Confessions Of A Superhero

Another long day at work. Busy with charity concert preparations, classes to teach, trial lessons and placement tests. Head is swimming by day’s end. Watched “Confessions Of A Superhero” late in the night. Very touching documentary about real people. Shows you the dichotomy between the heroes and stars that we idolized and the normal people who have to make a living while struggling to hold on to their dreams. The documentary centered on four people who make a living dressing up as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Hulk on Hollywood Boulevard. The Superman bloke looked creepily like a skinny Christopher Reeve, the Batman guy is a George-Clooney lookalike with anger-management problems, Wonder Woman is an aspiring actress who ran away from her Southern Baptist home and the Hulk is a black-guy with bad teeth. The entire documentary presents these people as real people and you love them despite their eccentricities and “loser”-ness. You’ll also end up seeing the superficiality of the celluloid film-stars and four-colour superheroes that they idolized. Real people with real problems who struggle to pay the rent by dressing up in stupid costumes. Of the four, the Superman guy is perhaps the purest because of his genuine passion for the Man of Steel. You see him weep at Christopher Reeve’s passing, attending the memorial for Reeve at Metropolis, Illinois and finally proposing to his girlfriend. He also lives in a cheap flat filled with Superman memorabilia. A total space-case. A geek. A loser who tries hard to live up to the ideals set by a fictional Kryptonian. But you can’t help loving him for his, I don’t know, purity. I can think of far worst ways to live one’s life, I guess.