and black folklore in the United States. In this second category, black supermen are not based exclusively in "the Hebrew/Zionist Superman" of DC Comics as you claim. In fact, there is apparently no resemblance between DC Comics Superman and the idea of a Black American Superman Therefore, the black supermen aren't derivatives of "a long line of Caucasian Supermen going back to Gilgamesh."
In the Black Supermen we have a series of multiple origins of various types of excellence with the associated aspirations /forms of extraordinary figures of men and women. This narrative that extends from slavery to the 21st century includes African deities, fictional folklore heroes with superpowers, historical figures who embodied excellence while playing by the tyrannical rules of the oppressors, rebels against oppression, black messianic traditions with their representatives fighting for civil/human rights, athletes who transcended their sport to become benefactors, creative artists, inventors, and the prophetic mission in which African Americans are said to be involved as agents of Providence.
The concept of the Black American Supermen is more religious and spiritually oriented, as the instruments of Providence. There is certainly no room for the idea that African Americans are interested in emulating the perverted conceptions of the Superman as presented by the likes of Nietzsche, Hegel, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, or the privileged elite of slaveowners in the American South.
"Raz's Black Superman," as you perceive appears to embody Eastern/Asian concepts of the Buddhist and Taoist concepts of the Martial Arts Superman. This type is the Superman of Chi, Ki, Tumo, and in India, Kundalini the Serpent Power. This is heavily emphasized in the movie and the sequel.
The Black Supermen embody various talents, exceptional resourcefulness, industriousness, persistence and insistence, conviction, tenacity, and a belief that Providence through prayer, literally acts through that type of person. The progression of African American History aligns Black Supermen with real eminent Black Heroes and Benefactors not comic book fiction. Reality drives the Black Supermen concept by necessity.
The so-called comic book versions of the black superman/hero are largely not written by African Americans. Consequently, these figures are poor portrayals of the aspirations, lives, and achievements of African Americans in the United States. They are deliberately written to be restricted in their capacity to help their communities and others. They lack "superpowers" compared to their white counterparts. *They are surely not counted as genuine icons that authentically represent the Black American/ African American Supermen.